Let Your Data Flow Between the Plant Specs, AutoCAD P&ID (Spec Driven), and AutoCAD Plant 3D

MARTIN BUSS: Hello, everybody. Thank you for coming.

NABIL NOUGHA: Yeah, thank you for coming. Can you hear me? Nope. Can you hear me better now? OK. So, thanks for joining this morning to our class. So the class-- let your data flow between the plant specs, P&ID-- spec driven-- and Plant 3D. So my name is Nabil Nougha. I am an enterprise priority support specialist working in the Dubai office. I am French and I support AutoCAD Plant 3D P&ID, and also other products like AutoCAD Revit, and also some data management products. I'd like to introduce [INAUDIBLE] Martin.

MARTIN BUSS: My name is Martin Buss. I'm a bit louder, I think. And I've spent two and a half years at Autodesk already as a premium support specialist for Plant 3D and BIM products like [INAUDIBLE] and Glue. When asking questions-- place questions at the very end, because we need to go until the very end. We have a message at the very end, so please wait.

But I have a question for you. Who of you is using this interface between P&ID and Plant 3D already? OK. And who of you is using spec driven already? OK, the same people. That's good because it's very basic. So it's good that not everybody already knows every detail about this.

So our agenda is-- I want to show two workflows. The existing one that has already been in Plant 3D, and the new one with spec driven. So I want to highlight all the parts, all the modules, and all the functions that play into this. So you can see here, the first workflow is between P&ID and Plant 3D. The spec-- I added it. Of course, it's always there-- the parts are coming from the spec-- that's why it's in brackets-- except the equipment.

So just to highlight that spec driven is the second one. And it's the spec driven from the update 2018.1.1, and since one week-- it's been released. So if you want to install it, there is no update 0.1, you just install update 1.1. The reason 0.1 was online three days, but with serious issues, and it was pulled back. So install 1.1 instead.

I will talk a little bit about the validation. And I will, of course, talk about the spec driven-- what it does and how to set it up. So finally, it's about how to create a connection between P&ID and Plant 3D-- reuse existing data, simplify the workflow, and avoid user errors. It's also important to understand limitations, so I will very openly talk about the limitations of this interface, and I hope it will also reach some people outside of this room.

There might be improvements-- there are already improvements-- you will see at the very end. And that will come as a spec driven workflow. And one thing which is, of course, always important is the workflow that you have. They can differ a lot between customers. And some want to put the data in P&ID, and some want to put it in Plant 3D-- they want to do part selection in Plant 3D.

Some only want to determine the part in P&ID. Also, maybe this spec driven workflow will not fit every requirement of every customer. So I will start with P&ID to Plant 3D interface. So the interface is the line list, and the line list is configured with the class mapping. So that's the upper part of the configuration window here. The down part is about property mapping, and that's just about copying properties over.

It's not like what I thought initially. Like, if you map the manufacturer to the manufacturer, it doesn't mean that the part that will be pulled from the line list will check this manufacturer data, and put the part accordingly. No, its just for copying properties over to the 3D part from the P&ID part. That means the class mapping. So what part we finally pulled from the spec is determined here in the class mapping.

And for the valves, we have three parameters. That's the class itself, and then we have also the valve body type and the valve alignment. Those will finally be checked when the part is pulled in from the line list you see. In this case, we have three different classes mapped, and then, this pop-up window will come and show you the three classes.

But even if there are not parts behind them-- so even if you don't have a butterfly anchor valve in your spec, it will appear here. And then, in this case, we have two butterfly valve body types-- butterfly valve alignment inline. And in this case, it will not ask anymore. It will just take, I think, the last part and put it into the 3D, and that's it.

So that's something to take care of when you set up your project. Of course, the user needs to know what part it is-- is it the correct part already, or do I have to check it again? And in this case, they could replace it with the substitution. But the substitution will also delete the properties that you just mapped over from the P&ID to the 3D.

And it will also offer the full list of all valve classes, and not just the one according to the valve alignment valve body type. So there are many things to take care of. We will show you this in a demo.

NABIL NOUGHA: So on the demo, we just created an [INAUDIBLE] project, and we assigned a class for the [? CS300 ?] [? 4-inch, ?] and we just draw the pipeline on the P&ID. And then, we will add two butterfly valves as usual. And what we will do is a mapping on the manufacturer property. So we add anything like Autodesk.

And on the 3D side, we open the line list window. So from that line list, we will select the line and draw it. And we will also place the butterfly valves. So as you can see, it's easy. And you can see by the bolt set that we have only one bolt set per butterfly valve-- so it's wafer. You can see also the property. So here, we see the bolt set as we wanted.

MARTIN BUSS: This example will come again and again. And you will already see from the bolt set if you have the valve or if you have the lock valve.

NABIL NOUGHA: Exactly. So then, we will replace the pump by substitution. And now, we choose LUG so we'll correctly have the two bolt sets. And as you can see, the manufacturer has been overridden. This is not the issue, but as designed [INAUDIBLE]. So for the wafer, we still have the Autodesk manufacturer property.

Then, we will place another valve which is not on the spec. We'll choose a longer one. So it comes with a placeholder form. And as you can see, you have the exclamation mark as Martin mentioned earlier. So it's out of spec.

MARTIN BUSS: Yeah. This will happen if you take a part that does not exist, and you will get the placeholder. The next thing is if you didn't to select the size or the spec, you will get this dialog. And you can also create a mapping between the P&ID and the 3D sizes, but I will not go deeper into this. So again, the property mapping doesn't have influence on the part selection.

The property mapping is copying over properties to the 3D. So another thing that's interesting when talking about the P&ID to Plant 3D workflows is the custom property for the component designation. It will let you edit the part later-- you might want to do this for some parts. And if you place a part from the spec, usually, it doesn't offer these geometry parameters, so we will show you how to do this.

NABIL NOUGHA: So if you open your spec editor, then you will select the part that you want to change. So you will navigate to the component designation property, and then you add custom. And be sure that [INAUDIBLE] with a capital C. And you copy-paste all the sizes, and be sure that you save. And then, you can again add a butterfly valve by placing it from the line list.

And if you go to the property of this valve, you will now have access to the part geometry, as in the catalog. So that's interesting if you have to place some specific fittings. And in comparison to the other one, you don't have it because you didn't add a custom property.

MARTIN BUSS: So here, again, this is the configuration for the P&ID to Plant 3D mapping-- the class mapping in the upper part, and in the bottom part is the property mapping. Also, the line group will be mapped over. So there are two kinds of mapping for the classes. One is a simple one which is shown here, and the other one is the one for the valves, which you can give more specific information about the part that you finally get from the line list.

So in this case, it's just to highlight how it works. It looks like SQA, but it's just for telling you what happens. It's not like there will be something-- down list the database like this. So you select the spec part from where the spec is from the P&ID symbol-- that you specified in the P&ID symbol-- where the class is kept, like you mapped here. You see the cap P&ID symbol is mapped to the 3D cap.

And the size is the size of the part from the P&ID symbol. So it's very simple, and you cannot really-- if you have several caps, then you really need to replace them. There's no way for one-to-one mapping as far as I know. And the extended mapping is not just taking a look at the class, but also at two more properties of the valves, and that's the valve alignment and the valve body type-- you have to specify in the catalog in the spec. The mapping offers several options for the valve body type and for the valve alignment type, but you can extend them. So this is in the P3dEnumeration XML file which is a bit scary. It's an installation file, so it will apply for all the projects that you're working on that machine.

It's a bit dangerous. If you add entries, no problem. But if you delete some and they have already been mapped in your project-- if you open the configuration and you save it, then your mapping will be gone, at least the one according to the entries that you deleted. So you need to have a full-concept if you want to work like this. And here's a way as specified in the catalogue-- the valve body type and the valve-- this is not correct. The valve detail doesn't have effect even if it's also in this XML file.

And it will finally create combinations of the valve body type and the valve alignment type in the configuration where you can check what you want to map. But if you extend the upper part a lot, this list will get very long. So I will show you later, maybe, how to reduce it-- and that's here. So if you extremely map, then you could create many symbols in P&ID, and create a one-to-one mapping.

It that means here, for this valve body type, you could use it and put different information like the full information of your valves, and map it to two classes in the P&ID that you created there. You could also put the endcodes, and everything. It's a lot of work-- lots of configuration. But if you do-- like this-- then I would just skip the valve alignment type, because if you have lots of entries on top, it will multiply the entries from the valve alignment type. You will get so many entries and it will be really hard to select them. So that's what we can show you here.

NABIL NOUGHA: So here, we are open the enumeration.XML file, and we will just add a line-- so the line number nine. So we add what we require-- so here, it's WFR for the butterfly valve. So then, we save, and then we go to the spec, and we will modify-- at the same time-- the valve body type field here in the same way. Same here-- you do a copy-paste-- very simple. You apply and save.

And then be sure to restart AutoCAD Plant to have this applied. So we navigate to our project-- go to the project setup. Then, we navigate the P&ID object mapping, and we will navigate to our component here-- it's the butterfly valve. For here, we will not use the mapping to the butterfly [INAUDIBLE] angle-- we just use butterfly inline. We click OK.

So on the 3D, you will see the difference. So we open our line list, and then we place the valve which is appearing now-- WFR. So we can see that it's a single bolt set valve. And then, we place a LUG here. So you can see the difference in the bolt set.

MARTIN BUSS: Exactly. In the past, you could have made a one-to-one mapping, and you still have this option if you don't use the spec driven. But we will come later to the spec driven workflow For the property mapping from P&ID to Plant 3D-- we've said it several times-- you need to be careful. The substitution will delete those properties, so one way to solve this would be to make a one-to-one mapping, and then you won't need to substitute it.

Also, if you have already information in the spec, it will, of course, override it, so you need to be careful. It's not like it will check if there's information already in it, and if yes, then it will not bring it over or something like that. No-- it will always overwrite it, even if it's empty. So even if you have empty fields in P&ID and it's mapped, it will overwrite the value that comes from the spec. One problem is the validation. If you're using the line list and the validation at the same time, you need to be, again, careful.

And I call it the validation paradox because if you want to-- in order to validate properties, you need to activate the overwriting from the P&ID to the Plant 3D. So it means if you want to validate two values, at the same time, you have to overwrite them-- if you're working with a line list and validation at the same time. So you could have two different configuration files, one you use for work and one you use for validation. But if you once forget to put it back, then some people will get problems.

So validation is still useful, but this has some properties you cannot map to get validated, because then you would overwrite them. And actually, that's missing a check box that will say, OK, please validate but don't overwrite. So maybe this will come.

NABIL NOUGHA: Yeah. So still in the spec editor, we select our path again. And we will add the manufacturer property. So for the WFR, we choose the menu, WFR. So we add it and we save. And for the LUG, we will do the same. So same here-- you place the property, and then you copy-paste. OK, and then you save.

And then we will place these elements on the 3D from the line list as well. First of all, you use the tool palette. We pasted from the tool palette, so we select it. And we select the LUG. We look at the properties, and you can see that the manufacturer is here, and same for the LUG. So now, we place from the line list, so we select the WFR, and we look at its properties as well. So it was Autodesk-- that's what we--

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

MARTIN BUSS: Put it earlier in the manufacturer, so you see it's getting overwritten. So some words about the line list-- it looks like this. You can open it from the ribbon, or you type line list in the command line. I would recommend to do Auditproject before working with the line list. There might be some values remaining. So the version check for the parts that you already have placed-- you can do it when you zoom to a selected item.

And then, if you click on that item in the line list, it will zoom on this item. And if it's not placed yet, then it will zoom to this item. So it will just stay as it is, so that's how you can easily check if you already put it. Because if you are, it will put parts more than once-- even with the same tech, that's possible. Maybe it shouldn't be possible, but it's possible. So the order of this line list is according to numbers. It's not the real order in the pipe. And elements that do connect branches will not be listed in the line list, like tee or reducer. Equipments appear, but just for validation because equipments are not coming from the spec. And an element has to be mapped to be inserted, but if not, then it will be greyed out, and if you click on it, it will give you the message that it's not mapped.

And you can also use your custom properties to-- formatting is possible. So the substitution-- we were talking about this before, but for those of you who don't know, it's just a little triangle if you select the part. And then you will see, according to that class, all the other elements from the spec. And it will not apply the full class mapping that I explained before.

So like I said, this is what we always had in Plant 3D. And there are workflows possible-- highly adjusted workflows. For example, you put information in the P&ID, and then you insert your map properties, and you put the part in 3D. And then, you check the properties, and you check what's the part that you placed, and you see whether it's correct or not. And then, according to the properties that you see, you could replace it, for example.

Or you could even make a totally generic workflow, where you just one-to-one-- maybe you just have a generic symbol for this valve. And then in the 3D, you adjusted the length-- maybe somebody already typed it in P&ID-- that would be also possible. And in this workflow, the validation even makes sense because they might change it into the P&ID, and then you can validate if it changed, and if it changed, you have to do something in the 3D.

So that was all a bit not so perfect-- what I presented now. There are some options and some functions which are not so bad. But we improved because we now have the spec driven. And again, what I will be showing here is according to the 28.1.1 update. There are some things that didn't perfectly work before in the RTM version of Plant 3D.

So how you activate the spec driven project is just to check-- in the configuration, you have a new item, and you just check it and apply. You just check it-- it's not necessary to demo this. And so the new thing is P&ID, you now also have the size and the spec selection. And you have an indication-- for example, if you see the bottom-left picture-- that some sizes are not available in the spec. There will be a background with hatch, and that's how you see the sizes are not available. On the tool palette, you can see from the symbols that are also hatched-- that they are not available in the spec.

And we also have this P&ID painter which we've had since 17 already. And with this, you can easily check-- somebody might have used off-spec parts, you can check if parts are off-spec or in-spec. So there's one thing that you need to know. You need to really map all the symbols that you want to use, because if you don't map them, they will appear as existent which is not correct.

But of course, it's natural that you need to map all your symbols. So this demo is showing--

NABIL NOUGHA: So we place a filament here, one with a normal hand valve, one [? little ?] valve, and one [INAUDIBLE] valve. And so with the painter, you can see that it's set in the configuration by the color. You have three different colors. The red one is out of spec, and the yellow one is in the spec. So this is why we use this tool-- to be sure that all these elements are on display.

MARTIN BUSS: Yeah, and the white one is not mapped.

NABIL NOUGHA: Yeah. The white one is not mapped.

MARTIN BUSS: So the mapping is in the P&ID spec class mapping XML. So that's an analog to the P&ID to 3D class mapping XML, and it's at the same place in the project. And for the configurations, we do not use the same P3dEnumeration XML. So what I showed you before was modifying the enumeration XML-- you shouldn't do it with the spec driven because it doesn't make sense.

But you don't need to do it anymore, as I was showing. So if you have some symbols that are not mapped here-- and this is actually the configuration for the spec driven. Here, you map this part-- you map the symbol to a 3D class. And if you do it, it will show up in a different color, and then you do the off-spec check, and that's what we show here.

NABIL NOUGHA: So we'll put the butterfly symbol to the P&ID just to show you how it works for the configuration. So we go to the project setup-- pipe spec object mapping. And then, we will check [INAUDIBLE] valve.

MARTIN BUSS: Yeah. That's the one that showed up in white before, so we want to make it yellow.

NABIL NOUGHA: So as soon as we find it, we [? will edit. ?] So we create the map, and then it becomes yellow, so that means it's mapped in the spec.

MARTIN BUSS: Accidentally remapped it to an existing one. We have two configuration files, and both need to be kind of the same because if not, then it will not work. So if you want to compare them, I found a way which is maybe not so bad. You open the XML file with Excel, and you [INAUDIBLE] that. So in the handle, I have a tool that is just comparing two texts line by line. For example, if line one exists in the other text somewhere, then it will show up in the results like this.

If not, then you will see on the right side-- that's the results of this tool if you click this button-- and you will see the differences. Some differences, I'm not sure, but I think you can easily see if you mapped something different from the spec to the P&ID, and from the P&ID to the 3D, it should be the same. And here comes the spec driven magic, and that's the spec part. Now, when you're using the spec driven project, there will be this spec part property coming up in the Properties palette.

And there, you will have options between the parts that exist in your spec up to the mapping. And it means you can make a selection on P&ID according to what you have in the spec. I think most of the time, the P&ID users are determining the part that they want to have in the 3D, so that is the idea behind it. And what will it do?

What will be offered here in the dropdown-- that's all the spec parts from the spec-- which is specified in P&ID symbol-- where the class mapping applies with the valve body type, and what the size is according to the P&ID symbol. All the hits you get from this query will appear in the spec part. You can make a selection, and then--

NABIL NOUGHA: OK, so here, we add another butterfly valve.

[LAUGHING]

MARTIN BUSS: Yeah. And I said it before-- now we adjusted one option. Why is this? Because before, we mapped this part to the WFR entry which does not exist in the new mapping. So don't change the P3dEnumeration XML for this workflow. And that's what we're demoing here. You need to use the existing one.

I don't know exactly where this is stored, so if there's some file analog to the P3dEnumeration, I didn't find it. But maybe it's not really necessary, as you will see soon. So now, we changed the valve alignment type from butterfly WFR back to butterfly. And now, you see there are two selections again because we have two parts, and we are always-- in the same example, we are two butterflies.

And now, you can select from these two butterflies in the P&ID with the spec part. That's what shows up for simple parts other than valves-- what will show up in the dropdown for the spec parts. This is a repetition, finally. So the good thing about the new mapping from the spec to the P&ID is that you can map on the parent level, so you don't need to go to each element and, for example, do something for the property mapping.

We go to the parent element-- the hand valve in this case-- and we have mapped the manufacturer here, for example. And this is something you need to know. The properties in the P&ID part will update with the spec update. So we will show it later, but that is something you need to know. It's like-- replace a part and you don't find a property, so you're wondering where are the properties.

And then, you make a selection for the spec part, and then it will come with the spec update. Of course, some customers are just working with P&ID, and they want to have information, for example from other systems, in their P&ID, so they could use this workflow to get them in-- that's one thing I've seen. Of course, they have to create the spec first, but there are also ways to create specs from Excel. So if you just focus on the information side, it's going to be easy.

And this is just you hackers-- if you want to change this property list, then there is a file, which you can open as a SIG file, and then you will find XML that you can change. I don't know if you want to, though So finally, you will start the spec to P&ID mapping if you're using the old workflow. And then, you will compare it to the P&ID to 3D. It should be the same because otherwise, it will not work.

End connection mapping-- I will not go in-- oh, sorry, there's a demo coming first. So this is about the properties acquisition and the P&ID from the spec. So what we are doing here is we are mapping a property, and it's the manufacturer. So manufacturer from P&ID to manufacturer pipe spec, and the other way from pipe spec manufacturer to P&ID pipe manufacturer.

So we placed a part in, and we couldn't see the property, so now we're doing the spec update. We just click on that symbol on the bottom-right corner. Now, you see the manufacturers-- all the properties will come in at that point in time when you update-- or for all elements in that drawing. And there was a problem before where it didn't get triggered, because there was no change in the spec, but now it's fine. If you change the spec part in the properties, and then click the update, it will come.

A little bit about the endcodes. So with the properties coming into your P&ID part, you could also use the encode mapping. For example, FL endcode will be mapped to the flanged end connections. So that means that it will display the flanges in the P&ID already, because it comes when you make the selection in the end connections.

And this one is fine for if you have the same endcodes at both sides, but some customers have many parts with different endcodes at this part. There's a way you can solve this. You go into the configuration of this P&ID part, and from one side, you take away this endcode something part. And then, you would paint your endcode here.

So you create new symbols for the graphical style in the P&ID configuration. And that means after you got the endcode acquired with the spec update, you will see the flanges. But you don't have phalanges on both sides, so you can go to the graphical style and change this. And in this case, for example, the weld will come.

Well, it's not perfect. There's a little gap. But if you put it off the line and put it in back, then it will come. This is just a side note. But finally, this is our message here. Finally there, is an improvement in the workflow. Not just that you get the selections from your spec in the P&ID, but also that you get the part according to the selection in the 3D from the line list, which is of course what everyone would expect. And that's now working.

So we will demo how it looks like finally. So you do your work in the P&ID. Again, you put in the butterfly valve in another one. But if you want different ones here-- so the first one is going to be a different type from the second one. So we have this wafer and we have the lock. And then, we want to line this to paint your pipe. And then, you insert your valves-- sorry, this one was the lock one. You can see that is from the two bolt sets, and this is the red one.

So it means it's very easy now. You don't have to do so much, you just have to make sure that all your symbols are mapped-- that's the first thing. But you have to have a spec that contains all your parts, and you have to update it frequently. And then, in the P&ID, you select your part. So the intelligence is sitting on the P&ID part, or the one choosing the parts on the P&ID side.

And somebody who maybe doesn't know so much about what parts should be used-- he's doing the 3D, and he will get all the correct parts delivered according to the spec part property in the P&ID symbol. So that's an improvement. So what makes it better is that you need less project configuration. Remember, in the first part, I was telling you about XML files and about many other things, which is a bit complicated-- this is now gone.

We don't need to configure so much-- there's timesavings on this side already-- so it's a safer and quicker workflow. It's less error prone because the 3D user doesn't have to care what part is coming in-- it should be the correct one. And we have the data the consistency between P&ID and Plant 3D. You can connect to the material management if something is not in the spec, and they will give you a number or something, so somebody else will go into the spec and create this new part, and then it will be available.

If it's not available, there will be a placeholder coming in. With the validation, you can find out where are the placeholders in a further stage of the project. After finishing the P&ID, you will already have your spec parts-- everything is prepared for using in the 3D. For this workflow, the decision of which parts are going to be taken is in the P&ID. Maybe that doesn't fit your workflow, but I think in many cases-- maybe most cases-- it's like this.

So some words about the validation. So we have this validation where we can check, for example, if the part is placed already from the P&ID and the 3D. So it's comparing the text. And we'll also check if there are parts in the 3D which don't exist in the P&ID-- maybe somebody deleted it from the P&ID. And also, you can validate the properties, as I said before, but you have to be careful with this because you don't want to overwrite properties at that point.

In our workflow, what we want to validate is actually the spec parts to the parts and the size long description on the 3D side, because those should be the same. Because what you see in the spec part property of the P&ID is the part size long description of the spec parts. And you can use the data manager and the reports. You can create a report in the data manager very easily to check if, first of all, the parts are set in the 3D.

So you see in the first line, for example, you'll find HA103 in the P&ID, but you don't find IT in the 3D. And then, you can see I used the parts as long description for the 3D part, and I used the spec part for the P&ID side. So it's going to be easy to export to Excel and just use formulas or something to compare those, and to see-- here, we don't have a fit, and we have to make it right. So that's finally it. If there are any questions, please just ask.