Plumbing Isometric

[mparks.161070]

Has anyone ever used a 3D view for a plumbing isometric with annotation, sizing, etc. We have been doing them in CAD, which seems kinda silly.

Any thoughts?

[Michael.c]

Has anyone ever used a 3D view for a plumbing isometric with annotation, sizing, etc. We have been doing them in CAD, which seems kinda silly.

Any thoughts?

Yes that's an interesting one....the same has occured to me in the past, too.
The concept of producing ANY type of schematic drawing in Revit, be it an isometric, or a "flat" schematic (air schematic / piping schematic etc) is something that I just cannot come to terms with!
For one, it is not part of the model.
Also, there are no co-ordination benefits, as it purely a topological (is that the right word?) representation of the design intent.
And there is certainly no benefit in "spinning it around" in 3D! Why would you ever WANT to look at a schematic from a different angle!!!

So, can someone please explain? Are there any benefits? I cannot think of any.

[Erno56]

a 3d view will not give you a true 30/60 riser
you cannot break lines to indicate crossings
a simple system "may" work on some projects

[cwade.109269]

Yes that's an interesting one....the same has occured to me in the past, too.
The concept of producing ANY type of schematic drawing in Revit, be it an isometric, or a "flat" schematic (air schematic / piping schematic etc) is something that I just cannot come to terms with!
For one, it is not part of the model.
Also, there are no co-ordination benefits, as it purely a topological (is that the right word?) representation of the design intent.
And there is certainly no benefit in "spinning it around" in 3D! Why would you ever WANT to look at a schematic from a different angle!!!

So, can someone please explain? Are there any benefits? I cannot think of any.

Actually, the benefits are obvious, one we must provide riser diagrams to get plans approved in many areas of the U.S., so since the Risers are required, the benefit of an Automatic Riser Diagram is that it would always be up to date with the changes made in the drawings.

Having to create this manually is a coordination nightmare, if you change something on the floor plans, it should be updated everywhere, this includes schematic plans.

So again, the benefit is that the Riser diagram would always be up to date and since the riser is required, we need a way to accomplish this.

As for the 3-D thing, yes that is one way that we have considered using to get around this issue, but unfortunately you can't put in tags in a 3-D view, only dumb text that will not update when you change a fixture.

[Michael.c]

Actually, the benefits are obvious, one we must provide riser diagrams to get plans approved in many areas of the U.S.
Well yes ok, the benefits of a schematic as such are obvious. of course. I interpreted the question as being "what are the benefits of having a 3 dimensional schematic" and THAT is where I fail to see any benefit.



So again, the benefit is that the Riser diagram would always be up to date and since the riser is required, we need a way to accomplish this.


I can see that the "automatic update" of the information / engineering data within a single line "flat" schematic would be beneficial.

[sgermano]

As for the 3-D thing, yes that is one way that we have considered using to get around this issue, but unfortunately you can't put in tags in a 3-D view, only dumb text that will not update when you change a fixture.

Your right, a 3d section box seems to be the best solution at this point in time, problem is like yo said you can not tag pipes nor equipment in this view, which eliminates any parametric portion of annotation you have in a 3d iso. Other problems you will find is the breaking of pipes to show them not intersecting, its very difficult to create a good working iso from a 3d view, but it can be done. I hope to see this issue addressed in the 2010 release, it has been mentioned several times.

[cwade.109269]

I wouldn't expect much from 2010.

[JoelLondenberg]

Has anyone ever used a 3D view for a plumbing isometric with annotation, sizing, etc. We have been doing them in CAD, which seems kinda silly.

Any thoughts?

This is the method we've settled on - see the attached picture. It seems to be the most BIMish option, all the views and annotations are as parametric as possible. The ISO/3D view isn't noted up, but we place it directly adjacent to the plan view and plbg wall elevation views. The 3D view helps you to orient yourself, the flat views give the detail.

I think that there is a good chance we will be able to argue this method through most any plan check office, for the ones that won't accept it - it's back to the drawing board...er...drafting view.

[sgermano]

Joel- Have you found that when plotted it can be very difficult to identify which pipes are not supposed to connect since there is no "pipe breaking" if you will. In color it looks great and easy to see your different systems and follow it, but when in black and white its much more difficult. Im assuming you issue in black and white plots. What has your experience been with this?

[zbrown]

This is something that I have questions with as well. We are using Revit 2011 now and there still seems to be no good solution for Plumbing Isometrics. At this point if the pluumbing plan is in anyway complicated we draw up the schematic in AutoCAD and import it into Revit as a drafting view to note it up. I like the idea of a 3D view that could be used as a solution but there are still to many problems associated with it.I wish ( maybe this would be best suited for a wishlist) there was some means for revit to create a Node to Node relationship between plumbing fixture that are associated on a system. Then I could go in and adjust that node to node view and make it visble and mark it up. This would be an ideal way of dealing with Plumbing Schemartics. Then as floor plans are adjusted, the schematic would update, The idea of Revit is that information only has to be input once, but for Plumbing this is not entirely accurate yet.

[timsea81]

One of the engineers at our office tried this on a large building but the end result wasn't readable and it was overruled and re-done in a 2D drafting view. I haven't done it myself but I remember reading on here a while ago that you can get some level of "automatic updating" between the riser and the model by using shared parameters and tags. This could work for information involving equipment but you'd still have to draw your pipes twice, which really isn't a bad thing!

Having the riser in 2D and not linked to the model catches mistakes. If you move a pipe into the wrong place or connect it to the wrong thing in the model and then issue the set with the mistake in both places, the contractor is going to build it that way. If the mistake is just in the model then the floorplan doesn't match the riser, which is a lot easier to catch either yourself, or when others review the drawings, or by the contractor.

[sgermano]

Wow old thread! You make a good point. It is a nice check and balance, I would still like to be able to add a riser or equipment tag in a drafting view without having to tag a piece of equipment but rather pick the equipment name from a list.. similar to selecting a panel when circuiting power devices. I believe this would push most people to do their one lines in Revit instead of CAD. The drafting really is pretty fast in Revit once your used to it.

Anyway lets cross our fingers and hope Aprils Revit release brings some long awaited upgrades!


One of the engineers at our office tried this on a large building but the end result wasn't readable and it was overruled and re-done in a 2D drafting view. I haven't done it myself but I remember reading on here a while ago that you can get some level of "automatic updating" between the riser and the model by using shared parameters and tags. This could work for information involving equipment but you'd still have to draw your pipes twice, which really isn't a bad thing!

Having the riser in 2D and not linked to the model catches mistakes. If you move a pipe into the wrong place or connect it to the wrong thing in the model and then issue the set with the mistake in both places, the contractor is going to build it that way. If the mistake is just in the model then the floorplan doesn't match the riser, which is a lot easier to catch either yourself, or when others review the drawings, or by the contractor.

[Misteracad]

I was looking into this yesterday for a client and found the following. Perhaps it will help...

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/oc/offer/typ?siteID=123112&id=14626821&section=1 (http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/oc/offer/typ?siteID=123112&id=14626821&section=1)

[JoelLondenberg]

...The drafting really is pretty fast in Revit once your used to it....
I whole heartedly agree with this, I much prefer ordinary line by line drafting in Revit over AutoCAD. I get frustrated about all the missing functionality, AutoCAD's snaps have nothing on Revit's.

[zbrown]

I whole heartedly agree with this, I much prefer ordinary line by line drafting in Revit over AutoCAD. I get frustrated about all the missing functionality, AutoCAD's snaps have nothing on Revit's.

I am surprised to hear somone say this. I find Revit drafting to combursome when compared to AutoCAD. Am I missing something? Is it just an issue where you have used it enought that you are now more comfortable with Revit? Our office has some pretty custom AutoCAD standards that make drafting really easy especially when it comes to Plumbing Iso's so I can't imagine it being easier to do this drafting in Revit.