Are you interested in having a voice in building a Plant community? Would you be interested in a community that helps you to be more productive in your Plant designs? A community that helps you to build relationships with your peers and enables you to have conversations with the designers and developers of AutoCAD P&ID and AutoCAD Plant 3D?

We are very interested in hearing your thoughts about how an organized Plant design community might benefit you and make you more productive.

Eileen Foran, our Plant Community Program Manager, will be conducting a first round of interviews December 14-18. She'd like to spend 20-30 minutes with you on the phone to understand what you might want to see in a Plant community.

If interested in talking with Eileen, please respond to her at eileen.foran@autodesk.com.

Some time back a friend of mine coined a phrase Heisenblogging, by which he meant you can either stop and blog about an event or you can experience it.  Doing one counteracts the other. And Autodesk University is one of those great experiences that is jam backed with learning, connecting, exploring. I didn’t make that up.

Learn Connect Explore is the AU2009 tag-line. But it is so true! I’ve been so busy experiencing AU that it has been hard to find a quiet moment to blog.

Right now there is a Intro to Plant 3D class going on -- but it is packed! So instead of attending the class, I’m hanging out in the AEC lounge. There is no one to talk Plant to – everyone appears to be in the class :-(  Perfect posting time :-)

New this year we have a Virtual AU in case you couldn’t make it here in person. You can stream the best of AU right to your desktop, including classes, keynotes and main stage presentations. Check out how you can participate in Autodesk University Virtual here http://au.autodesk.com/?nd=virtual_home&pre=1.  But be quick, day one is already half over!

I’d post photos, but that would require hiking back to my room to get the camera cable. (and I’m in heals. stupid me!)  Vegas = Sprawling convention centers. But we do have a cool Plant-photos-at-AU flickr site – check it out http://www.flickr.com/photos/plantexchange.  More photos are being added as the week progresses.

PS:  Lots of tweeting going on.  Search for the tag #AU2009.

Finally, a quiet hour to put a blog post up. This post will cover how to get a Bill of Materials (BOM) from AutoCAD Plant 3D. It’s is easy, as long as you know where the button is !

In AutoCAD Plant applications, the place to find data is the Data Manager window. In this window you can get data on items modeled in the current drawing or in the whole project. You launch Data Manager from the ribbon Home tab.

The data can be shown grouped and filtered in various ways. Unfortunately, the default setting for how the data is presented is a bit strange – it is grouped by area and then line number. This view may be interesting for some, but mostly I want to see something that looks more like a BOM.

Fortunately, it’s easy to change to the BOM view.  First, launch Project Setup, which you find on the Home tab under Project Manager fly-out.

In Project Setup, navigate to the Plant 3D DWG settings – Data Manager Configuration node. Once there, change the Default Data Manager view to be by Object Type.  

That’s it! Press the Ok button to close Project Setup and save your changes. Now in the Data Manager window you should see a view that is more like a BOM part listing.

The node that reports back just the pipe and fittings is the node labeled Pipe Run Components. As always, you will want to rearrange some of the columns, sort by clicking on the header row and/or use the hide blank columns button. You also may want to change to Plant 3D Project Data from the dropdown in the upper left so you see all the parts in the project, not just the ones in the current drawing.  

From here, you can sort, filter or edit values. As always, you can export the data view to Microsoft Excel then you can use all you MS-Excel skills to format, share and report on the data.

I think that title means “hello and good night”. And yes, I’m back in Japan. I’m here visiting EPCs and Owner-Operators to chat about AutoCAD Plant 3D. It has been a good trip so far; we’ve gathered a lot of feedback on 3D wants and needs.  Also, I’d like to report that I’ve survived Typhoon Melor, blowfish sashimi, and a lot of kanpai! without issue.

Tomorrow is our last day of meetings. Then I’ll fly back in the states and hopefully stay put for a few weeks. I’m looking forward to having time to write some more substantial posts. Following some of the customer questions here, I have plans for  a number of posts on AutoCAD Plant 3D, including ones on how to handle spec updates, how to set up data manger to show a decent Bill of Materials, and how to get line list data from excel onto an isometric. But those type of posts take time and a clear head to write. So for now I’ll just sign off from the hotel in Kokura so I’m well rested for tomorrow’s meetings.  Oyasuminasai!  

OK, I’m back home, and now more or less recovered from the 20+ hours of travel from Madrid to San Francisco. The Plant Solutions demos in Milan on Thursday and Madrid on Friday went rather well (The hotel experience in Milan went not so well, but that is a story better told in person after a few drinks.). There appears to be genuine interest in the Plant Solutions software – AutoCAD P&ID, AutoCAD Plant 3D, and Navisworks. It was a pleasure to be able to go over and show the applications. Thank you to everyone who came out and for all the support we got in hosting these events.

Looks like we are going to authorize sales in this region very soon and we are already moving on some pilot projects in the region. Speaking of sales, we just released Plant 3D on 09-09-2009, and we already have had some orders (Mike even sold some before it was released). How exciting! Again, if you are interested in taking a look, you can find links to the getting started YouTube videos or download a 30-day trial of AutoCAD Plant 3D from the Plant Group on AutoCAD Exchange.

I’m way behind on answering my email. This 3-cities in 3-days tour didn’t leave much time for correspondence. So if you wrote me while I was traveling, I promise to get back to you soon.

iWe had a great turnout in Paris for the Plant Solutions briefing – close to 40 people!  It wasn’t the best demo I’ve ever given, but our EMEA Business Development Manager extraordinaire, Mike Malkin, made sure we stayed on track.  People appeared to understand what AutoCAD P&ID and Plant 3D is all about and they quickly moved on to questions of the greater suite of products needed in Plant design – what about MEP, what about Inventor, what about Electrical and Instrumentation?

I’ve uploaded a better demo for Milan . . .ahhh, Milan.  My Milan adventure started when we decided to take a taxi from the Milan airport to the hotel – THAT was a 70 Euro adventure.  And I get dropped at my hotel (in the rain, of course) only to find it was closed. Dark. Cerrado. Padlocked and bolted. (thanks Travelocity!)  Panic, scramble, phone calls and frantic emails ensue. There is not another hotel in the area to be found for under 400 Euros, but eventually we find rooms across town.

(We means me and my boss, Jeff. Actually, We means me because Jeff had nothing to do with the new hotel choice, which he refers to as the youth hostel in the wrong part of town. Mike, being the extraordinaire traveler that he is, had a different hotel booked with absolutely no issues.  Show off.). 

Ok. I’m off to dinner.  Pizza – go figure.  Ah well, when in Milan . . .

I’m in Paris for a few more hours. Now that AutoCAD Plant 3D 2010 is out, we’re doing a quick tour introducing Plant products to Southern Europe. Over the course of 3 days we will present in Paris, Milan and Madrid. I arrived in Paris a day early so I could look around some and get over the jet lag. Looking around yesterday was great -- Paris really is a gorgeous city, and the people a very friendly. (Really!).  Also, in case you didn’t know, the Louvre is closed Tuesdays.  So no Mona Lisa for me :-( And I’m not doing so great at getting over jet lag, as it is 4AM and I’m wide awake & blogging. 

I’ve been getting a lot of questions on AutoCAD Plant 3D and if it has parts for various industries. It can be a difficult question to answer, as everyone’s project requirements are slightly different.  But in short, we do not have content (yet!) for food and beverage or pharmaceutical plants. In particular, we do not have all the multiport valves that these industries typically use, nor do we have sanitary fittings. This first release focuses on the ANSI and DIN parts used in a typical Oil and Gas, Power or Petro-Chemical project. When I get back to the office next week I’ll track down the exact list of supported parts and standards.

Ok, I’m going to attempt to nap another few hours before my 7:30 wakeup.  And hopefully the Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan will have walk up tickets available to see the Last Supper. 

Officially announcing the availability of AutoCAD Plant 3D 2010!  After many months, nay years of work, we have released.  Woo hoo!

From the press release:

Built on the familiar AutoCAD platform, AutoCAD Plant 3D features specification-driven design and standard parts catalogs to help streamline the placement of piping, equipment, and support structures. Also included in the product is integrated AutoCAD P&ID functionality and quick generation of isometric and orthographic drawings.  The new product joins AutoCAD, AutoCAD P&ID, and Autodesk Navisworks software products in a line-up of Autodesk products built specifically for the plant design and engineering industry. For more information, please visit www.autodesk.com/autocadplant3d

Read the rest of the press release, including how to purchase, here: http://pressreleases.autodesk.com/index.php?s=118&item=629

This particular release is most appropriate for piping design in Oil & Gas, Power, or Chemical projects up to $250 million total installed cost.  It does contain Isogen for Isometric generation. It contains a full release of AutoCAD 2010, so you can leverage all your AutoCAD techniques to help you model and produce documents.

While AutoCAD Plant 3D is not optimized to be an equipment design package (that would be Inventor), you can of course place basic plant equipment. It is also not intended as a structural design/detailing product, although we’ve included though  pipers’ steel for roughing in the structural elements. It is not for HVAC, nor for bent pipe.  Great, glad that’s out of the way.

Now we are feverishly working on the next version.  We welcome feedback on the 2010 release in the public discussion forum. The discussion group is reached from the main Plant group on AutoCAD Exchange.  Once there, from the Peer Support menu, pick Peer Q&A. This gets you to links for the Plant discussion groups, including AutoCAD Plant 3D Q&A. 

Looking forward to hearing your feedback.