Mapping Pipes and producing drawings

I have been looking into a way of mapping out pipe routes. I have been asked to produce a CAD drawing of thick water pipe and I have spent a bit of time on google educating myself, but I also thought I would ask here.

What is the easiest most cost effective way of mapping a pipe run? Would I use laser technology or gps? How would this then by implemented into cad software such as Autocad Inventor? I can of course go around like I usually do with my little laser measurer and a tape measure and wheel and plot it this way, but I am trying to look beyond that.

Does anyone have any experiences in the above, would love to pick your brains!

You have posted this question in the 3DS Max section. Not really the right software for the job.

I have moved this thread to the Autocad General section.

You have posted this question in the 3DS Max section. Not really the right software for the job.

I have moved this thread to the Autocad General section.

Oh dear, I didn't mean to post it there. My apologies!

I depends on the complexity of piping, the amount of detail required, the geographic size of the routing, and how precise you're drawings need to be. Is your project more like a pipeline, a pump station, or a process plant?

If we are talking about pipes that one might find in the ground such as sanitary sewer, storm drain, water, gas or electrical conduit then the best method would be to survey it in.

Like Remark our surveyors would use a combination of tools GPS to establish a survey station, tape measure offsets, total station survey. If it all in roads and clear site then probably GPS only. The intruments convert to useable format for import into say Civil 3d.

You still need to be carefull just because you found the cover does not mean that the pipe is directly below it.

"You still need to be carefull just because you found the cover does not mean that the pipe is directly below it."

And just because you find a manhole cover or a catch basin grate doesn't mean the pipe was installed! A major construction firm doing an interstate highway project in my home state was found to have installed catch basins but no pipes connecting them to anything (like storm drains!). The firm hired to oversee and inspect the work never caught on. What a mess that turned out to be. The contractor went out of business, the company that supposedly did the inspection got a multi-year ban from doing any state highway work, and the bonding company had to shell out millions of dollars to pay for digging everything up and making it right. So all the new pavement had to be stripped off, the work redone, and the highway repaved.

Remark yours certainly beats ours where old 1000's of plans were converted to our GIS system from paper construction plans as pipes that were built, every now and then some were never built, there was no cross check done. when we find them we update the GIS.

Thanks for the replies guys. The pipe route is above ground, it's not very complex but it needs to be accurate in relation to key structures on the plant.

I'm after a laymans deception of these stations that are set up, how they work as I am looking to purchase and learn how to use the equipment. There seems so many different equipment on the market!

You may be better having qualified or experienced personal do your field survey, just buying a total station does not make you a surveyor, the instrument company will happily sell it to you.

These days with one man total stations and GPS we have 2, it can be in-expensive to have some else do the survey but with you maybe supervising the detail required.

The equipment comes more expensive with its recording accuracy. A $135 GPS is accurate to about 5m. This would probably be ok if you were doing 100km.

I will probably get a survey expert in, but it's something I want to learn about and offer as a service.

I'm just not seeing a "total station" as being the way to go here. I work at a chemical plant and I can honestly say trying to "survey" in all the piping would be a nightmare not to mention very costly. We have hundreds of pipes running overhead some 8 to 10 meters above grade at all kinds of different angles and weaving in and out of each other.

Is there any method of producing accurate as-built drawings for complex plant piping that isn't nightmare? I start off with a survey of major equipment, structures, and tanks, and the rest is pretty much a tape measure, a Disto, and a clipboard.

All the buildings, tank farms, loading docks and pipe trestles can be surveyed in using a total station. Unless you have the time and knowledge to do this and keep up with all your other duties I'd farm this work out to a local surveying company.

The location of all tanks (you do know their diameters already right?) can be part of the first survey or you can tackle that job on your own once you have the base mapping.

As for the piping, well, if I had to do it at my company, on my own, I'd have to stop everything else I'm doing and probably devote a solid two to three years of measuring it all up and drawing it out. Unfortunately, I'd have to return to sections of it every so often because existing pipe runs constantly get changed in some manner (additions or deletions) and new pipe runs are added every few months. It took me two years, on a part-time basis, just to map out all the utilities here (process water, nitrogen purge, steam, condensate, chilled water and cooling water).

Let's return to your original question re: thick water pipe.

What is the diameter of the pipe?

Is it insulated?

Is it flanged?

Are there a number of valves included as well?

How many process buildings does the pipe go to?

Is most of the piping overhead and not easily accessible?

What level of detail would be required for mapping this one pipe?

Now, off the top of your head, how many pipe runs do you imagine your site has? Taking into account the answers you just provided for one pipe run, consider the effort it would take to do ALL the piping as it currently exists without taking into account any changes to it or any new additions in the future. Can you handle this task all by yourself and still meet the needs of your department/company?

Considering taking on the task all by yourself? Then take a look at this review of PhotoModeler done by Cadalyst magazine.

http://www.cadalyst.com/general-software/photomodeler-6-first-look-review-3648

Then take a look at the EOS Systems, Inc. website re: Photomodeler.

http://www.photomodeler.com/index.htm

PhotoModeler retails for $1145 U.S.