I made a discussion group post the other day. Matt Wright was creating a new template and wanted some suggestions about pipe and structure layers and names. I have my ideas about what works well for me and I guess James liked it, so here’s what I do. Check it out after the jump.

I create all of my pipe networks right in my template (with no actual pipes or structures added) and apply all settings to the networks so that my users just need to edit the existing networks when they want to add parts. This allows the users to concentrate on designing and not what parts lists, layers, and naming conventions to set up when they create a new pipe network.

When they create a design drawing all they will need to do is edit the desired network and start adding parts.

In the Object Layer settings there are layer settings for pipes and structures

The modifier appends the pipe network name to the layer name. Create a pipe network named “P-STM” and your new layer will be “Pipes_P-STM” or “P-STM_Pipes” if you change the modifier to Prefix.

Given a drafting standard that says:
“Thou MUST use these 4 layers for pipes; X-STM, P-STM, X-SAN, P-SAN”

The Object Layer settings for pipes will not work. Sure you can name the network “P-STM”, but the darn setting needs 2 parts; a layer AND a suffix. If we could just have the suffix (the network name) all would be well, but we can’t. You need to select that base layer…and you can’t leave it blank…and you can’t use layer 0, trust me, I’ve tried. “0_P-STM” is the layer you get.

In addition, you’re depending on the engineer, tech, drafter; whoever is creating this pipe network to use your company’s standard naming convention to name the networks properly. My motto is, “You can’t trust anyone to follow standards. People will usually follow the easy path. Make standards easy to follow (easier than not following them) and they will be followed.”

Luckily, pipe networks have a plethora of settings to make your standards easy to follow.

They have their own layer settings that override what the Object Layer settings prescribe.

Note that the default Pipe plan layer is initially set to the Object Layers default. Click the arrow on the right to set the desired layer FOR THIS NETWORK ONLY. Set up all 5 layers above and whenever you add parts to this network they will all go on the correct layers.

Of course, in your template, you can’t assign a surface or alignment. Before you add pipes and structures in your design drawing be sure to assign these.

This would be great on its own, but there are a few more things we can set up to make life easier.

In the Pipe Network Settings dialog:

You can setup naming conventions for pipes and structures. My client requires storm sewer manholes to be named D1, D2 etc. and sanitary sewer manholes to be named S1, S2 etc. I’ve left the pipes alone since I don’t need them named in any particular way, but you can see I’ve changed the naming convention to “D <[Next Counter]>”. for my sanitary network I would use “S <[Next Counter]>”.

You can setup default label styles for pipes and structures.

You can setup the required parts list.

In the profile and section tabs you can specify label styles and layers for profile parts and layers for parts in cross sections.

You’ll notice that there are no settings in the pipe network properties for label layers. I use the Object Layer settings for this.

My storm sewer labels will go on layer “P-STM-Text”.
My sanitary sewer labels will go on layer “P-SAN-Text”.

It’s all about making it easy for people. Setting my template up in this manner makes it VERY easy for my users to put everything pipe related on the correct layers using the correct styles and named correctly.