In the Pipes

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Autodesk® AutoCAD® Plant 3D 2017 Service Pack 1

Autodesk® AutoCAD® Plant 3D 2017 Service Pack 1

Primary Issues Resolved by This Service Pack

Issues fixed with this Service Pack:

Plant 3D

• Advance Steel XML generated in Plant 3D had incorrect data when imported into Revit with Advance Steel Extension.
• PCF to Pipe: The wrong valve was chosen and flange orientation was incorrect when importing some third party PCF files.
• Cutback elbows were replaced with CustomParts rather than the expected spec part.
• Unit conversion on flange from catalog.
• Plant 3D 2017 add-in for Vault was unable to obtain a license.
• Ortho drawing included objects outside of the ortho cube selection box.

P&ID

• P&ID painter style allowed blank as the name.
• The Nominal Size list was not displayed in the choose a property list dialog for P&ID Painter in Metric projects.

Isometrics

• Showing insulation on isometric drawings caused Isos that contain sloped piping to fail.
• Isometric was showing offset triangles (skews) in the wrong direction.
• Spool annotations were not being applied properly for field welds.
• LDT attribute mapping wasn’t working correctly when the LDT excel file contained certain edits like cell merges.
• Iso was broken in some cases using victaulic clamps.
• When an Iso Annotation Flow Arrow was placed on a pipe and you selected Reverse the flow direction, the flow arrow does not reverse flow. The results varied depending on what visual styles were set to.
• If you generated an isometric for line number “1” and there was a flanged connection to line number “2”, if the connector was not on line number “1”, it wouldn’t show the continuation components.
• Prod Iso from Model created an isometric drawing with some additional components from a different line number tag.
• When creating an Iso from sloped piping that is also skewed, the dimension for the skew triangle was displayed incorrectly.
• When static text was entered into the file name setup using Project Setup, the file name prefix was deleted in the Isocofig.xml file.
• No break occurred for a specific different line number tag in an isometric drawing.
• Pipe connected to pipe in xref showed as OPEN END in isometric.
• When setting the Default dimensioning theme to enable string dimensions to the Center of Miscellaneous fittings, any reference dimensions includes additional overall and string dimensions. To keep the additional dimensions from displaying, add the filter 'REFERENCE-DIMENSION' for Fitting in IsoConfig.xml. For example:

Before:

<Filter Name="Fitting" Value="NOT (Type = 'Pipe' OR Type = 'Pipe-Fixed' OR Type = 'Gasket' OR Type = 'REINFORCEMENT-PAD' OR Type = 'Flange' OR Type = 'Bolt' OR Type LIKE 'Valve*' OR Type LIKE 'MPV*' OR Type = 'Olet' OR Type LIKE 'Instrument*' OR Type = 'Support' OR Type LIKE 'Elbow*' OR Type LIKE 'Cross*' OR Type LIKE '*Weld' OR Type = 'Glued' OR Type = 'Thread' OR Type LIKE 'Tee*' OR Type LIKE 'Y-*' OR Type = 'FLOOR-SYMBOL' OR Type = 'FLOW-ARROW')" />
After:

<Filter Name="Fitting" Value="NOT (Type = 'REFERENCE-DIMENSION' OR Type = 'Pipe' OR Type = 'Pipe-Fixed' OR Type = 'Gasket' OR Type = 'REINFORCEMENT-PAD' OR Type = 'Flange' OR Type = 'Bolt' OR Type LIKE 'Valve*' OR Type LIKE 'MPV*' OR Type = 'Olet' OR Type LIKE 'Instrument*' OR Type = 'Support' OR Type LIKE 'Elbow*' OR Type LIKE 'Cross*' OR Type LIKE '*Weld' OR Type = 'Glued' OR Type = 'Thread' OR Type LIKE 'Tee*' OR Type LIKE 'Y-*' OR Type = 'FLOOR-SYMBOL' OR Type = 'FLOW-ARROW')" />

• When an angled pipe was drawn with an elbow and a pipe that was routed not perpendicular to the elbow, dimension location varied.

Ortho drawing includes objects outside of the ortho cube selection box?

 

There's a Hotfix for that!

AutoCAD Plant 3D 2017 Hotfix 1

Readme

 

Issues fixed with this Hotfix:

Plant 3D Add-in for Vault

• In Autodesk Vault 2017, the Plant 3D add-in is not able to check out a license. The message 'failed to acquire license' displays even when the client and other products such as Inventor are able to connect and check out licenses.

Ortho Drawings

• If the Ortho Cube is stretched to exclude objects, the objects outside the cube are still displayed in the ortho drawing.

 

How to update acquired tags in AutoCAD P&ID

Maybe you have noted that if you update one tag (tag 1) which will be acquired from another tag (tag 2) from another class that the tag (tag 2) of that class won't be updated immediately in the drawing. In the past (before version 2016) you had to follow some nasty workarounds to get the tags updated, for example switching between "override mode" and back to "acquisition mode" or using the datamanager to export all to Excel, do the changes there and afterwards do a re-import. But all these workaround have disadvantages, for example the property is afterwards in override mode or you can do this only with one component each time. Following these workarounds for big drawing is really nasty.

The good news is that since version 2016 there is a new command to solve this issue. The name of this command is PLANTREFRESHACQPROPERTY. Just type it into the command bar and choose if the tags should be updated for the whole project or only for the current drawing. The command does what it is intended to do and the acquired tags will be updated. 

Were's my Service Pack?

If you are looking for an update or service pack, try using the Download Finder on the Autodesk Knowledge Network:

 Select your product and version:

 

 Download the update:

Plant 3D therapy

OK, let’s be real here. As with all close relationships, our love affair with Plant 3D can also be a kind of love-hate relationship at times. We love the many features of Plant 3D with its quick, powerful and efficient means of enabling us to get-work-done. But at times … it talks back to us, or stops talking all together, or even refuses to do something we specifically asked it to do!

For soothing therapy and further relationship building with P&ID, Plant 3D, or Plant Design Suite, please join us at AUTODESK UNIVERSITY in Las Vegas December 1-3, 2015!  There will be numerous classes to nurture or rekindle that loving feeling.

Check out some of these classes to be presented by the authors of this blog:

OG10096 - AutoCAD Plant 3D Success—A Checklist Manifesto

OG11136 - AutoCAD Plant 3D Specs and Catalogs: How to Create "Unbreakable" Project Workflows

OG10333-L - Behind the Face—Tips and Tricks in AutoCAD Plant 3D

OG10910 - Beyond Out-of-the-Box Customization for AutoCAD P&ID

OG10334-L - Drive AutoCAD Plant 3D and AutoCAD P&ID Data Using the External Database Reference Manager

PL10975 - Workshare with AutoCAD Plant 3D and Vault Professional: Setup, Synchronization, and Replication

Also search for more AU 2015 classes: Keyword Search

Need some help convincing the boss to send you? Here's some help with that.

Hope to see you there! Sign up early for the classes you want while there are still (therapy) seats available!

 

How to extract part of one property into another property

Imagine you have a property that contains a data string, and you need to extract a section of the data into a new property.

How do you do it without having to manually enter the data into the new property?

It can be done by using the Substring function of the PLANTDEFINECALCPROPERTIES command:

So for example, you have a 6 digit property called TagCode for hand valves that includes a text prefix followed by a hyphen and then a number (eg, AA-101) and you would like to extract the number (101) into a new property without including the text prefix.

This can be achieved using the following syntax "Substring(TagCode,3,3)":

The resulting calculated property, is a new property, called TagAnno that only includes the last 3 digits from the TagCode property:

 

Need to move a Plant Vault project to a different server? Here's how to do it...

Option 1:

1. Open the original project and detach it from the Vault:
   • Right-click the project in the Project Manager
   • Select Vault from context menu
   • Select Detach from Vault
2. Open the newly created SQLite project and log onto the new Vault
3. Run the PLANTPROJECTTOVAULT command to convert the project and enter the new server location details:
   
   
   

• You should now be able to open the project from the new Vault server.

Option 2:

1. Perform a full Vault backup and restore to new Vault server.
2. Perform an SQL backup and restore to the new SQL server.
3. On the new Vault server, open the Options dialog and check the Show hidden folders check box:
   
   
4. In the Vault you will now see a number of *.DLK files which are the files that contain the SQL server name:
   
   
5. Checkout each of the *.DLK files and open them with Notepad.
6. Edit the server name to the new SQL Server in each *.dlk file:
   
   
7. Check the *.dlk files back into Vault.

• You should now be able to open the project from the new Vault server.

Autodesk® AutoCAD® Plant 3D 2015 Service Pack 2 Ortho Hotfix

This hotfix addresses an orthographic drawing update performance issue.

Autodesk® AutoCAD® Plant 3D 2015 Service Pack 2 Ortho Hotfix

Download

Readme

 

Plant 3D 2016 Pipeline Group Hotfix!

This hotfix addresses an issue in the 3D model where a component lists in more than one pipeline group following an offline edit.

Autodesk® AutoCAD® Plant 3D 2016 Pipeline Group Hotfix

Download

Readme