Paul,
The power of the very expensive Plant Design solutions is in Automation. With PDS (microstation), PDMS (own format but it can generate a DXF) ... there is no longer any real drafting task if you run your project right. All the deliverables can be setup, processed and extracted as products from the 3D model. The time is spent in the model verifying the design. This is also great from a QA\QC perspective.
Piping Iso's - Almost all the medium to large piping packages use some form of Isogen ( www.alias.ltd.uk <http://www.alias.co.uk/> ) to automate the generation of Piping Iso's.
With PDS you get the full blown version (hundred of "switches" with 1000's of combinations) which can be customized to the nth degree. You spend your time customizing the setup working towards getting a situation where the iso's are produced without requiring any modification - biggest job I did was 17000+ extracted by one person (for control) over 6 months - only additions were the signatures.
Pipe Support details work pretty much the same as iso's and are also generated from the 3D model - completely dimensioned with a material list and views from as many perspectives as you want.
General Arrangement drawings are also streamlined - you setup your views and pull your tags and co-ordinates from the database in a somewhat automated (completely Automated in you use the Orthogen add-on) manner. From time to time a drawing may require a more personalized approach but the drafting task is pretty much eliminated.
At this level the software does the drafting (in seconds) but you still have to setup and manage the content.
I'm not trying to blatantly push PDS - I just use it for reference as it is what I know best. The high end tools need a big job to justify their cost and the cost of setup and configuration and yes you will probably need an expensive mechanic or 2 - it's a big ship and very hard to find someone who can do it all (or schedule might dictate that they don't have time to do it all). Trust me the mechanic is always pretty busy.
Paul Hawco
Mechanical Engineer
Neill & Gunter (Nova Scotia) Limited
<a href="http://www.neillandgunter.com">http://www.neillandgunter.com</a> <<a href="http://www.neillandgunter.com">http://www.neillandgunter.com</a>>
-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Bowers [mailto:pbowers@pipingdesign.com]
Sent: February 27, 2004 9:13 PM
To: <a href="/group/PipingDesign/post?postID=UFNrM2ALcPVJTgybqt-uTomw1gUvmA4J9mkum1CNzrEbU6csQodKZPsiTYvK6_maaM5s6CzBgSTfMkChiQpwD-b4aQM83g">PipingDesign@yahoogroups.com</a>
Subject: Re: [PipingDesign] 3D CAD Piping Software
> As for hand drawn - depends on the situation - I see nothing wrong
with
> it - I had to do on a big construction job because of time
constraints -
> long story.
The problem with "electronic drafting" as compared to manual drawing has always been that it is tedious and much more time-consuming if a designer does it. You really need a piping-experienced CAD guy to transform design sketches if the designer is not actually working in 3D.
Designing in 2D with CAD requires the designer to waste lots of time trimming elements/symbols so that the "drawing" is easily understood at the later stages whether by the original designer or by others. Too much fussing with the machine (don't get me wrong - CAD is great, it just forces the designer to be more precise than is needed at early stages) slows down the creative process.
CAD drawings convey an aura of authority. Everything looks perfect; no scribbling in the sidelines, no NTS dimensions, etc..
A spur of the moment idea usually results in something like:
Zooming is probably the biggest evil "feature" that CAD forced on us. Zooming to different places within a document causes a loss of perspective. Maybe with affordable 24"x36" LCD-based drafting tables with tablet/pen ability all us old fart drafters will make a comeback. By then we'll all be already dead though.
Paul
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Received on Mon Mar 01 10:13:00 2004
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