piping in revit 2

[Ciaci]

I start working as piping designer in a fire fighting company. I am searching a solution to avoid the time wasting of using autocad and made mtos by myself, just counting manually all the objects.

I have heard about revit mep, it seems that a bim revolution is happening and everybody talks about it. I tried to learn it, but seems that to implement all the families requires a lot of time and furthermore revit does not generate the typical isometrics (to put the dimensions on the pipes is not so easy).

Do you think that keep on using revit is worth? Do you have any advice that can help me in this implementation?
Which is your favourite software for piping system and Why? If I have to submit cad documents with high level graphic standard costumization (decided most of the time from the client), which one is better?
Do you have any book that can help me to learn this program?

I accept every advice.

Thanks

 

[dbill74]

First thing is what exactly are you designing?
Revit MEP is a modeling tool and works best in conjunction with Revit Architecture. With Revit you build your system in 3D in virtual space. And as you mentioned it is intended for doing BIM which is more than just creating drawings.

As good as it is, it does have limitations, first of which is the learning curve, second the setup. What you can do with it out of the box is limited (at least from my experience) requiring lots of time to get setup. Thirdly it is not riser friendly, if there is a lot of piping in a small area and you try to do an isometric riser, thing tend to overlap making the isometric illegible.

If you want a book to help get you started, I recommend Revit MEP 2015 from The Aubin Academy Master Series. Book

If you can get through the learning curve and get it setup to meet your needs, it is a very powerful program for what it does.

 

[PEDARRIN2]

Revit is very worth it, but set up and customization are important, but you can get past the "crowded" isometric problem.

You create multiple isometric views and you can "hide in view" piping that overlaps from other views. I use it extensively for creating sanitary and storm diagrams for plumbing.

If the client wants cad, you just export the Revit file to the appropriate cad version.

 

[dbill74]

Pedarrin,
Will you please share your knowledge of how to create uncrowded isometric diagrams of sanitary and storm systems with other engineers. I'm in a position where I review such drawings and it is a common issue where the sanitary isometric at a toilet bank is crowded to the point I cannot tell what is sanitary and what is vent.

 

[PEDARRIN2]

Create/Copy a new view of the entire isometric.

Hide in view the extraneous piping near the toilet room in question. You can put a union in the pipe so you can hide piping runs that are too long. You can increase the scale of this view and you can rotate it a bit to get a better view, as long as you stay fairly close to the isometric view angle. Also, you can create a view of the same toilet room piping, rotate it so you are looking at the other side and label it as a mirrored view.

 

[Ciaci]

Thank you very much for your advices....
The final isometric that I want to make are like this

http://www.smap3d.com/Piping/en/isometric.html.

Do you think is better learn to use smartplant 3d or pdms, or autocad plant 3d? These program generate automatically isometric. The thing that discourage me more is that I ve never seen isometrics like these done with revit. I ve never used these programs, but it seems that these are more specific for piping industrial design.
I personally faced these problem: set up the isometrics, the bill of material included in the drawings, the elevation dimensions that are not so easy to make in 3d, make customised families.

Do you have experience with these other programs? Do you think that this problem are easy to get past?

 

[PEDARRIN2]

I, personally, do not have any experience with the other software you listed.

I use Revit to make isometrics, including sanitary, storm, compressed air, natural gas, etc. There are tags in Revit that will indicate pipe size, elevation, pipe length. I use this a lot for natural gas piping isometrics.

But then, I am like a race car driver. Others make the car into a smooth driving machine. I just drive it. So, I am not really able to tell you how to set up Revit to do this.

 

[Gator]

Are you currently producing individual isometrics for your fire protection piping? I.e., one drawing for a run of pipe from, say, a pump to a sprinkler header? It sounds to me that's what you want.

For some building sprinkler systems an overall model (or arrangement drawings) is made and provided to the plumbing contractor, who then breaks the piping down into smaller detail drawings for shop assembly/fabrication. Are you working for plumbing contractors and therefore need shop fabrication drawings (isos)? Or are you working for the architect/building contractor drawing the overall sprinkler system routing for the facility?

SmartPlant, PDMS, etc are for large (sometimes huge) process plants with dozens of piping specs, many different process and utility fluids, wide pressure and temperature ranges. Since you are likely to be dealing with one fluid and material in a very limited range of press/temp these programs would be overkill.

A Revit tutorial video on YouTube seems to indicate that it can make what I call system isos but not individual isos for fabrication. Of course you could always break the system iso into smaller sections manually...



Piping Design Central

 

[Ciaci]

I make Water Spray Fixed Systems for Fire Protection, i.e. deluge system for oil and gas application. The standard that our clients asks are a plant layout with attached the mto, and an isometric with attached mto as well. Yes I have to work with one fluid and material in a very limited range of press/temp. But I would like to work with a more intelligent program then autocad. I have to face a lot of equipments with very long list of materials like flanges pipe gasket, nozzle, nipple, foam maker, foam pourer,elbows,tees etc... Gator which program could you recommend me?

 

[bimr]

Look into PROCAD 3DSMART:

https://www.procad.com/products/3d-smart/

 

[Gator]

Yes, Procad is good from what I hear, and you can download a demo (I know the owner, as it happens).

Piping Design Central

 

[Ciaci]

Thanks a lot bimr and gator. Why do you think that this program is the most appropriate for my purposes?

 

[dbill74]

Like Pedarrin, I don't have experience with programs other than Revit.
Something I have noticed is numerous companies offer Revit Families or models of their products (foam maker, valve assemblies, storage tanks, etc.). These families include connection points and sizes of applicable utilities. These companies often allow you to download their families free of charge. Can or do the other programs use Revit models? I don't know.

As far as creating isometrics like the ones you linked to, yes Revit can do those. (Those are the kind of isometrics Pedarrin and I are referring to with sanitary, storm and gas systems.)
Regarding the issue of materials such as flanges, nozzles, nipples, foam makers, etc. Revit can count and keep track of such things. Revit is BIM (Building Information Modeling) software.

Something to keep in mind, the A/E industry is heading toward Revit as its 'standard'. What these means is that architects and MEP engineers are using Revit to create building in virtual space. These models are commonly shared among the design team for coordination purposes.

 

[Gator]

It seems to me from what OP has said that the fire protection work is in oil and gas, so I'm not sure if his/her industry is A/E. Does this look like what you do, frances?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFyXkesMTp0

The link below suggests that people doing fire protection systems have been wanting certain software features for some time and mentioned in the page are some commonly used specialty programs for that industry that may be worth looking up.

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/autocad-mep-wishes/so-wheres-autocad-fire-protection/td-p/2216725

I'm pretty confident that PDMS and SmartPlant can be removed from the list of suitable candidates.



Piping Design Central

 

[Ciaci]

Yes Gator, it look what I do. Why do you think that pdms and smartplant are removable from this list? What do you mean as A/E? Thanks I will search in this forum

 

[bimr]

Procad can generate material templates to report BOM's.

However, as with may electronics products that are frequently oversold, the proof is in the pudding. Take a test drive and see if it serves your needs.

 

[Gator]

PDMS and SmartPlant are very expensive, non-trivial to set up/configure and need someone to "administrate" the software. They are very complex, database-driven-only programs that do not run on CAD software.

A/E stands for Architecture/Engineering (last time I checked), which is what I originally thought you were doing.

Piping Design Central

 

[Ciaci]

Ok...I understand.. Yes my company did also works where A/E stands are needed. But this is no my case... Did Procad make customization of material? does it make also ortho views? Graphic standard can be modified in autocad after the isogen? Is it simple to find tutorials on internet? Thanks