[Fwd: Iso Production and Checking]

John Young wrote:

> I believe that "Auto Isos" will never be successful since drawing Isometrics
> requires a certain amount of creativity which computers do not have. For
> example there is no best position to place dimensions or item numbers and
> since isos are non-scale drawings there is a great deal of judgement needed
> to show the piping clearly, place dimensions, etc. Offsets are very
> difficult for a computer as they need adjustment of the offset box to make
> them look clear. They will always require some cleanup and even cleaned up
> they still have the quality of cave drawings. I have been told that many
> Engineering companies average about 4 hours to clean up isos. This means
> that if changes are made on the model and new Isos need to be generated the
> cleanup has to start again. This seems to be why most places seem to make
> changes by pencil on the original which make printing copies difficult and
> electronic storage useless. No other industry would accept lower quality
> from a computer than manual drawing!!
> RE: Bills of material. Many programs can generate a bill of material but
> these material lists are very often inaccurate and cannot be extracted
> automatically or summarized. An Isometric drawing program which cannot
> summarize material is like buying an accounting program which can write
> checks but cannot add them up to keep track of the balance. Fabricators who
> have bought software to break engineering drawings into Fabrication spools
> say that non of the Engineers will guarantee the accuracy of their drawings
> which make automatic drawings almost useless. For the production and cleanup
> of Isos many companies seem to think that if they teach someone to use the
> software they will automatically know piping. This is equivalent to learning
> a word processor and thinking it will make you an author. Computer software
> is a tool to allow experienced pipers/drafters to be more productive.
> Computers will never replace experience and knowledge, they will only help.
> Users should know the basics of Piping and Drafting first. Engineering
> companies seem to create CAD departments with computer people who know
> nothing about Piping or Drafting and they are buying software. They don't
> even know what the drawings are going to be used for or what information the
> Installer/Fabricator needs.
> Dow in Texas have changed their auto iso program to put Item codes on the
> drawings instead of a written bill of material. A giant step backward! The
> only reason for the codes is for MANUAL entry of material by their data
> entry people, insane! Material codes are useless to the people actually
> using the drawings and of course they must be redrawn. There should never be
> a manual material takeoff from drawings generated on a computer. This
> eliminates the whole purpose of using computers plus it adds mistakes.
>
> John Young
> Acorn Pipe Systems Inc
> 1-800-363-9777 or 1-780-963-3303
> Fax 780-963-7156
> email <a href="/group/PipingDesign/post?postID=01NaVvZgG_jDpjUjsQzYCxeqBOPdlWX5zeMnqqMiMjJY1-5XCRehP-XRi91EnFtG8_oQ94XZofTg1EK52Gsh">jyoung@acornpipe.com</a>
> www.acornpipe.com
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Paul Bowers <pbowers@PipingDesign.com>
> To: <PipingDesign@onelist.com>
> Sent: Thursday, October 21, 1999 7:22 PM
> Subject: Iso Production and Checking
>
> > Since virtually all piping software features some sort of automatic
> > isometric production, I'm wondering if users find that a lot of time
> > is spent "cleaning" them, IE, spiffing them up to make them more
> > presentable for the fabricator. After all, a machine doesn't
> > necessarily know how to produce legible and clearly laid-out drawings.
> >
> > Also, how is the checking process handled? Because the iso is
> > generated directly from the 3D CAD model, is there any point in iso
> > checking? It would seem to make more sense to check the model itself,
> > but then the checkers require full-time access to the model and
> > software, plus adequate training.
> >
> > Paul
> >
> > PS The list settings have been changed to "unmoderated", so replies
> > will be immediately sent to all subscribers without filtering. Spam is
> > still not tolerated.
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Received on Mon Oct 25 13:04:00 1999