Autodesk University | AutoCAD Plant 3D—Ask the Experts

DAVID WOLFE: Good afternoon. I have 3 o'clock. Are you guys doing all right? How many have been to AU
one time? Is this your first time? Second time, third time, fourth time, fifth time, sixth time? I

don't even remember how many times I've come. Good.

I've met, I think, three new people this morning on the way to breakfast. So I hope you guys
are taking advantage of all the classes. It's a lot of fun. There's a lot of stuff to get into your

head. And I know sometimes it's overwhelming. But good. I hope you guys are taking

advantage of it.

This is Jason Drew.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

Jason, do you want to give a little spiel about yourself.

JASON DREW: Yes. I've worked in product support team, enterprise support with Autodesk. Started there
back in October 2011, starting on the front line team, basically, working with a lot of different
customers. Moved over in 2012 to the enterprise support group. So work with a lot of larger

accounts, bigger companies.

I started out with mainly IT support and then shifted over to using intergraph smart Plant P&ID,

doing P&ID design and P&ID administration. And then finally, got over into the Autodesk
products. That was around 2010. So I've been using the AutoCAD Plant 3D and P&ID since
the first releases, probably when [INAUDIBLE] started. And it's just still doing that today.

DAVID WOLFE: I am David Wolfe. I started using CAD Works in an engineering firm. Where am I and where's
the speaker?

JASON DREW: Somewhere.

DAVID WOLFE: So I started using CAD Works, then I switched to working for a reseller, ECAD, and we
changed over to using Plant 3D about five years ago, I think. Four or five years ago. And

we've been working with that, written some documentation for Autodesk about figuring

isometrics and setting up projects. And then, we have a blog, pdoteam.com, and I am on the

forums a lot, so trying to help people and make sure we all figure out ways to get stuff done
that we need to.
 So what we are going to do this afternoon is I'm going to go through, give a brief overview of
things that we picked up in 2016. Every year I find something new about Plant that is just really

exciting to me. Hopefully, it'll be exciting to you guys. If not just fall asleep and then I'll know

who's bored by what I'm talking about.

But we'll go through some of those things and then we're going take a look at troubleshooting

issues. It's really helpful for me to be able to categorize what type of issue I'm having. It's also
helpful for people, when you're getting support, to know what files to give to them. So we're

going to go through some of those topics real quick and then open it up for question and

answer time.

So nothing's off the table as far as questions that you ask. However, we have no idea what the

product is going to look like next year. So obviously, we can't tell you this feature will be in it or
will not be in it. We can't make any promises.

I could say 2018 is best release that you're ever going to see, you need to buy it right away.

But obviously, we'll have to wait to see it before we say that.

JASON DREW: And even though I work for Autodesk, it's a publicly traded company so there's things that I

can't really say legally. But we cover what we can.

DAVID WOLFE: Yeah. So let's go ahead and get started. Hear from top troubleshooters on common issues. So

when I think of top troubleshooter, I'm basically the guy that hits his head against the wall
more times than anyone. So I'm just really stubborn about trying to figure things out. So

there's no real glory there.

So we're going to look at some of the top tips, discover common solutions, ask your questions,

and guidelines. We went through the introduction. I have a tendency to say all the things and

then realize where I am in my speech so that's why I'm going through all the slides right now.

So there's introduction. So that's who we are, ECAD, Inc. video team. Some quick tips on

where you can go for help. So the forums, there's a lot of people on the forums. I'm a big fan

of getting help.

You talk to me, you talk to Jason Drew, you get one idea. You talk to someone else, you get
another idea. So come together we can all get a lot of good ideas about how we're solving our

problems.
And then, if you download the PowerPoint, there's going to be the links in there, so go back--

Did you guys know that all this information is online? Raise your hand if you did. OK. So all the

class materials are online for all the classes. So go back, throughout the year, and see classes

that you missed. But the links will be here.

So there's a PDF that we put together with the top questions and solutions from Autodesk. It's

really comprehensive, going from P&ID through modeling and setting up your project

structures in isometrics. Then there's also de-mystifying AutoCAD isometrics, which is more of

a deep dive just into isometrics and some of the XML stuff that you get into.

So top tips. First of all, automatice line list report. So one of the hurdles that we have had for a

long time is finding a way to generate what we pipers would consider a line list. Most of the

time we use a product it gives us a list of all the line segments, or something like that. Well,

that's not really a true line list, if you know what I mean.

So let me go ahead and let's do this. So let's get into a line list. Let me go ahead and start
Report Creator. How many of you are familiar with the Report Creator? If you're not you need

to spend more time in the Report Creator. It is one of my favorite aspects of Plant 3D because

it is extremely flexible and you can do a lot of really fun stuff. And I just get really geeky about

Report Creator stuff. So please, I apologize.

So I'm going to go to the report layout so we can take a look at what's happening behind the
scenes. So the big hurdle is we have two classes one is the line groups class. And then that

captures and stores all the information for the line segments that are related to the line

groups. So it's really important that you get your tagging and things figured out for this. And we

talk about that a little bit later.

But what this Report Creator, this particular report format lets us do is it takes all of those line
segment information, it takes the equipment from and equipment to information, and applies it

at the line group level so that you can get just a list of the line groups. But you also get the
relevant equipment from and equipment to information.

So to demonstrate that I'll show you the preview of it while I cross my fingers. And there's a
blog article-- and this happens every time, by the way, so you just hit Cancel and keep going.

There's a blog article that covers this in depth.

It gives you, right here, you have the automatic P&ID line list download. So you can download
that. And it's basically the report configuration that I'm showing you. And then there's some
steps you do to configure a project. It goes through all the steps, shows you some option, and

it goes through the basic stuff you do.

So the deal is, I wanted to make a report. Because we do set up for a lot of clients, I want to
be able to make one report that I could try to work for all of our clients. So it has to be really

flexible.

So I'm using parameters. Like here, we use some parameters and say, I can determine the

order that the line tag appears just by putting in the column names here. So there's some
really cool things that you can do.

And let's switch over. So the highlight is you have your line tag format. Like here's the from
information that's combined, tk 1 and tk 1,003 and 1,004. So there's something you wouldn't

get out of the normal line list report. So it combines that force.

And then also, if you look at the bottom right, you have the combination of the drawings that
are related to that line group. So 1,001, 1a1 1,001 and 1a1 1,002. So things that-- You can get

that information for free. It's in the database. it's just not in a good format for our Report
Creator to use it unless you do some behind the scenes coding, which is what took place
there.

And if you really want to geek about-- So there's a Scripts button, and you can use C#. And so,

what I did in the background is wrote some scripts to save all that information and process it
together. So there is that. The next thing. So that's a free download, you can go to that.

Next thing is a fabrication bill of material. So this is obviously going to be dependent on who
you are and what you do. But some clients need to be able to generate a bill of material that

doesn't group the items together. And one of the awesome things about AutoCAD isometrics is
you have so much control over the grouping.

And let's go ahead and go back. So here's the itemized bill of material. So basically what we
do is we created a database ID that shows up that we can use in isometrics. And we add it to

the iso output. And then in the iso XML we have the aggregated list. The aggregated list is just
a way to say this is your bill of material. This is how we're combining everything together to

know when we need to get unique rows.

 So we add the database ID so that we know that everything in the model has a unique ID. So

then we say, if we group on that then we will get a unique row for each thing in our project. So
I did that for all the items. And then you can scroll down and you get one row for every single

item. Now obviously, if you look at the quantity row, one, it's kind of redundant but it works.
And you get the output you need.

AUDIENCE: Can you subtract the shop material from the field material?

DAVID WOLFE: The question is, can you subtract the shop material from the field material? I don't know of a
way to do that because when you display the shop and field items it totals them in separate

lists. So there's no--

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DAVID WOLFE: Yeah. So they basically, each list checks a different property and then filters based on that

property. There's no comparison between the two. Good question.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] can you export [INAUDIBLE] material, shop materials listed [INAUDIBLE]

DAVID WOLFE: Yes. You can do it separately.

AUDIENCE: Is that global material pretty much out of the box or do you have to test the lines that you get

back [INAUDIBLE] export?

DAVID WOLFE: This? This is customized. But that's what this article is showing, that you can do it and the

steps to do it. And the only reason I that bring it up is because you can do so much with the bill
of materials. I'm not going to say you can do anything you want to but you can come really

close. So there's a lot of power there.

The next thing, dynamic nozzles for equipment. So this is-- I'd better hurry, huh? So one of the

other issues you have with equipment is that, for example, you can control the projection of
the nozzle off the head because it is hard-coded on a bent nozzle. Last year or the previous

year we discovered that if you put the word "custom" in the component designation property
you can basically have in your properties list any-- let me see if I can hit this hyperlink.

So here's the illustration of the example. You pick your bent nozzle, and we want to be able to
control the projection of the nozzle off the tank. So this is basically driven by being able to set

the custom, the word "custom" in the component designation property in the catalog.
 Once you do that you can control all of the dimensional information and make it just like a
custom part. That's from the piping component. So in this blog post we provided-- I'm pretty

sure I put the download in there. Yup.

So I updated the entire nozzle catalog so that the word "custom" is on all the nozzles. And so

you can download this, replace your current one, and then you can have custom nozzle of any
projection and length.

JASON DREW: And works for parts too.

DAVID WOLFE: It works for parts, it works for everything. We had a client ask the question, again, about doing
it. I was like, let me look again. It had been a while since I'd looked at it, and tried it, and--

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

JASON DREW: [INAUDIBLE] the setting, there you go.

DAVID WOLFE: Yeah, I was really excited. So that's available, again, for download. And then, last thing is, we
have a plugin, also called Fasttrack Plant. I'll just touch on this real quick. If you'd like a demo

we also have more information in the store on our website about it. But it has a bunch of little
features we put in to just kind of make life easier.

One of them is moving attributes. So by default, let me double-click to get model space. So by
default these attributes are linked. It's really annoying because you have to create multiple
invitations to move them around. So we made this OrientAttributes command, and I can do

move, pick my attribute, and move it around. So that saves-- just little things like that that save
some time.

We also did a spec-driven extension. So for example, I can come in here and tell my valve
what kind of valve I want to have. And it looks at my 3D spec. And then, you can tell it to
control and show the end types or not. You can also check to see which valves are out of
spec. So let's see.

So for example, if I turn on Show out of spec valves, those vowels get flagged because they're
not the right end type. And it looks back at my piping specs to see that. And then, you can also

tell it to show end types or not.

One of the other features we have on the modeling side is a line list palette, just to make it
 easier to find and isolate lines. So I can come over here to Fasttrack 3D, pull my line group
viewer. And let me close this. So this looks at all the lines in the model. And I can come in
here, I can filter. If I wanted to filter I can type in here, or I can come in here and do Isolate.

And then you have options for how you want to isolate. And instead of trying to find it and
browse to it you can go to Zoom. And you can also select from the palette. So these are just

usability things. It just makes it easier when you're trying to find lines and select lines you have
to go find the first component, find the last component, and select.

The retain ISO information, a lot of times, if you're trying to isolate a line you turn the layers
off. You also just turned off the ISO information. So we can leave that on based on the line
number that it's associated with, and you can still see it.

This also has the related models. So one of the other issues we run into is, let's say, you were
running a line, 1,010, and you're running it model two. And then you go over to model 3 and
you keep running the line 1,010. Then you go start a new line but you forget to change your

line number. Well in that case, you go to run the ISO, you have two different lines because you
ran it in two different places but you don't know where it is.

So what this does is it groups the line numbers by the drawing they're associated with so that
you can see what line goes through which models. And so you just do this and then refresh
the tree. And you didn't see that. [AUDIENCE LAUGHTER] Yeah, this is a beta test for 2020.
[AUDIENCE LAUGHTER] So, troubleshooting.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DAVID WOLFE: Do what?

AUDIENCE: Get to send a report?

DAVID WOLFE: They're tired of hearing my reports. So line numbering. Real quick, before we get into other
topics. Line numbering is probably one of the things we see wrong most often.

The issue is partly because of our nomenclature. When we talk about a line number we're
talking about a line from pump to tank. But we're also talking about the unique numeric value

that is part of our line numbering system. So because we confuse terms a little bit it's easy to
get mixed up with what's going on.
So when we set up tags for a line numbering system we need to think of these in two ways.
One of them is first of all, the line group tag. And I keep running back and you just stand here
and talk.

So when we're talking line group tagging, there are two ways that we typically see like groups
tagged. You have your line number value or you have your service and your line number.
There's a few exceptions to that, but like 90% of that you see service and line number or your

line number.

But what happens is, when we go see clients, or whatever like that, we'll walk in and see, look
at their project set up, a lot of times you see in the line group tagging, they'll put the size, the
service, the line number and the spec. That's incorrect because it gives you multiple values,
multiple unique values because it includes the size. So you could have two-inch p 1,001. You
could also have three-inch p 1,001. Well, your we data is wrong now because you have two

different groups but they're both 1,001. So that's one thing you want to make sure you get
right. And if you go through the tailoring AutoCAD P&ID Plant 3D it kind of explains that in a
deeper sense.

The other thing you want to make sure you do is you get your tagging set up first. Don't
change your tag format through the middle of a project mainly because, then you're going
back and you're re-tagging everything manually. And that's a big pain. I'm just trying to save

you a headache. So don't do that.

Along with the tagging, the way you need to understand how you display the tags. So the first

way you display the tags in P&ID is you're using annotations on line segments. So that's where
you put your size service-line numbering set up. It's on the annotation it's not in the line group
tag.

The second way you do it, on the 3D model or on the orthos and on the isos, you would want
to use calculated properties. And we have a blog post on that, setting that up. So those are
just two, or I guess, three big tips to help you get started without-- Make sure you research

these issues or check yourselves on your project set up before you go through these.

When you're done about troubleshooting we're looking at isolating the scope of issues. You're
trying to figure out where your problems are occurring. And these are really general.

So you have your P&ID scope. And these are all in the handouts and documentation so I'll just
 go through them real quick. So if you're looking at your P&ID symbol issues you're going to try
and figure out if it's in a drawing file, if it was in your project folder content, or the template, or
your tool palettes.

Tool palettes basically just hold a reference to the name of the Symbol Style, so there's not
really too many issues except in the configuration process. Tool palettes, which is AutoCAD.

The templates in your drawings are really the only other places that you're going to have
issues.

3D modeling, your issues are going to fall into a few categories. Your drawing your models,
your project folder content, your piping specs and catalogs. So that's where you want to kind
of break down where you're modeling issues are coming from, if they're coming from your
specs, if they're coming from some project settings for the current model.

Isometrics. Oops, too fast. So there's a little more. These are a little bit harder to get into

because you can have issues from your 3D model and your line, if you don't have property set
correctly, like symbol keys or types, those could be wrong. You could have your isometric
DWG holds information about the items that get placed in the model. Your ISO style can need
tweaking, and things like that.

And then, orthos are a little simpler. You basically have your project styles, and then your 3D
models and your ortho templates.

Then the database. How many of you like databases? Really? Come on guys. Can we please
be more geeky?

So I don't know, I guess I started liking databases--

AUDIENCE: The first time you [INAUDIBLE]

DAVID WOLFE: --after-- no, no, no-- after I spent three weeks doing a manual takeoff on P&IDs. From that
point on, I was like, there's got to be a better way to do this. And then I started learning about

databases. And then it became much clearer about why I need a database and what the
importance is.

So there's a lot of stuff going on in the database. Tagging is something that we can look at.
Information that maybe duplicate information is where we look in the database, and things like
that.
 Project folders. So if you're having trouble with your project, your settings are going to be
stored in project folder content. If you're having trouble with your isos, pretty much anything
that you're going to see is going to be in your isometrics folder.

So if you have a problem with your P&IDs you can pretty much just send us a project folder

and the P&ID folder. You don't need to send us the isometrics folder, you don't needs to send
us an inspections folder. If you are having trouble with your isos we need a sample model,
your iso styles, and maybe, if you've customized your symbol keys, maybe your isometrics
folder.

But that's just some overview things. So let's go ahead and get in Q&A. Who's got a question?
In the back.

AUDIENCE: On orthos, bolt quantities. It comes out there's a second quantity instead of each bolt, But it
does not come out that way [INAUDIBLE]. Are you changing all the Report Creators? And the

isometrics will come up as individual bolts, but I cannot find a way to make the orthos come up
as individual bolts.

DAVID WOLFE: I agree. [AUDIENCE LAUGHTER]

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] you're going to fix it.

DAVID WOLFE: Not that I know of. We have very little control over ortho, the way it makes a bill of material. So
you're generating isos and you're putting bill of materials on your orthos?

AUDIENCE: Generally no. If we have a small project then we will send out just an ortho.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

AUDIENCE: Small. And then we mainly have corner [INAUDIBLE].

AUDIENCE: If you don't do iso then it will be a project bill of materials. So you're [INAUDIBLE]

AUDIENCE: I usually-- So honestly, the way I prefer to do it is, especially for the small projects, I'll do a bill

of material through the Report Creator, export to Excel, and then link the table to the AutoCAD
file, and bring it in a link to AutoCAD table, and then you don't have to worry about it.

AUDIENCE: But then your annotations--

DAVID WOLFE: Yeah, yeah. Well, I also did a plugin to fix that. That's kind or, yeah. So there's not there's not
a good way around it. Yes?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DAVID WOLFE: No. But we do write plugins for people.

AUDIENCE: You just run an iso and draft a bill of material on the iso and piece it on the ortho. [INAUDIBLE]

DAVID WOLFE: Or you still have the issue of the annotation-- you still have the annotation issue.

AUDIENCE: I'll stick with orthos. How do you show insulation on an orthographic view?

JASON DREW: I had that question a few weeks ago. I couldn't get it to turn on and shut off. The installations
were like, it goes outside the pipe, it's just sort of graphical. I don't think it's really physical. And

I don't think they've ever really implemented that to show it in there. So it would have to be
something new they would have to put into the product, unless Dave wrote something that
makes it shut off.

AUDIENCE: Can we just place a 2D model--

DAVID WOLFE: I'm sorry.

AUDIENCE: Can we just place a 2D model [INAUDIBLE] I just don't understand why it doesn't show it as an
important part of the process.

DAVID WOLFE: Point insulation display doesn't work.

JASON DREW: Pretty sure I turned that all the way up. Then I ran ortho again, it didn't really drop it into a
layer. We've also tested going out to NWC files. If we can get it in there, but the ortho doesn't
seem to pick it up. So it's been logged with the Plant team.

DAVID WOLFE: That reminds me, I was going to do a-- [INAUDIBLE] So first we have bolts in ortho
[INAUDIBLE] Then you have insulation on orthos.

JASON DREW: Was it the quantities on the bolts, is that right? Yeah, the quantities.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] grouping of the quantities. [INAUDIBLE] but on the isos it groups it.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]
DAVID WOLFE: Have you thought about putting-- have you thought about putting-- no, never mind. Dumb
idea. Do you place a annotation, place the insulation as an annotation so it calls out the
insulation thickness on ortho? Do you?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] The insulation there on the specs

DAVID WOLFE: Part of the issue is people show insulation different ways. Very few people want it all over their
drawings.

AUDIENCE: You want to be able to turn it on and off.

DAVID WOLFE: Good question. Next question? Yes.

AUDIENCE: Could you walk through [INAUDIBLE] how to make the transition from full SQL to [INAUDIBLE]

DAVID WOLFE: Well, you don't start easy do you?

JASON DREW: There's a whole paper for that, a whole white paper.

AUDIENCE: It's not that difficult.

DAVID WOLFE: Let me see, how to transition from-- So, are you talking about transitioning a single project, or

just starting a project from scratch with SQL Server, or like the business workflow, or what are
you looking for?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] trying to keep a master project going. And then, every time we add additional
custom parts or additional specs, you can look back, always taking that [INAUDIBLE] back into
this master project where we're trying to create our projects from this master project template.
And when we do decide to go to full SQL, is there a way to make sure we get all that

information captured and move to full SQL Server so we don't have to go back?

DAVID WOLFE: It's virtually-- you don't really do anything different other than when you're creating your
product you just choose SQL Server. The paths stay the same. You still-- how many of you
use a network path for storing your specs? You don't use a project [INAUDIBLE]

AUDIENCE: We want to start doing that. We're actually on Vault. We're a little taking our time.

DAVID WOLFE: It works sort of the same way in Vault except for the fact that you can't use network path
specs. All the specs involved are relative to your project.
JASON DREW: And in 2017 they've put it in there. 2017.1, it's now in project manager. It helped a little bit
going to that. But I guess, first step is get it over SQL Servers. So you got to spin up SQL
Server, migrate SQLite over to the SQL Server. And then that's going to be your master
template project from that point out. And like you said, you could just pick that from the project
setup wizard and-- I mean, any new project you can create, you can either create those on
SQL Server or not, or SQLite, you can go either way. You're picking a template, right?

DAVID WOLFE: I mean, I usually keep my templates in SQLite and just create the new projects in SQL Server
because you don't really need the database structure at all.

AUDIENCE: Can you use a Vault?

DAVID WOLFE: Vault's a different animal. So it's kind of a larger discussion than we can do in this class.

AUDIENCE: Is there consent of the [INAUDIBLE] data? Is there [INAUDIBLE] of the data?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] data that [INAUDIBLE] the server.

AUDIENCE: What [INAUDIBLE] What version of Vault are we using?

AUDIENCE: Apparently 2014.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DAVID WOLFE: So you definitely want to be on the later releases. So when you're using Vault--

AUDIENCE: I'm actually running [INAUDIBLE] completely because I'm not able to use 2014 Vault. 2017
[INAUDIBLE] So I'm not running anything but Vault besides PDFs that convert [INAUDIBLE]
eventually are able to use 2017 Vault after that.

DAVID WOLFE: So you can create a project template that resides in Vault so that you have template folders

with the Vault access permissions and all that other stuff, which you have to do that
separately, obviously, from your template on your network. But the process is still the same.
You go start a new project, go through the wizard, just say it's with Vault, and then it's going to
store the template up there.

So there's not really a lot of behind the scenes configuration as far as the database goes, for
saying this links to here or whatever. The only time you get into issues, really, is if you change

database names, where are you trying to move a project from SQLite to SQL Server. And then
 there's the utility you need to use. But again, it is still not complex. You just have to know
where to go.

I'm pretty sure there's white papers on migrating from SQLite--

JASON DREW: Yeah. There's a whole white paper on the whole process of setting up a new SQL Server with
SQL Server Express, which is free. And you can load it on there and then it tells you how to go
and use the utility to migrate it up. It helps to have a database admin in-house. But if you don't,
you can bring somebody in to help you go through that and make sure everything's
transferred properly from SQLite and is in there.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] its own server?

JASON DREW: Well, yeah. Usually you would have a dedicated SQL Server.

AUDIENCE: AutoCAD Plant 3D?

JASON DREW: Yeah. You could run it on--

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] could Vault?

JASON DREW: And that's going to have a SQL Server on it too. So you can put projects in there. I've seen
people do that.

DAVID WOLFE: It's not like it's going to work. The issue is how many people are you throwing at it? SQL

Server is really robust, thousands of people can use a SQL Server. Microsoft sets this up to
run huge things. The issue is, from an IT perspective, they're going to say, best practice is
always to separate the two because then you're not sharing resources between two different
products. So that's why we'd would say separate SQL Servers.

AUDIENCE: So separate Vault, separate Plant 3Ds.

DAVID WOLFE: Yup Just divvying up the workload.

AUDIENCE: If it means anything, I've gone back and forth [INAUDIBLE] You can [INAUDIBLE]

AUDIENCE: If this is Vault it will never, it will never [INAUDIBLE]

DAVID WOLFE: Yeah. So the Plant database stays separate from the Vault database the entire time. So you
have your Plant data and then they are always caching the data locally and then drawing a file.
 So if something happens to be database, move it from the project, add it back, and you have
the data back in the database. So virtually, the only time that I ever see data loss is if

something's crashing in the middle of a save, or something like that.

JASON DREW: Or if somebody's in Vault messing with projects they shouldn't be seeing. You have to watch
the permissions there. But then, that's pretty straightforward.

AUDIENCE: So you'd say, set up the SQL Server, dedicate it for Plant 3D. And I'm going to go in, create
your project, and choose the SQL Server, and then you select that server that you've
dedicated for [INAUDIBLE]

DAVID WOLFE: That just goes right through the doc wizard.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

AUDIENCE: After you're done.

DAVID WOLFE: So in the process, the new project wizard says, do you want to use Vault or not? And so, you
pick your Vault then, you also pick your database details as well.

AUDIENCE: It also has a spot too where it says copy [INAUDIBLE] the project settings from an existing
project. So if you just tap that for whatever, whether it's a SQLite or [INAUDIBLE] We actually
did the same thing, where we had a template and we were unable to purge classes so we had
a whole SQL Server set up not knowing that the template probably didn't need to be a full SQL

instance.

We recreated the whole project, the template project, into a SQLite. Just been running with
that ever since. And so, every project going forward that's utilizing this template as the settings
are structured, that's going to be a full SQL project going forward. [INAUDIBLE] template just
resides as just a SQLite, not actually utilizes SQL Server.

DAVID WOLFE: Very good. Next question. Oh, never mind. Anyone else?

AUDIENCE: One of our most costly mistakes right now has to do with dimension continuation. And,
dimension continuation, as in XML setting for the iso config file that says that the dimension
line is going to go past the weld and the dimension of the next page. Seems to work fine on

Tees. It doesn't seem to work fine on stoppable 90s and a variety of other fittings. Wondering
if there's a filter or some other setting to get that thing to work right?
 What we've had issues with is the designer will or the detailer will one, not drag that dimension
and manual changes, like it's supposed to. So then the shop will read that dimension as the
center, and the center dimension [INAUDIBLE] incorrectly. We've had situations where they
did drag the dimension from wherever it decided the dimension [INAUDIBLE]. They drug it to

the continuation and then didn't manually change the dimensions or the correct dimensions.
So we had pipe valves with the wrong dimension. So that has been a very big source of pain
for us.

DAVID WOLFE: What's wrong about the dimension on the elbows?

AUDIENCE: It just doesn't work [INAUDIBLE] dimension for the continuation of an elbow. It'll do it to a Tee.
It just [INAUDIBLE]

DAVID WOLFE: Is it still trying to go? Is it trying to go to the elbow and just not working?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] it will. I don't know.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

AUDIENCE: Yeah. [INAUDIBLE]

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] positioned correctly it just doesn't go to the [INAUDIBLE]

AUDIENCE: We want all of our dimensions to be center to center, and then, all of a sudden, you get this

dimension that goes to an edge.

DAVID WOLFE: That's one of those I'll have to take a look at.

AUDIENCE: It included a list. Yes. All things. It works for Tees. That's it. It doesn't [INAUDIBLE] for the user

or a stoppable 90, or a [INAUDIBLE], or an original, whatever. There's a lot of different things

that it doesn't work with. Just wondering if that's an XML setting or is that something that's
coded and it's not going to run?

JASON DREW: Are you using Plant 2016?

AUDIENCE: Yes, and '17.

JASON DREW: And do you see it on both?

AUDIENCE: Yes. I actually just started with '17 [INAUDIBLE] And then I went to--
JASON DREW: So it could be something they need to make a code change in to fix. So I don't know of any
workarounds for that one.

DAVID WOLFE: Yeah, we'll have to take a look. Did I spell your name right?

AUDIENCE: Yes sir.

DAVID WOLFE: All right.

AUDIENCE: Do you have any plans for exporting to IFC?

DAVID WOLFE: The question was, are there any plans for exportng to IFC? Have you heard anything?

JASON DREW: I haven't from in-house [INAUDIBLE] Yeah.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

JASON DREW: What's that?

DAVID WOLFE: We have no-- We can neither confirm nor deny reports of exporting to IFC.

JASON DREW: I'm pretty sure it's on the Plant Idea Station as an idea to vote on to have that in there as a
future feature.

DAVID WOLFE: Do you know where the Idea Station is for Plant? Are you familiar with that?

AUDIENCE: I didn't the hear the [INAUDIBLE]

DAVID WOLFE: Are you familiar with the Plant Idea Station?

JASON DREW: That's like part of the communities, Autodesk communities.

DAVID WOLFE: So this is one of the biggest ways that Autodesk knows what's important to you guys. They're
tired of me voting up every single idea. But what you can do is go here and kind of take a
gander through the list and vote up what's important to you. And then they rank those, and
sort those, and go through and see what features are important. And they fix them various

times. Trying to remember the last--

There's a whole list of ideas. You can do a search for IFC and vote it up. Yes?

AUDIENCE: Is there a way to import a line list from an Excel spreadsheet to populate the P&ID
 [INAUDIBLE]?

DAVID WOLFE: No.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

DAVID WOLFE: So the difficulty is-- The question was, is there a way to import a line list from an Excel
spreadsheet to populate a list of line numbers? On the 3D side, you care about the most, I
assume?

The issue is, well, so no, the issue is every-- I mean, we could do that. We could create a-- I
could do it with plugin but--

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DAVID WOLFE: Do what?

AUDIENCE: Properties would constantly be changing based on who you're working with or who the general
contractor is. [INAUDIBLE]

DAVID WOLFE: He's asking mainly just to be able to prefill instead of having people type out line numbers.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] we're always working in a [INAUDIBLE] But it changes based on the facility you
were working in. If somebody has a, like you remarked earlier, the two-inch or three-inch Tee
you want are 101, that would change your [INAUDIBLE]. You won't always have the same
problem.

DAVID WOLFE: Right, right.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] descriptions?

DAVID WOLFE: Yeah. There's no way to do it right now. We could add it as a plugin feature. Huh?

AUDIENCE: I think that it could be possible.

DAVID WOLFE: I'd have to play with it. The issue would be if the project got audited it might clear out the line
group table on the P&ID side. And then it wouldn't have the information [INAUDIBLE]. I might
be able to look at--

JASON DREW: Would you use the external database reference to-- I guess you would have set up a lot of
fields to do that.
DAVID WOLFE: I don't know. Because it does expect an AutoCAD object for the line items and the P&IDs in
order to preserve them. So

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] plugin [INAUDIBLE] You did fail to see what that--

DAVID WOLFE: But all of those items listed in the data manager are associated directly with an object in
drawing file. So there is no ghost entities or anything like that.

AUDIENCE: Well, they are associated with the 3D drawing file, the [INAUDIBLE]

DAVID WOLFE: No, it's either in the 3D drawing file or it's in a P&ID. So not at this time. The middle of the
three people raising their hands. Blue shirt. Yes.

AUDIENCE: When we're [INAUDIBLE] creates a [INAUDIBLE] layer for [INAUDIBLE] And it used to be that

[INAUDIBLE] I'm using '16. I don't think it's fixed in '17, but I cannot purge the [INAUDIBLE]

JASON DREW: [INAUDIBLE] into that so far.

DAVID WOLFE: I know I've run into the layers. I've run in to being able to purge it. So the question was, when

you create a line number it creates two layers, one for the line number itself and one to line
number underscore fasteners after it. And so they want to be able to purge a layer. Do you
move with the fasteners to the line number layer?

AUDIENCE: No.

DAVID WOLFE: Why are you trying to purge it?

AUDIENCE: Just to tidy up the layer manager

DAVID WOLFE: There should be objects on those fastener layers. Because-- so what it does when you
connect a pipe--

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DAVID WOLFE: Pardon me.

AUDIENCE: It is all [INAUDIBLE]

DAVID WOLFE: Right. But when you connect a pipe and an elbow there is a weld. And there's a connector
object that's the parent of that weld. That connector is actually on the like 1,001 underscore
 fastener layer. So that's why you can't purge it.

AUDIENCE: In 2013 you could.

DAVID WOLFE: I'm sorry.

JASON DREW: They may have fixed something in '13 and that's the way it works now. And then before it
would just wipe it out.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DAVID WOLFE: As long as there is an object on the layers AutoCAD isn't going to let you delete it. Sorry. Next,
in the back.

AUDIENCE: I was [INAUDIBLE] in forming the line numbers. We've created a [INAUDIBLE] custom new in
the data manager for the line number groups in 3D. While we can't populate new line
numbers, we can export to Excel, add additional information and import back in, and these will
change the line numbers [INAUDIBLE] So as long as you just gave it a generic one,
[INAUDIBLE] export it out [INAUDIBLE] Excel and import back in, that works.

DAVID WOLFE: Right. So what he's on about is custom views. So you can create drawing custom views or
project custom views. Before 2016 there was a bug so that these never actually displayed on
the 3D side. But in 2016 and later, when you include the line group information it will list the
custom view for that.

So, this will be the example of-- I created a custom view called line groups. And then you can
go import and export to and from Excel. What I would do is I'd export to Excel and then take a

look because the sheet names at the bottom-- so the sheet name has to match. But then as
long as you get that and then you get the column numbers, like the cap tag column where the
P-- You're not going have the P&PID.

So real quick, an aside.

AUDIENCE: Use export first [INAUDIBLE]

DAVID WOLFE: In his case, he has a prefilled Excel spreadsheet. It's not going to have the P&PID in it. So you
have to do a custom import and export to tell it which column to use as a tag, basically. So
that--
 [INTERPOSING VOICES]

AUDIENCE: P&PID in the Excel spreadsheet?

DAVID WOLFE: You don't have to.

AUDIENCE: It sounds like if you were to have that prefilled Excel sheet, export out of here, [INAUDIBLE]
correct it will just transfer the data to a prefilled sheet so the export--

DAVID WOLFE: But you don't need to. If you do this and set up a custom export you can bring information in
from an Excel spreadsheet. So what you're seeing here is you're seeing your line group on the
left and your property list on the right. And so, right now the P&PID is checked as the unique
ID up at the top, UID.

Well, that's not going to be the case in your spreadsheet. So you do something like check the

tag, or you might have a different field that shows your entire line number [INAUDIBLE]. So
you would check that and then you could say, you would just type in the column name.

What it expects is the first row of your Excel spreadsheet to have the column headers. So you
make those match and then it's going to import those to the Plant 3D properties. So once you
have-- Once you tag a line then you can import the data.

AUDIENCE: Is there something on the line that wants to do this? [INAUDIBLE]

DAVID WOLFE: I think so. I'll make a note to post about it.

AUDIENCE: Thank you.

DAVID WOLFE: Next question.

AUDIENCE: Have you or anybody else had any trouble with Plant 3D locking up for about 10 seconds
when you hover over a pipe support?

DAVID WOLFE: No, never. [AUDIENCE LAUGHTER]

AUDIENCE: We're having that issue and it's slowing down progress.

JASON DREW: You're running on SQL Server and network's OK?

AUDIENCE: We're not running on SQL Server.

JASON DREW: So it is SQLite out of the box. I have seen where latency across the network, if you hover over
something, it's trying to poll the database to pull up the tool tips information. It could cause
something like that. Do you see it if you have a new project just sitting on your desktop or
local? And is it fast whenever you do it that way?

AUDIENCE: Honestly, I haven't tried it.

JASON DREW: Maybe try that and see. If it's faster when it's on your desktop, it's slow when you're pulling it
off your network connection, it's probably something going on there because it should be
pretty quick. I can't thing of anything else that would slow that down.

DAVID WOLFE: It's probably something with the tool tips generating [INAUDIBLE] Does it happen with anything
other than supports?

AUDIENCE: No. [INAUDIBLE] catalogs. In fact, everything's on the network [INAUDIBLE]

DAVID WOLFE: Wow, you found a weird one. Good job. Hovering over supports makes it 10 second later--

JASON DREW: It's a tool tip. We'll pause. Just one second.

DAVID WOLFE: All right. Next question.

AUDIENCE: In the tag line properties is there a way in your configurations, can you guys add another find
command [INAUDIBLE] configurations. [INAUDIBLE]

DAVID WOLFE: For classes?

AUDIENCE: Yes.

DAVID WOLFE: So the question was, we need a way to find classes and class structure in project set up. That
is true. Yes we do.

AUDIENCE: Can you find through the XML files [INAUDIBLE]

DAVID WOLFE: Yes you could. But the XML for the class structure is really convoluted. So it makes my eyes
go cross-eyed. I go cross-eyed when I'm looking at it. Yes.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] and you close out, open back up, and add [INAUDIBLE]

JASON DREW: So that's after you-- Not even like update in ortho view or anything like that?
AUDIENCE: Just an ortho in a lay out. You do an ortho view, you [INAUDIBLE], annotate [INAUDIBLE] the
tag [INAUDIBLE]. And you close that out, open back up, and there's a--

JASON DREW: That sounds familiar.

AUDIENCE: So we have multiple layouts under one ortho control.

JASON DREW: What version of Plant are you running?

AUDIENCE: I've tried it in '15, '16, and '17. Same thing.

JASON DREW: I have seen with dynamic blocks, it can kind of throw things off. Did you have any specialized
annotations that you use, or is it all out of the box?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DAVID WOLFE: Oh, Carlos. Come on man.

JASON DREW: That sounds familiar but--

AUDIENCE: I can eliminate layout back to one or two layouts per drawing, and that issue will go away. You
get above about six layouts per ortho drawing and you start having [INAUDIBLE]

JASON DREW: I was going to ask Quinten. He snuck out. He may have ran into that before. We could check
into that because it sounds familiar. But it could be a limitation with the way it's working with
those layout tabs. And if there's more than one it's getting confused.

AUDIENCE: We have also had to-- It's almost like a ghost image, where you bring in that ortho in in a
layout. If you do a different-- We're doing some as-builts for a modeling [INAUDIBLE], and if
you bring in a different-- a section of that same line segment with a different view, it will pop up
instantaneously over here in this layout. When you refresh, and it will go away.

DAVID WOLFE: Wow.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] essentially is [INAUDIBLE]

[AUDIENCE LAUGHTER]

DAVID WOLFE: How are you handling your xrefs? How big are your drawing file sizes? Do you know?
AUDIENCE: I don't know but [INAUDIBLE]

DAVID WOLFE: You use a lot of xrefs? Is it possible that someone might be inadvertently moving an xref?

AUDIENCE: No. There's only two of us working on this.

DAVID WOLFE: I know you're perfect, but I'm pretty sure I've caught myself inadvertently moving xrefs before.
I guess, for lack of anything else I can think of, maybe try and make sure the xrefs are at zero,
zero.

JASON DREW: There have been some issues where you've got multiple people working and they're working
on the project drawings, you're trying to generate orthos, and the ortho you retain is actually
trying to lock those files. And they just fixed that. I think that's coming out the next whenever
update they do. But that was a problem for a while. You're always going to have people
working on the drawings where you are trying to run the orthos throughtout the day.
Developers recognize that and put a fix in for it.

AUDIENCE: We were having spooling with PCFs from the fabrication software. Is there a tolerance setting
anywhere in [? [INAUDIBLE] ?]

DAVID WOLFE: Yes. So the question is, they do spooling and they need to see if there's tolerance settings.
They added those in 2016. And there is some stuff that you need to enable in the XML. But
basically, in the XML you can give it the tolerance that you want.

AUDIENCE: Are you talking about weld caps?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] fittings.

AUDIENCE: Just PFs between reading out the tolerances at 0.0001.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] when it's easiest to disconnect [INAUDIBLE]

AUDIENCE: It's more [INAUDIBLE] spool [INAUDIBLE]

DAVID WOLFE: So this is where you would set the offset tolerance. And this is in the default connectors config,
that XML. But you can go through and set the offset tolerance. And then you would have to
reconnect anything that's existing. But then in the future, trying to connect anything, it would
see it to make a connection even if it's within that distance.
JASON DREW: I think the slope tolerance is degrees and the offsets in decimal inches or something. Because
if you go too far it won't let you do anything.

DAVID WOLFE: That's weird. Definitely tested it but in 2016 and above it will recognize a tolerance.

AUDIENCE: I'm also seeing [INAUDIBLE] split into spools based on their length. And on their [INAUDIBLE]
fit in this spool set up to a false spool number or volume and stuff. It doesn't seem to obey
those rules in [INAUDIBLE].

JASON DREW: Is that with the PCF side out of the fabrication?

AUDIENCE: Yes.

JASON DREW: It can be some of the way fabrication creates its PCFs because Plant 3D, when you set a
boundary, like the maximum for a spool, it's going to break it up on its own. But coming from
fabrication I'm not sure how they do theirs.

DAVID WOLFE: Do you have this checked at that the top, place maximum field welds?

AUDIENCE: No. We ran tests, we uncheck those two, and [INAUDIBLE] to the spool name for max out
those numbers. It still [INAUDIBLE]

DAVID WOLFE: I'd have to take a look. I don't--

JASON DREW: And you said it's on 2016?

AUDIENCE: And '17.

JASON DREW: Oh, and '17. Because I know there were some fixes around the spool sizing that was added
recently. But we can check on-- I can check on that one. Follow up.

DAVID WOLFE: Let me make a note. Is it every 20 feet?

AUDIENCE: It's about 20 feet.

DAVID WOLFE: Like 19 feet or--

AUDIENCE: It would split somewhere around 20 feet and then we would make the spool 5 feet long
[INAUDIBLE]

JASON DREW: I guess you could note that those are from Fabrication CADmep and not Plant PCFs. Shouldn't
 matter--

DAVID WOLFE: Do you know what software is generating the PCF?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] it's probably.

AUDIENCE: Fabrication CADmep.

DAVID WOLFE: Hi, how are you?

[AUDIENCE LAUGHER]

AUDIENCE: Behind GNC.

DAVID WOLFE: Dark jacket.

AUDIENCE: So we upgraded to Vault 2016 earlier this year, and it did help us get rid of some of our issues
we were having with Plant 3D. What's the future? Should we keep upgrading?

DAVID WOLFE: Oh, you mean like every year?

AUDIENCE: Because I think last year somebody gave us, talked about-- I don't want to be out of line but
360 or something like that. I am wrong by saying that?

JASON DREW: Oh, so Project Calgary would be beyond Vault, if you want to start getting into the clouds. It
just came out, public beta, the other day. So you can go out and sign up for that.

I'm trying to think where posted that publicly. But it's out there now on the beta site. If you go
to the beta site and sign it's one of the projects you can join and you can download.

It'll be a special build of Plant 3D. You could probably install it on a separate machine or
something, but it'll be like 2017.1. You can go in there and either take an existing project, push
it up into the cloud and into BIM 360 Team and then invite people to it.

And what it's going to do is, sort of like a Vault project, where you work in local. And then when
you save it's going to synchronize the drawing file up to the cloud. And it's going to
synchronize the database information.

So far, it works pretty good for even people working worldwide. You don't have to really mess

the whole Vault infrastructure. This takes care of that.

AUDIENCE: Does it [INAUDIBLE] Vault solution?

DAVID WOLFE: You obviously want to give the Project Calgary time to mature but I'm going to say it's going to
be easier to set up and run and maintain than Vault will be.

AUDIENCE: How do you feel about Vault?

DAVID WOLFE: Next question.

[AUDIENCE LAUGHTER]

AUDIENCE: I guess that's what my point is, is we're a small firm but it seems like we have issue after issue.
It doesn't seem like we can do a project without having some kind of prevalent issue. And my
3D administrator always convinces me that it's the user. And it's really hard for me to believe
that 20 users are always messing up [INAUDIBLE]

DAVID WOLFE: It is hard.

AUDIENCE: It's just that workflow that they have to do, and if they don't dot that one I the P&I does crash.
We're talking about 13 P&IDs on a project, we're talking about maybe 50 lines. We're not huge
at all. And I would say, out of the 23 [INAUDIBLE] projects we have maybe two of them did not
have the [INAUDIBLE]

DAVID WOLFE: Are you working in just one office?

AUDIENCE: We were working in two offices but using Vault.

JASON DREW: The problem started with Vault. It was OK before, or-- Did the problem start when you
switched to Vault? Was it OK before?

AUDIENCE: It's Vault. It's Vault. We're on the servers. We're on a server that's horrible because of the
connection speed was just-- had had it's own problems. So then we were convinced to go and
put Plant 3D [INAUDIBLE] and we did. And then we were told, well, you got to go to 2016, and
we did. And knock on wood now, because the one or two projects that we had [INAUDIBLE]
2016 seem to have--

DAVID WOLFE: 2016 Was a big improvement. I'm not going to say it's easy.

JASON DREW: There's dos and don'ts with it, I can certainly say. And you want to be careful with who you let
into the Vault. Going into the Vault client, is if somebody goes there and messes with some of
 the files-- Again, if you delete a file physically out of the Vault for a planned project, that's it.
And you have to go back and restore it all. It's--

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] have that [INAUDIBLE] then the administrator has to rebuild everything.

DAVID WOLFE: So on that one, if you know which file they deleted, if you can just get the Vault to put the file
back and undelete it, then you're OK.

JASON DREW: In theory. Because if you get the--

DAVID WOLFE: I think I've checked a file back into Vault in the same spot. No, because Plant stores the ID
now in the Vault. That changed.

JASON DREW: So the vault master database doesn't know where the Plant one is. And it's-- yeah.

DAVID WOLFE: Yeah. The people getting the client, honestly, people getting in the client has been the biggest
issue that I've seen, where it just kills people. If you can just keep it with using the project
manager it can be OK.

JASON DREW: Yeah. One person that to be in there knows what they're doing, and the rest just--

AUDIENCE: Start using permissions so that people can know. Most people cannot accept the [INAUDIBLE]
and the pen user can check out.

DAVID WOLFE: Yeah.

AUDIENCE: Can I just ask a question of the group on this? We're getting started [INAUDIBLE] we want to
get some sample projects and we have [INAUDIBLE]. It's working well. We have [INAUDIBLE]

DAVID WOLFE: Multiple location.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DAVID WOLFE: Pretty much multiple locations is if you have two offices--

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DAVID WOLFE: It depends on the distance, the latency.

AUDIENCE: Yeah, ours is latency.

AUDIENCE: The users is complaining about how long it would take for them. 10 seconds would have been
a dream for some days. [INAUDIBLE] Vault. If you work them over on the computers, and that
just completely went away. But then there's other things that Vault-- you have to have a very
good workflow and make sure that everybody in both offices are not going rogue, that they're
all working off of that workflow. [INAUDIBLE] definitely [INAUDIBLE]

DAVID WOLFE: We have a couple of clients using Vault well. And we don't get many calls from them. We have
a client that refuses to listen to us and does everything that we we tell him not to do. And
they're having a huge trouble adopting Plant in 3D because they won't stay out of the Vault
client, and won't keep the right people out of the Vault client.

I apologize. The time has gotten away. Class is going to 4:00, right? I think. Where's my

phone?

So, fill out your class survey if you can and go to AU mobile app. You can go by the Answer
Bar. You can go to our website videoteam.com and contact us, get on the forums. And we're
here to help you. So thank you guys.

AUDIENCE: Thank you David. [INAUDIBLE]

[APPLAUSE]