In the Pipes

Free at last

So it's that time of the year when finally we are free to talk about upcoming product features.   We had to wait until after the start of our World Press Day.  Autodesk hosts a press event every year this time to brief the press on the upcoming software releases.  This event always happens right around Valentines Day - guess we are trying to drum up some love?  (Although Valentines Days San Francisco-style involves things like flash mobs having pillow fights, probably not the style of attention that our marketing folks are going for.)   But as soon as the press has been briefed, then we are free to blog about all the cool features.  Nice!

I have to admit that the press is more interested in things like test driving Harmonix Music System's Rock Band (made with Autodesk software!) on the PlayStation3 here than my AutoCAD P&ID demos.  No accounting for taste I guess.  So I'm taking advantage of the lull as a chance to blog.  AutoCAD P&ID 2009 includes some enhancements that I want to highlight in the next few blogs, starting with the data side of things and Export enhancements.

Existing in AutoCAD P&ID 2008, you can look at your component data in Data Manager, and if you want you can export your data to Microsoft Excel.  Whatever data node you are currently viewing in the Data Manager is exported as a sheet in an Excel file.

In AutoCAD P&ID 2009, we've expanded this feature so that you can now export "Active node and all child nodes".  What does this mean?  Well, you can now invoke Export at the Equipment node, for example, and generate an Excel file with a worksheet showing the Equipment node data, but also worksheets showing Pumps, Tanks, Exchangers -- all the child nodes.  In AutoCAD P&ID 2008 you had to export data one node at a time and manually combine them into one Excel file.  Now AutoCAD P&ID 2009, you can do this in one step:

But wait. . .there's more! You can now specify different file formats when you enter the export file name and location.  AutoCAD P&OD 2009 supports export to XLS (the excel 97-2003 format), XLSX (the new Excel 2007 format) or a comma delimited (CSV) format.

Simple productivity enhancements, but they go a long way to make life easier.  In upcoming entries I'll talk more about importing and exporting data with AutoCAD P&ID 2009.  Right now I have to go get some afternoon chocolate before the press eats it all up.

Showing Area on Instruments

Out of the box, AutoCAD P&ID 2008 instruments bubbles show 2 lines of text, the instrument TYPE and the instrument NUMBER.

A common request is to change this so the AREA also shows. In just a few minutes you can setup a project to do this – either by user request on specific instrument bubbles, or on all bubbles automatically. I’m going to set up my bubbles so the area shows about the bubble like this

There are actually several ways to do this, I’m going to show you the one I like the best. First, you need to make a new annotation that retrieves the AREA.

1. With your project open in P&ID,  open project setup by typing Editproject on the command line.
2. Navigate to the General Instruments Symbols Node in the P&ID Object Definitions tree.

3.      In the annotation group on the lower right, press Add Annotation...

4. Name this Annotation AREA.  Don't worry about correcting the Block name, the software will take care of that.
5. Also, set Auto insert? to Auto Insert, set Offset X to 0,  and set Y to 0.3500 (the XY offsets are  how far from the center to the bubble the AREA text will be.)

6. Set Press OK to close the Symbol Setting dialog box.
7. Now pick EDIT BLOCK… to edit the annotation.

7. You want to edit the block so that it is a attribute reading #(TargetObject.Area) and centered on 0,0, similar to what is shown here.



8. Save you changes and and close the block editor. 

Almost done - now you need to decide – do you want the area to show up only when you ask for it on certain bubbles, or do you want the area to automatically appear on all instrument bubbles as they are created? If you only want to see it when you ask for it, you are done. Whenever you want to see the area show on a bubble, right-click that instrument and select AREA from the annotation fly-out.

If, on the other hand, you want the area to show automatically on all general instrument bubbles as you place them, then you need to turn AREA on as the default Annotation Style Name. In project setup for the general instruments Symbols node, pick your AREA annotation from the dropdown. Press OK to exit project setup and you should be good to go. Now whenever you place a general instrument, you will see the area.

NOTE: The above is for setting the area to show for all GENERAL INSTRUMENT bubbles. If you also want to show the AREA for the Inline instruments, you need to do something similar for the inline instrument object definitions.  Although you need to add TargetObject.Area to the existing annotation Field Mounted Discrete Instrument instead of making a new one.

PS: I'm in Washington DC at the P3 event co-located with EcoBuild Fall and AEC-ST Fall this week.   I've a P&ID talk (a Pecha Kucha actually) to give tomorrow so I am calling it an early night. 

More DWF with P&ID

So yes, it seems like I’m on the DWF kick lately.  It’s weird, as I’m not usually one of those “ooh, look how cool this technology is” types. I don’t really care that much about technology for its own sake – I care about what technology can do for me.  Using DWF and DWF tools lets me do all sorts of interesting things, hence I keep blogging about DWF. 

Publish a Project to DWF

One of the features available in AutoCAD P&ID 2008 is the ability to publish the project to a DWF set.  In case you’ve never seen DWF sets and (free!) Design Review, I highly recommend that you give it a look. If you’ve never published a set before, you can do it by invoking the Publish option from the AutoCAD File menu. In the Publish dialog box, click the Add button to add all the P&ID drawings to the set (plus I wanted only Layout views so I unchecked Model).  When you click Publish, you get one DWF file with all the P&IDs.  Nice.

You not only get graphics, you can also get all the P&ID data. If for some reason you don’t want to publish some of the data fields, you can control this via the Publish Options button.

So you have an easy way to send the P&ID and the data in one file.  My approximately 2 MB of 5 sample P&IDs (and data!) published out as a 72kb DWF.  Anyone who has the (free!) Design Review can look at the drawing and review the component data.  And add some markups if desired.

Compare DWFs

One of my favorite features in Design Review is the ability to compare DWFs.  So, say I make some changes to a P&ID.  I can republish the DWF, then use the compare feature in Design to show exactly what changed.   Here I’ve moved some things around, you can see the old deleted items in red, the new items in green.  (I clicked View in GrayScale from the View menu to turn the unchanged items gray.)

Simple, and yet powerful.  And did I mention free? 

FYI:  If you happen to be going to Autodesk University, there are lots of sessions that highlight cool ways to use DWF.  I’m especially looking forward to CP211-2 Develop Custom Websites and Applications with DWF.

P&ID Markups with PROJECT Freewheel

Ok, this counts as breaking news in my world –  I started playing around with this about a month ago and it is pretty cool.  We all have the need from time to time to let someone see a drawing and comment on it.  There are a variety of markup tools and workflows out there for this.  Project Freewheel one is worth checking out.

(I has this last link wrong in my initial posting. As Scott points out in his comment, there is a difference between Autodesk Freewheel and Project Freewheel.  Project Freewheel, with its collabotation tools, is the one I'm blogging about.  It is out on the Autodesk Labs site while we get customer feedback on it.)

Basically, Freewheel  allows you to show a DWF in a browser to anyone.  And there are markup tools that a remote reviewer can use to give feedback.  I had a session going with our designer Damian (in Calgary), our 3D Product Manager Peter (who was home), and me (here in the San Rafael office) all scribbling on the same DWF at the same time.  Oh, I guess I should mention:  nothing to install on their end.  Nothing to install on my end either, but I did have to figure out how to get from looking at my DWG in AutoCAD P&ID to having that drawing published as a DWF in Freewheel.

Apparently enough people wanted an easier way to publish to Freewheel, so Autodesk Labs created a utility called ShareNow to make it easier.  The “ShareNow” utility lets you publish from Autocad/Inventor/Revit directly to Freewheel and opens the browser.    Unfortunately it only worked in vanilla AutoCAD 2008 – so I nagged the freewheel guys into helping me get a DLL that worked for P&ID.

So here’s how you work it:
1. Download this DLL.
2. Open your AutoCAD P&ID Drawing. 
3. Type Netload on the command line and load the DLL.
4. Type ShareNow on the command line.

Your browser should launch showing your drawing in Freewheel.  Of course, if you know how, you can setup AutoCAD to automatically load the DLL and add a menu item or toolbar icon for the ShareNow command.  But I'm trying to keep this post brief so I'm not getting into how here.

To share your drawing with someone else:
1. In Freewheel, from the share menu, click Invite.
2. Give the session a name/password.
3. Click Email and you will get a link to send to someone so they can join the session.

Ok, this someone (and you) will have to log in to Freewheel, which may mean making a new freewheel account.  A bit annoying, but worth it.  I think I have 3 freewheel accounts now because I keep forgetting my login info.  Whoever is in the session can mark up the file.  (You can tell which are Damian’s markups – did I mention he’s a freelance cartoonist on the side?)

BTW:  Lots of blog chatter about freewheel things to try.  If you are interested, check out these links   There will also be several Autodesk University (AU) sessions that touch on Freewheel.  (early registration for AU 2007 ends October 7th .  . . don’t delay!)

Cool P&ID Feature : Annotation Editing

In AutoCAD P&ID 2008, you draw your P&ID with “intelligent” items, such as pumps, valves, lines, and so on.  The intelligent items contain properties such as size, spec, and flow rates, which the software tracks.  Often, the properties are represented on the drawing with annotations.  AutoCAD P&ID 2008 offers several ways to place annotations. 

One way to place annotations is to use the right-click menu to select an annotation defined for a component, as shown below: 

You can also drag and drop any grid text from the Data Manager and place on the drawing as an annotation.  The drag-and-drop feature is really cool – it gives you a rubber band drag line to the parent component, so you are sure to label the correct item.  The text is placed wherever you click in the drawing.  In the example below, I am dragging the 3 HP value from the Data Manager onto the drawing.

 

Now that I’ve shown you a couple of ways to place annotations, on to the cool editing annotation feature I wanted to show!  When you double-click an annotation, the Edit Annotation dialog box is displayed (double-clicking a component  displays the component’s properties palette). Below is the Edit Annotation dialog box for my pump's InfoTag.   

Below is another example of the Edit Annotations dialog box—this time, for the one of my line tags.

The Edit Annotation dialog box is smart enough to apply tagging-uniqueness rules and selections lists and to update the item’s properties correctly, while still giving you quick access to change values.  Of course, you can also use the Data Manager or the Properties Palette to change property values.

(In case the above has you wondering, you CAN add your own properties to any of our intelligent items;  you CAN add your own symbols, and you CAN make your own annotation blocks – all these options are available through project setup.)

DWF this Link

Ok, this isn't new, but it is new to me.  You can add this "favorite" to your browser and when you click on it, it turns all DWF links into thumbnails.  And if you click the thumbnail, it brings up the DWF in a viewer.  Free & Easy!

Here are before & after shots.  First I searched "filetype:dwf P&ID" then I picked the DWF-this-link bookmark:

Excellent instructions on how to do this found here:

  http://dwf.blogs.com/articles/bookmarklet.htm

Good name "bookmarklet" - it's a bookmark AND a little application (app-let).   

Angled Lines

P&ID 2007 has these cool "smart" lines that know how to gap and break and cleanup under inline symbols.  When you move the line, things stay attached.  When you draw the line, it automatically draws in ortho mode, which is great since most P&ID lines are parallel/perpendicular to the X/Y axes.  However sometime you do want to draw angled lines, and since we've hijacked the ortho command, it isn't obvious how.

You need to use the new AUTOCORNER command.  If you are in the middle of drawing a line you can use the single quote ( ' ) to turn AUTOCORNER on/off transparently.  For example, to draw a Z shaped line, my command sequence is as follows:

Command:                                                                              

I picked the Primary Line Segment tool from the tool palette

Specify start point : 

I clicked on the page

Specify next point or [Undo]:   

I clicked on the page a bit to the right

Specify next point or [Undo]: 'AUTOCORNER                  

I typed in ‘autocorner

>>Command: >>Enter new value for AUTOCORNER <1>: 0

I typed in 0, now I can draw angled lines

Resuming SLINE command.

Specify next point or [Undo]:

I clicked on the page to draw the diagonal

Specify next point or [Undo]: 'AUTOCORNER 

I typed in ‘autocorner

>>Command: >>Enter new value for AUTOCORNER <0>: 1   

I typed in 1, now I’m back in ortho mode

Resuming SLINE command.

Specify next point or [Undo]:                              

I clicked on the page a bit to the right

Specify next point or [Undo]:   

I hit enter to complete the sline command

Ok, agreed, it would be nicer if the Ortho toggle also allowed for drawing angled lines.  I'll see what I can do to make it so . . . 

reducers your way

I've gotten a few questions on the reducer labeling in P&ID.  In short, you can annotate the reducer sizes either with the larger size always appearing first or with the sizes reflecting the direction of flow.  The shipped default is to show "Large by Small".  If you want to change this for a particular project, you would:

1. Open up Project Setup by right clicking the project name in Project Manager and selecting Properties . . .
2. In Project Setup, select the Reducers class found under Class Property Settings>EngineeringItems>InLineAssets>Reducers
3. Set the AnnotationStyleName property value from the dropdown to be Flow Based Reducer Style.
4. That's it.  Select OK to save and close Project Setup.  Any new reducers placed will default to the flow based annotation.

The "Large by Small Reducer Style" would still be available via the reducers' right click annotation menu.  If you wanted to remove this option from the project's rightclick menu entirely, you also need to erase Large by Small Reducer Style from Project Setting>Annotation Styles in Project Setup.

Tonight: Raffles Hotel to sample a Singapore Sling at the bar of its origin.

Tomorrow:  Giving training all day to our Singapore team.

And I'm not exactly over the jetlag either.  Isn't travel fun!  (You too can make pictures like this in http://www.sp-studio.de/.)