Let It Flow, Let It Flow, Let It Flow with PlantLink

CARSTEN BEINECKE: And I think we are good to go. It should be 8:00. So if they close the door, eventually they will-- maybe someone is coming in. So let's get started. We have a lot to cover. And I hope you don't suffer from too much sleep deprivation. So welcome to this class early morning. My name is Carson Beinecke. And I'm the with CAD STUDIO. I'm product manager of our plant tools. And one of them I present today.

CRAIG WOOD: I'm Craig Wood. I don't know if you guys-- is this one? I work at a company called CRB Consulting Engineers. And we're actually a client of Carsten's CAD STUDIO. And we've been using their tools for a little over four years on probably over a dozen projects or so. And I've had a lot more success with the tools. So I'm here to help advocate for CAD STUDIO and talk about some success stories as well.

CARSTEN BEINECKE: Thanks. Just a reminder, the class is let it flow, let it flow, let it flow with PlantLink. Obviously it's about one of our products, PlantLink, as an addition for, in this case especially AutoCAD P&ID. There are other use cases for which it can be used. But here it's really about data flow in your P&ID.

And Autodesk picks these classes, because from time to time I get comments about that's it's sales pitch and so. But Autodesk picks the classes. I submitted six. And they picked two. And one of them was that. Just one to make sure that there no confusion. We try to provide solutions for the needs you have.

Class summary is what this class is about. So it's essentially showing you what is actually-- what you can do with your P&ID data, what is in there. In addition to what you type in, can you reuse it so to speak?

And there are three or four key objectives we want to talk to you about, for the limitations of acquisition rules. So maybe first question, who is using AutoCAD P&ID or AutoCAD Plant 3D? OK, good. And so we will talk about this. Then I will add some explanations later on, or maybe correct what acquisition rules can do or what they are supposed to do, and what relationships do exist between the various P&ID classes or objects, and how you can retrieve these data to have a data flow, and how to configure PlantLink. So I think-- the next slide is for Craig, then.

CRAIG WOOD: So how many of you guys are familiar with just the functionality of acquisition rules within P&ID, Plant 3D? OK, so in general everybody. Obviously you guys know there are some basic ones in there, different relationships with-- really what it comes down to is these are just some examples of how you can convey data through the medium of a line, whether it's a signal line or a pipeline. But that's really the primary conduit for data exchange between two P&ID assets.

So basically most of you were probably familiar with these. But there's also data relationships in the database that correspond to these that maybe not everybody is aware of. These rules have their limitations, as some of you may have found out when you tried to set up an acquisition rule. Maybe you had a mismatching data type or that kind of a thing. Or you were limited on what you could do. So that's where PlantLink comes in with acquisition rules and extends the capability of the normal, out of the box acquisition rules.

CARSTEN BEINECKE: And these relationships are defined by Autodesk. And they do exist. They are hardwired into the software. And there is no way to-- you can use them. And that's about it. So just a list. I hope it's complete. I'm not quite sure. But it should be.

CRAIG WOOD: So as far as limitations go, like I said before, really you can't tell a piece of equipment to acquire data from another piece of equipment out of the box. You could connect them with a line, for instance, to get the data to flow. But that's not really ideal. And so you're limited on what classes you can even have connect information.

Also the same data type has to be-- that's a prerequisite. If you have a list property for your selection list, and you want to have it acquired by, say, a string property from some other connected component, you can't do it, which is kind of silly. Because really a selection list is made up of string values. So it's a little frustrating.

As far as flow direction, that's another one that comes into play with lines and just how the data is conveyed. Has anyone ever gotten a question mark on an acquisition rule when you had something that you knew was connected? Ever run into that issue?

The analogy I always use, whenever I'm explaining it to my coworkers who are new to P&ID, is that it would be like if you went to the grocery store. And you're trying to buy something in line. And the cashier says, that's going to cost $1. And then the other cashier next to them, says, no that's actually on sale. It's $0.50. And then you say, well, how much is it? Is it $0.50? Or is it $1? And somebody behind you asks you, well, how much is it? You don't know, because you're getting conflicting data sources. So it's the same way with acquisition rules. There has to be some discrete ruling value.

CARSTEN BEINECKE: And actually that's a screenshot of that specific example where we have a size 100 or four range. And what's that, three and a half inch or size 80, different sizes. And that by default creates a conflict. So AutoCAD P&ID doesn't know what to show, because there's a conflict.

CRAIG WOOD: And on this example in particular, one thing that was really important for our firm, CRB, is we do a lot of sanitary systems. And so is anybody here familiar with zero static valves by chance? So this three way valve, essentially from a data standpoint, it's the same thing. You have a branch line. And you have your header. And a lot of times, the spec from one line is needed. And the size from the other line is needed. So you run into conflicts here, where basic acquisition rules just don't cut it.

CARSTEN BEINECKE: And also I think the last one is not that important anymore. There is a update for that. OK, now about relationship tables in the database

CRAIG WOOD: So this is where things get interesting. And has anybody actually maybe gone and looked inside the database to see what was there and what tables, relationships? So was it-- I'm assuming for me, maybe for you, I started looking there, because I'm getting into contact with people like Carsten and really even Tam, getting in there and seeing, OK, what else is really in here that's useful information that I need?

And there's all these different kinds of relationships. Annotation relationship, every component that has an annotation is linked to its parent. And so you can use that relationship to compare different values. It extends into all of your non-engineering item assets as well. And then you have asset ownership. And I think you could say-- maybe you can speak to that one? Is that like a nozzle to a piece of equipment, maybe?

CARSTEN BEINECKE: Yeah, for example, that would be a good example. The nozzle related to the equipment would be stored. So you see asset ownership, for example, nozzle because nozzle-- so asset in this case, you can translate with it's an engineering item. So a nozzle is an engineering item in your P&ID class structure, also in equipment.

Whereas the second one, asset non-engineering relationship, in this table, we will see that in our first example. This is, for example, the relationship between an actuator and the control valve, or a flow arrow and the line that's stored in there, because actuator or flow arrows are non-engineering items. So that's a good example you mentioned there.

CRAIG WOOD: And then the three in the middle, line end asset, start asset, those two in particular are interesting. As you know, the flow of the line, depending on where it originates and terminates, that relationship also exists in the database.

So if you have, say, a piece of equipment originating from-- the line originating at a piece of equipment and terminating at, say, another line or an end cap or even just an isolation valve, the unique identifier of those originating and terminating assets will be acquired and know which line they're associated with. So you have some clarity there as well.

Obviously flow arrows to the line that they belong on. Anything on a line, obviously there's a link there as well.

CARSTEN BEINECKE: So I think--

CRAIG WOOD: You get the idea.

CARSTEN BEINECKE: -there are several. We will not touch all of them, obviously. But segment break, I'm not quite sure if this is actually a table. Or maybe I forgot to have the full name. But could be, should be. Especially the line assets, the line start asset, which as Craig mentioned, tells you what is at the end and at the start of a line. And this is useful very often. And we will see several examples where we use that.

Essentially you can, if you draw P&ID, and you think about, can I have data from A to B? As long as you connect with some line-- could be a signal line or pipeline, doesn't matter-- if you connect it with a line, then data can flow. That's all you need to know for that case. And we will see one, two, at least two examples where I use that. And there are many more examples, which I might show at the end of the session, depending on how much time we have so.

Just an overview, and maybe I should also-- no, I will mention that later on, where you can find more information about all of this database stuff. so that's one, just an example of a database view for what do I do here. That's the link between two general instruments.

So you will see how that all is done or how you work that. But essentially we have general instruments symbols here on that side and on that side. And in the P&ID, there is a line in between. And this essentially tells-- or from the database, or from this database view, you know, OK, that general instrument symbol is this one here. Here it says asset. And this is where the line ends. It's the same line here. And at the beginning of the line is this instrument symbol.

So with views like that, you can connect or relate symbols. I think we have another one. Just to give you an idea, they can be very complex. Essentially what I show here, it's not really-- it was a chance to give you some kind of idea about what relationships are there.

Essentially if you start here, for example, it's mirrored. It's about two pipelines connected with an off-page connector. And so I go from the pipeline group through this relationship table. And I get to the pipeline. The pipeline is connected to this off page connector, which the off page connector is connected to the next off page connector. And then it goes the other way around. So it's really various relationship tables. I'd probably never use that example as a few. But it should just show what relationships are there. And again that uses only some of them.

CRAIG WOOD: And another note on this one, really, he's got the whole web of data connectivity here. But you'll see later in the presentation an example of where we took a portion of the relationship tables for a specific case that we were trying to achieve at our firm.

CARSTEN BEINECKE: Do I show that? But I actually I will show something I did not prepare so far.

CRAIG WOOD: The nice thing about CAD STUDIO Plant Tools that I really appreciate is the interface very straightforward and very simple as it can be. And at first when you look at anything new, it might be a little overwhelming. But really once you've run through, really-- and the good thing is that there's a wizard for pretty much everything as well. So with PlantLink, it becomes very straightforward. Once you've done one, you feel confident to pretty much do all the other kind of mappings that you want to do for any data relationship that you want to add to your project.

And then you also have the advantage of being able to enable or disable specific link configurations on the fly. And it does it for your whole project. So if you, as the administrator, would like to add a new link configuration and it's working fine, you leave it enabled. And it is enabled for everyone else actively working in the project. And if at any point in time you want to disable something, you can uncheck it on the fly. And it will disable it for everyone else as well, for the whole project.

But needless to say, don't get too overwhelmed at first. The wizard will guide you through. Once you have a data view in your database, it's very easy to come in and then use the wizard to link to pulling your extended data into your P&IDs.

CARSTEN BEINECKE: That's essentially about you create a view. You test the resulted views in the top right corner. And then you test the results with just a small table in the middle. And then you define the link configuration with the wizard in PlantLink. So these are the three steps essentially.

Now to my demo, where I show, four examples. They start easy from the first one. And I will go into the details. So the first one is actually having the tag of a control valve you see here stored in the actuator, because sometimes companies want to create-- let's say-- a list of electrical consumers and motors and also motor-driven control valves. So they probably need to know the control valve tag in the actuator for the list later on.

The next example is actually the loop number between instruments. Well here you don't see it yet, because I didn't update. So here it's blank. But it's essentially from propagating the loop number, for example, or could be any other property. It's just the loop number propagating that throughout the various connected lines. Actually I was saying this for the control valves, because the control valves is also an instrument. And if I changed the loop number there, the connected instruments get the same loop number as well.

And another example-- and these examples are from customers. I have also a demo project I use when I do demo PlantLink, well I put all of the various customer cases in one project. So I can quickly show the various use cases of data flow. And so another customer wanted to have, in the control valve, wanted to have the instrument types, so GOS plus, GOS minus, and TI whatever. Everything I connect to the actuator, the type should be in the control valve.

And the last one is actually Craig's example. Maybe you can explain that quickly.

CRAIG WOOD: Yeah, so probably a little over a year ago, I was looking at the PDF of a P&ID. And I thought, this is a pretty terrible process how we go through and we review P&IDs. When you have one of them open and you want to go find the other one, you have to pull up Windows Explorer. Scroll down through your list of however many you have. Go find it. And then you can open it.

I thought, wouldn't it be great if on the PDF, there were actually hyperlinks embedded in each off-page connector that you could just click on? And it would just open the next one. In AutoCAD P&ID, that functionality exists, when you can just say right click, View Connected Drawing or Open Connected Drawing. But not in PDF, so I was wanting to bring that same functionality of having them linked into the PDF side of things, just because it would save so much time for everybody who opens and reviews P&IDs. And so that's what we were able to achieve with PlantLink.

AUDIENCE: So when you print the PDF of one of these documents, that one was already--

CRAIG WOOD: And I was able to do it manually. So you can do that now manually without PlantLink. It's just, it doesn't make sense to manage that, because it's so time consuming. But essentially it's a relative path to the same folder location. So as long as all your P&IDs are in one folder, the hyperlinks would work. And it's really agnostic of any PDF software. Once the hyperlink's embedded in the PDF, you can open it in Adobe or CutePDF, or Bluebeam. And it just works. And when you disconnect the OPC, it will also drop the hyperlink.

CARSTEN BEINECKE: And what I should have mentioned, maybe, in the beginning, but maybe now it makes even more sense, of course I like to sell our product. But I'm really honest, it does not always make sense, if there is just a small example where it could be useful.

But the main reasons why companies use it is, well, the most important is to reduce errors in your drawings. Because if you, for example let's take the loop number, if you type it only in once, and then it is automatically updated in the connected instruments, for example, then you do not need to worry about that. You just edit it once.

And of course, the second reason is saving time. But saving time is even less a factor than having no errors. Or you don't forget anything to update. Everything we show, if you don't use PlantLink, of course you can do that all manually. So I do not disagree on that. This is why I say it has to make sense to you. But these are the two main reasons why people are using PlantLink. And Craig, he pushes me almost daily with new ideas of, can we improve this and that and so on.

Also I want to point out, this we are showing today is already available on the Autodesk Network. Or in this case, it's a screencast video. We show and explain all the four examples I show today. Also if you are interested, PlantLink is at the AppStore. I also have USB sticks where all our tools are on for trial versions. And we also have a database book, which I now start step-by-step- to transfer into the knowledge network of Autodesk. And this is actually my collection. And I just will-- I think I already-- let me just go to my desktop and pull it up so you can see it. I started, AU came in the way. So I had to postpone that a little bit. I don't have internet connection here, I think. There is a-- it doesn't matter.

So if you click on that link here, you will see a collection I started with all the background information, which I started, all the relationship tables, what they are doing and so on, not only for P&ID. I will also add Plant 3D. But with Plant 3D, there is not much of relationships. Let me put it that way. So it's mostly interesting for P&ID. And if you want to get in touch with us, we are in the exhibition hall under that booth. And having said this I would start with the presentation or the examples.

I will show-- what's the time? So it looks good. I will, after my four examples, I also have in the video, I will probably show some other examples but only explain what they are doing, not really go through the steps. I have that in a virtual machine. Sometimes I get some graphical error. So don't get confused.

So this is my example. And I want to start with having the control valve tech in the actuator. So the only thing I did here is actually I created a property for the actuators, where I want to store the control valve take in.

So how do I do that? If you try to create an acquisition rule in AutoCAD P&ID, the control valve cannot acquire-- it doesn't make sense-- but it cannot acquire data from its own control valve, because the selection you get is you get a hand. You get the hand valve class.

Well of course internally, the control valve, the body, the valve body is a hand valve. But the relationship between the actuator and, as we said, we have a relationship between the actuator and the control valve is stored in the database. But for whatever reason, Autodesk isn't able to allow the user to create an acquisition rule. But so we use it through a database view. By the way if I say a view, if you are, let's say, used to Access, for example, where it's called query or query. How do you say in American-English?

CRAIG WOOD: Query. Yea it's a British analog.

CARSTEN BEINECKE: American-English and so on. So it's the same concept. So how do I do that? So first off, I already opened that. But actually in my project, where is it? AU, that's my project. There is the ProcessPower.dcf, which is the P&ID database. If you use SQL Server, your AutoCAD P&ID or AutoCAD Plant 3D with SQL Server, then it's on SQL Server. So everything I show there, here now using SQLite is also possible on SQL Server.

There is one, let's say, exception. I will later on show an example where, if you make this on SQL Server, that looks-- at least I think they update it now with SQL Server 2016-- but I tried this for a customer. And the expression you got was disturbing. In the video, I said disturbing, because I Googled for hours. And then I would figure out. And I still cannot make any sense out of it. But it worked, so anyway.

So I already have that open, I think. That's this database here. So what you see here in the database, I just do not want to go into too much detail. Actually in my Word document accompanying this class, there is more text. So here what you see here are all the classes.

And also if you start using PlantLink or want to give it a try, start really with a small project, probably a blank project. Then you add the symbols and lines you need for testing. Don't use a full project where you have a lot of data and you get confused about all the tables and so, because the tables will be created as you draw. So in the beginning, you have only a limited amount of tables, which makes it easier to get a grip out of that.

So we get a lot of tables here. And if I scroll further down, I should stay seated. We have the views/queries. So when I create my own queries, I usually use some prefix. So I say back-to-back in the list. So I do not go where it was that query or that view I created.

So you can use any text. You can rename them also. But it's just, let's say, a tip. So here I already have that view. But I want to show how you do that. So first of all, I need to remove that. That was from the morning, from testing.

So to open, first I should mention how to open the SQLite database. There are several tools available. I personally prefer SQLite Expert. There is a personal version, which is free of charge. And there is a professional version. I do not know. It's-- I don't know-- $50 something like that, a little bit more maybe. Usually if you want to look into the database or so, you don't need it. But if you want to start building queries graphically like I do now, then you should use the professional version, unless you can write SQL statements on the fly with inner join and outer join when you don't need it. But I cannot do this.

So there is a SQL builder. It's also, in the SQL Server, there is something similar, or if you are familiar with Access. Here on the side, I have all my tables and all my views. And what I need is in this case, I need the actuator table where I see the properties. And you see only the P&ID, which is the object ID of that symbol, and the property I created. And so that's the actuator table.

And then there is the asset non-engineering relationship table, which stores the relationship between an actuator and a controller, for example. It stores also other things. But this is what I need. And then I need the control valve to link them.

However, if you use the control valve table, you don't see the tag. And this is like if you create a property in your P&ID hierarchy or class hierarchy, depending on where you create that property, in this same table the property resides. So the tag property was created under instruments, not under control valves, the tag property by Autodesk. So it's not available here.

So then because of that, it very often makes sense to actually use the view, the control in this case, control valve view. The views you can also-- well they have a different icon in the beginning. And Autodesk adds an underscore PnP at the end. So all these tables are made automatically or created automatically by AutoCAD P&ID. If I use that view, you see all the properties of your control valve, so from engineering items, from instrumentation or instruments, in-line instruments, and control valve. And here we see the tag.

So now I have all the tables I need. And now I can link them. The PnP ID is actually here, the non-engineering object. As I mentioned for those of you who are familiar with AutoCAD P&ID, you know what is in engineering, what is in non-engineering objects. So the actuator is non-engineering objects, so probably this. And the asset is actually the control valve. And I link this here.

So this is how I link these tables, using in between, using a relationship table. And what I need now for PlantLink to have data flowing, you can think of if I'm in P&ID, the actuator is supposed to grab information from the control valve, the tag in this case. So what I need for PlantLink is actually the PnP ID of my actuator. And I need the tag, which I later want to map to my actuator.

So you just select what you need. And then you nicely can build SQL statement. And you all instantly also see the result. So this is the expression. Again I'm not-- I don't worry about that. But more important is the result you are seeing. So you see, I don't want to show this. In the video, I show this. So it's really the PnP ID of the actuator. And that's the control valve tag. So that's all I need.

What the next step is, I create a view from that script. So I click here. And then I type in some name. And then I click on Apply. I already did this. So I canceled that. And so I go to that. You can give it any name.

And what I recommend typing in some comment lines, could be multiple lines. You can add it in the beginning, at the end, because at some point, even after a few days or weeks or months, you do not know what you did there. This is an easy one.

But we will see later on an example where I use several SQL statements in one view. And then you do not know what did I do there. And so you put in some comment lines and you start with a slash asterisk. And at the end, an asterisk slash, and this is how you do it. It really helps later on. Also if you, in my case, if I sent this over to a customer, he can read that and knows what I did there.

So this is what I have here in the view. You can see the data of the view. It's the same as the result we saw. And now I want to use it with PlantLink to finally get the data in my control valve. So I go to my drawing. And I start PlantLink. The other three examples are already created. And now I create a new one.

If you use SQL Server, you have to create a UDL file, which is a standard Windows file, which actually links to the SQL Server database you use for your AutoCAD P&ID project. But in my case, and that's very convenient, since I used SQLite for that project, you select SQLite as a data source. Then we don't need any files or any driver or whatever. We can access this directly.

I go to my project. I change to all files. And I select my P&ID database, Project Power DCF, where I have that view. And if you want, you can use relative paths. So whoever was in my Reporter class yesterday it's the same. So this stands for, the PP for project path. The advantage is later on, if I have another project, I can copy that link configuration to another project. And it still works there as well. I do not need to adapt for each project my path. But that's just a detail.

Then there are our two options we use. We want to update the AutoCAD P&ID/AutoCAD Plant 3D properties. And in the last example for the hyperlinks, we will see that you can also have the standard AutoCAD properties modified. So here it's the P&ID Plant 3D.

And where do we want to have the data? For our actuators, this is where I want to store the control valve tag in. You see also P&ID 3D. So it works really for both parts. Now I'm going to my views. So from your database, you see all the tables and all your views. In my case, I go to my view I have in my database.

And now I tell PlantLink how it-- you have just one data, one row in my table we saw, or in my view. But obviously in a real project, you have a lot of actuators for a lot of control valves. So if the list is long, and to tell PlantLink how to find the right row or data set in the view is by OK, I have the PnP ID of my actuator in my drawing. And I have it in my database. So I link them.

So in this case, it's really that's from my view. That's the PnP ID. The condition is equal. And here it's also in my class property of the actuators, also a PnP. So this is to tell PlantLink how to find the appropriate data set.

And then essentially I use the tag from my view, which is my control valve tag. And I want to map it to my new property I created. PlantLink also allows you to actually create a property if you forgot it and you do not want to get out of it and create it. You can create it on the fly.

So I select this property there are some options we do not need now. And there is an option, when should the data be updated? So you can set on drawing save. That means that every time you save your drawing, the data will be updated. But you can also click on a button if you want to update that.

Get control valve tag-- whatever you want. Then I'll click Refresh to see the order. So here you see all my four examples. It's important that you see it's active. If there is any issue, it will be red. And it will give you in text why it's not working, why there is an issue. So everything is OK. And now I either can save the drawing. Or I can click here on the Update button.

So I save. And in the command line, you see all the of the updated executed links, also some other stuff from our other plant tools. So if I click on the actuator, you see the control valve tag now. And if you, of course, make a change, for example that's area 20, and I save the drawing, then-- sorry, wrong example. You see now it's updated.

You do not need to save every time you make a change. You do not every time need to save it. It's just during our presentation, I want to show the instant results. Essentially it's enough if you save the drawing at the end. If you close it, and you save the drawing, then everything is updated as well. So that was the first example a very simple one, but very, very commonly used.

The second one is about having, as I mentioned, the different connected instruments stored in one string, here, in a property for the control valves. So this is from an Austrian customer who wanted to have that for his control valve list or whatever. Could also be for checking purposes for the instrumentation people. So they can look if they didn't miss anything, or if there are some differences between the P&ID and their data, because very often they are not really linked. So that was the reason.

How did I do that? That's now a little bit more complex. That's actually a two-step process. In PlantLink, it's just one link configuration. But I need two views for that. So first of all, how did I drew that? I just inserted general instrument symbols. And I connected them with a signal line. It doesn't matter what signal line you are using. It's just a signal line.

So in the database, how does it look? The first thing I did, first I need to get all the connected instruments for that control valve. And so I created a few, which gives me that result, which obviously shows the three connected general instruments.

So the view looks like this. And every time, again, I cannot read that. I don't even try. And why should I? If you have a SQL expression here, if I sent some to you, or you want to reuse something, the SQLite Expert version also allows you to make a right click. Actually no, I Copy that expression here, just in SQLite. In this tab here, I can execute it, which I get the same result. But the important thing is I can load this into the SQL builder. And it builds the graphical relationships for me. So it's much easier.

And here you see actually, similar to what I showed in the PowerPoint in the beginning. So here you see the relationship between the control valve, and then using line end asset and line start asset tables, relationships tables. And on the other side is the general instrument symbol.

So what did I use? So the line starts at the control valve and ends at the general instrument symbols. That's the view. And the only thing I actually need is the PnP ID of my control valve, because the control valve is supposed to get the data. And I need in this case, the type. Could also be the tag or any information, could also be multiple information. But in this case, the customer wanted to have the type of the general instrument symbol.

So the result is, as I said, looks like this. But now I want to have that in one string. And fortunately for that, there is a so-called aggregation function in SQLite. It, again, and this example looks much more complicated than what we will see in a moment in SQL Server. But I think they want to update that with the SQL Server 2016. I'm not quite sure.

So how does it look? Sorry, that's the wrong example. It looks actually much easier. And I will, again, load this into the builder. So just putting it here, and load it. It's actually just the table we had before, the all instruments. But there is an aggregation function. There are several available. And I use a group concat. And I store that under this name.

So essentially if I look at the expression, this is how it looks like. It will concat all the three from that group. It will concat all that into one street. It's just that simple. And that's the result. And now PlantLink can use that. This is the PnP ID of my control valve. And this is the result I want to map.

Well we can look at the configuration. But it's, as Craig mentioned in the beginning, it's always the same. So really just, I think, five pages for the visit. So again the same database, again I'm I want to update. The class, in this case it's the control valve class here. And the view is the one I just had open in my database. Again PnP ID equals PnP ID. And then this is the name I gave in my view. And I want to map this to this class property.

If I make any change to, for example, so you trust me that it really works. So ABC, and I save the drawing. Then you'll see that-- I hope you can read it. It's a little bit. So now this property here is updated with the information of the connected. If I would connect another one to it, it would show up here as well.

So as a user, that's also very important that what we're doing here should not have any effect on the user. So he needs to know, do I have to work a certain way now? We try to really make that streamlined with how you work with AutoCAD P&ID. So you don't need to worry about this and that. Do I need to make a check box somewhere? And the user just connects it with a line. And it just flows.

Next example is about-- let me just check so I don't forget it-- the loop number between instruments. So again, also the control valve is an instrument. And I can show this for both cases. So I can, for example, change the loop number. I'll make that 20. And I do not save for right. I change that here. And I make that 21. And now I save. And you will see that it's updating the connected instruments.

And also if I, for example, add another one, any, again coming down to usability-- so I will purposely remove that. I can add as many as I want. And I just connect them with any-- sorry that was the wrong one-- with any signal line. I do not need a specific line. So I make it like this. Is that working? Oh no, I have internet. Interesting, I do not need that.

So now if I save the drawing, it updates all of that. So as a user, again, you don't need to worry about that. What do I need to do? Just place your instruments and connect them. And maybe you saw it, because it's in a virtual machine, it's a little bit slower.

PlantLink also can run loops. So loops, not instrument loops, but just loops. So it starts from here. And then the first ones connected will pull the data from the first one. And then PlantLink checks, do I need to run again? And then, OK, now this one pulls it. And then in the third loop, these two pull the loop number. And then PlantLink figures out, OK, that's the end. I do not need to continue.

There is a stop. There is a maximum of 100 loops. So then that's the limit you can set. Then it stops. But there are cases, not like for instrumentation, but for other cases where you-- so we want to avoid infinite loops. You could just draw another signal line like this. And you, well, then it causes-- so we do not run into an infinite loop.

So let me just check the time. In the video I tend to explain a lot. So I will not show you now the view. It's actually, again, made out of two views. The first view, but it's all in the video. The first view actually will figure out which one is the first one in line. And that's the first views. And then the second view gives me the loop number of the first one plus all the connective instruments. And the same would apply to this example on top.

And then PlantLink, again, the general through the visit, it knows how to get that data. So maybe what I will show is the first few. So this is the first few, the result of that, which gives me one is the control valve for the top example. And the other one is the first in-line of these general instruments symbols. And then this view gives me, now the data is invalid. If I would edit the data in P&ID, this gives the result of all of the connected instruments. You can see that. So these are these two views.

And last example I want to show is about is Craig's example from CRB. So this is the example we have here. And first what I need to do is I want to remove the hyperlinks, because they are already there. So we can start from scratch.

So as Craig mentioned, what we need-- or what he needed-- was to have the hyperlink to the PDF stored in the standard AutoCAD hyperlink property. That does exist here. But it should be filled out automatically, depending on the drawing I connect to or is coming from, depending on the flow direction.

So what I did in the database, because the two off-page connectors connected, we know there is a relationship telling, OK, that off-page connector is connected to that one. So this is, again, the result. I then use for PlantLink. So I get various off-page connectors, all four of them. And I get this string. And the string, maybe I start with that.

Let's look at the design. I should note that. The string is actually a standard SQL expression I have here. You can concat strings with a double pipe sign. So you see that the dot backslash, which is from all those times. And then what you have here though, the field or the property in the middle is actually the name that, in this case, the drawing, the title of the drawing, and then .PDF at the end. So this is how I get the concat, the string to store later on in the hyperlink property.

And you see also two expressions, because depending on which off-page connectors comes first and depending on the way of the flow direction, I have to consider both ways, both flow directions. But essentially these two do the same. So what I will do, just depending on which off-page connectors our connector came from. So I will just get this in here and load this into the builder. So you can actually see that. It's really hard to read, even from here.