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Adding Level to a existing MEP file


hoss

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Hello,

 

I have received a AutoCAD MEP file (Boiler House)

I received the drawing in a single DWG file.

I would live to add Project navigator and create 3 levels and then have plan view on each level to make it easier to represent

I have created a project in navigator and dragged the drawing in to Construct

I have added the levels i need in Project /Levels

But when i create a General view on level 0 (Ground Floor), it shows the whole thing!!!

I guess what i am after is to get a similar output, to what you get in revit

Can someone help me please.

Thanks in advance for your help

Edited by hoss
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I have a couple of questions.

 

"I received the drawing in a single DWG file."

 

Does that mean you received mechanical and architectural objects in one drawing? Or does that mean you received three floors of mechanical drawings in one floor? What was in the file you received? HVAC, Plumbing, Electrical and architectural? If you got a Arch background is it 3-D with AEC objects or 2-D?

 

 

"I have created a project in navigator and dragged the drawing in to Construct"

 

Does that mean you added your drawing as an element drawing, and then dragged it to a construct?

 

 

If you received a drawing that was 45 feet tall and included 3 floors and you place it into a construct, project navigator will not divide your drawing into 3 levels. it also will not divide into three if you create a View drawing. you would have to manually copy the objects from the original drawing to three separate drawings, and adjust the objects to be at the correct elevation from 0. Then you could assign those drawings to different levels. while working in those drawings they would all be at 0 elevation, so pipe elevation tags would read there elevation from zero. To me that makes things easier (when originally set up that way). If I have to place a light in a 9' ceiling on the third floor, I adjust the elevation to 9'. I don't have to add the third floor elevation to 9'.

 

 

Later if you wanted to see the floors together you would create a "spanning construct" or a "spanning view" drawing. Project navigator would adjust the drawings Z elevation according to their floor level so they would stack. A spanning construct drawing would probably only be a temporary thing just to line up objects going between floors, then you would un attach (Actualy un-overlay) the drawings. A spanning "General" view drawing would be a permanent drawing (group of Xrefed attached constructs) to annotate and later place on a sheet.

 

 

 

 

Project navigator is a huge time saver and a way to keep all the drawings organized, but in it's simplest explanation, it is just assigning drawings as overlay or attach. A "general" view drawing is a group of attached constructs. A "section/ elevation" view drawing is a group of overlaid constructs. So when you cut a section or elevation you place the 2-D result in the current "Sectionn/Elevation" View drawing. later when it is placed on a sheet, only the 2-D drawing (The section results) has to be generated because the constructs were only overlaid and not attached.

 

 

It is similar with Elements and Constructs.

 

 

Elements are attached to constructs so later when they are Xrefed they go together. The difference between Element drawings and all the other drawings in the project, is that Element drawings are not assigned a level. This way you can use an Element drawing attached to several Constructs and it will load at the level of the Construct. so a common elevator lobby or bathrooms can be attached to several Constructs on different levels. I use Element drawings for all the files I receive from the other trades, because I can swap out a newer version without creating havoc with Project Navigator. PN does not like you replacing constructs, and never use a back-up file after a crash. it is faster to lose 10 minutes of work (auto save)than to try and fix all the problems you will have trying to re-associate a backup Construct file with it's database file.

 

 

Constructs are overlaid on constructs because they are a temporary situation. Latter a "View" drawing will round up the construct drawings and their attached Element drawings so you can annotate and get ready for the sheet drawing.

 

 

The situation you have now would be easier to tackle using the "Display by elevation" because everything is in one drawing. Display by elevation will only work on AEC objects. So it would be possible to keep your drawing together, and create different "View" drawings. Each View drawing would have a different cut plane height. Any non-AEC objects you would have to control through layers. Architectural AEC objects always respect the cut plane. MEP objects have to have the "Display by elevation" turned on. In options, on the MEP Display Control tab, there is a pick box on the bottom to "Enable Display by Elevation". Once that is checked you can play around with the global cut plane height (bottom right in the drawing editor) in each "View" drawing.

 

 

Have Fun!

Edited by hertz hound
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Hello and thanks for such a great detailed reply.

To answer your questions, the drawing i have received is a piping layout, containing various different systems, i.e Gas, Oil, water supply, Steam, etc

The way it has been done, or I should say I guess, they have created all the equipments (Boilers, pumps, Dirt separators) in plain cad and inserted in MEP as blocks and located at desired elevation/position. Then Autocad MEP has been used to draw the pipes, valves, strainers, etc

All I can see in terms of the building is a plan view, which again has been inserted as block.

after checking with the site, I can confirm that the pipes are all at a correct elevation and drawn correctly. So to summarise the drawing has AEC piping objects and few blocks that has been created in vanilla CAD.

I have tried dragging this drawing into Constructs and Elements but have not had much joy.

I am going to try the Display by Elevation and see the output, otherwise have to section the drawing that different elevations as I am running out of time :(

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With your drawing open, and project navigator open (Control + 5), you should be able to right click on a level folder under the constructs and choose "save current drawing as construct".

 

 

If you wanted to change your 2-D blocks into MV parts you can use the MVPARTCONVERT command. It will only create the parts in the current drawing, it will not add them to the parts catalog. to create re-usable parts in the parts catalog you have to use the Content Builder.

 

 

You may also want to try HORIZONTALSECTION to carve out one level of the drawing and place it as a 2-D section result. I Just tried it and it seams to work on 2-D line work as well as AEC objects.

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