Creating Drawings from 3D Multi Story Plumbing Model

[Sirrojo]

I need to generate individual floor plans and annotate the piping with location and size, yet I have constructed the entire model in one drawing. I still am coordinating with other trades and need to keep my model all together so that when things need to move, It gets moved once, not in multiple drawings.

 

I have tried to treat it as an xref and clip the xref for the floor to ceiling, yet I can not find 3d xclip option. I considered using a section view and but when my drawing is already 30+ MB I fear that 5 section views in the same drawing could become ferociously large/slow/crashy!

 

I tried to setup the Project navigator thinking that with the levels determined I would find a magic tool that only exist via the PN, although I think that was a failed effort as I still was unable to eliminate piping above/below the floor I tried to setup.

 

A little help would be grand!!!

[hertz hound]

I need to generate individual floor plans and annotate the piping with location

and size, yet I have constructed the entire model in one drawing. I still am

coordinating with other trades and need to keep my model all together so that

when things need to move, It gets moved once, not in multiple drawings.

 

I have not seen projects get coordinated more than one floor at a time. I have seen a project get broken down into 3 divisions per floor for coordination. The last job the wet mechanical file was 100M for one floor. I hated to have to open it when I need to avoid something in his drawing.

 

I have tried to treat it as an xref and clip the xref for the floor to ceiling,

yet I can not find 3d xclip option.

 

I don't know how xclip would work if the file has no xref's because it is all one file. Did you start a new file and then x-ref this file into it? Either way I don't think there is a 3D x-clip

 

I tried to setup the Project navigator thinking that with the levels determined

I would find a magic tool that only exist via the PN, although I think that was

a failed effort as I still was unable to eliminate piping above/below the floor

I tried to setup.

 

If I was to set it up in Project Navigator at this point, I would set up a construct for each level, Then copy with base point your objects from the floor of your current drawing to the new construct for that level. This is going to give you a drawing for each level, which you said you don't want.

All of your new levels would be at 0 elevation but when they are x-refed they are stacked to the correct elevation based on the floor levels you set up in project navigator. Now when you want to annotate you drawing with pipe elevations it should make things easier.

 

The only other way I can think of would be to set up cut planes in your paper space view ports. I believe you can have different cut planes for different viewports even if they are in the same layout tab. You would have to go to options

 

I really don't know what effect this will have on your drawing. The enable display by elevation button should be selected before anything has been drawn. when it is selected after objects may need some tweeking. now you are entering the world of the display manager, and although I have a pretty good understanding of what goes on in there, and adjust things when I have to, I try and stay out.

 

It seems that everybody has a different work flow or office standard. Most of what I have seen, the trades draw each floor in a separate drawing and use paper space layout tabs for there sheets. I guess they like having everything in one drawing (except the x-refs)

 

I like project navigator and everything drawn at 0 elevation, and having a model only drawing. all the annotation gets drawn in the "view drawing" and automatically gets updated as things change.

 

Some draw each floor in a separate drawing but at whatever the floor elevation is. I would imagine they use the display by elevation option to help keep things straight. I haven't tried but I am curious what they have to do for there elevation tags. Do they use custom property sets or does the elevation control take care of that?

 

I hope some of this helps.

[Sirrojo]

I think the cut planes is going to be the way to address this, although this is a challenge like you stated it will require some tweaking. I don't quite understand what the correct settings for the global cut plane. When I selected the display my elevation box all my pipe in the top view disappeared, although I think this is where the cut plane comes into play.

 

Thank you for the response, I agree that the floor by floor approach is the most efficient, although trying to cut the floors at this point in the challenge, I cannot determine the best way to "trim" all the pipes across the same plane, other then to individually break and extend the pipes back to each other, and xref them back together.

[hertz hound]

 

I cannot determine the best way to "trim" all the pipes across the same

plane, other then to individually break and extend the pipes back to each other,

and xref them back together.

 

That is the way I would do it. use the break command to cut all the pipes. Then copy with base point into a new drawing for each floor. After they are in separate drawings x-Refd together, I would drag all the ends back together.

 

I would think you could break all the pipes quickly in a front view.

[Sirrojo]

I have been enlightened by the fine folks at Autodesk that there is a way to xclip a 3d model. I can't believe its as simple as it is but here you go.

 

After xrefing the overall model into a new drawing, you need to change to a front view and reset the UCS to from X,Z,Y to X,Y,Z and then with the UCS essentially rotated you can use xclip to clip through the front view. After that has been done revert back to the world UCS setting. Then after clipping the xref, the next key is to alter the display settings in plan view to include the model view and I'm done.

 

I would have never processed the thought to rotate the UCS to use the xclip command which is essentially locked to only operate in the X,Y coordinate plane. With this understanding of the limitation of the XCLIP to only X&Y. This is such a direct and simple way to accomplish the task, I step back and wonder if I would have ever figured this out on my own.

 

I give full credit to Dave P @ Autodesk, and I only hope this explanation helps lots of others from having to separate multi-floor models ever again.