What follows is a personal rant of mine. Sorry in advance.
You are certainly right about there being many piping design programs.
But fundamentally, the interfaces and the operation of the programs have to be similar (if ease of use is a major concern). Maybe this is like the "Microsoft argument", I.E., "Well, it's not the 'best' OS, but at least the vast majority of users knows how to use it, and it will improve over time."
It's too bad, but unavoidable, that designers are often selected due to their experience with specific software rather than their knowledge of the piping field in question. This fragments the market of who is available for any given project and thus hurts both employers and job-seekers.
Maybe companies should re-think how they organize engineering projects and how personnel are assigned. And for God's sake, bring back the checker's job somehow...make the computer interface simpler so that the older, more experienced guys can navigate around inside the models.
[For those that are on this list that are not aware of what I'm talking about, "in the old days", the checkers took the G.A.'s and verified them. Then they used the G.A.'s to verify the isometrics. Now we go straight from 3D model to isometrics (later to G.A.'s, since now they are really only required as instructional documents for construction personnel) and the checker position is mostly eliminated. This is a pretty abbreviated history, so your mileage/experience may vary]
Paul
> Hello Nathan
>
> If i understand you are working very hard to be produce piping drawings,
> but still happy with your MicroStation; Take time and look around, may be
> found something else more sample. In past and also today, you can found
lot
> of piping design programs based on Autocad 14 or 2000.
>
> First try AUTOPLANT 3D (Rebis).
>
> In AUTOPLANT 3D you can design very fast 3d piping and then can send to
> Autoiso or
> Isogen to be produce Piping isos.
[snip] Received on Wed Jul 26 16:47:00 2000
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