The following article describes the typical procedure of creating new pipe specification and also several tips to do so effectively.
Select
New from the File menu (or
use the CTRL+N shortcut).
In
the Pipe Specification Columns dialog, select one size parameter (on
the left) and required non-size parameters
(on the right). The order of the non-size parameters can be modified
using the arrow buttons.
Specify
the piping components in the Content
section.
Select Add new row to add a
new row.
To do so in a quick and efficient way, you can use the following tips:
Selected row(s) can be duplicated within the pipe specification
using Duplicate row, available
in the context menu. It is useful mainly when defining several
components with the same key
name, which differ just in some parameters. For the duplicated
rows it is then satisfactory to edit these parameters and (re)select
the proper standard part file within the respective standard
parts provider.
Rows can be copied
from other pipe
specification. If there are two (or more) pipe specification
opened (which have the same number of parameters!), it is possible
to copy rows from one to the other (using Copy
rows and Paste rows
from the context menu).
The
value of one parameter can
be edited/set in several rows at once. When selected
multiple rows and the ALT key is pressed, setting a value for
any parameter sets the same value for all the selected rows.
For better clarity,
the content can be filtered by values of any column. The filter
row, which appears between the table header and the pipe specification
rows, can be switched on/off by the Show
filters in the Settings menu.
To
check the pipe specification's content for the rows with the same
key name (could
be even different key names with the same parameters set in the
Advanced mode of the common settings) and values
of all available parameters,
Mark non-unique entries
(available in the Pipe specification menu) can be run. It marks
all groups of the equally defined components with the same shade
of blue color. One of the entries within such a group should be
set as Favorite
(it is used by default) or the parameter's values should be modified
to define unique entries.
Set
also the Header
parameters of the pipe specification, Options,
Insulations,
and Virtual characteristics (if required).
Enter
a Pipe Specification Name (it should describe the given pipe specification
and should be unique) and Pipe Specification ID, which must be unique.
Pipe specifications in version 10 (and above) are identified by their
IDs. The main purpose of pipe specification
names is the text information (for users). Pipe specification name
is used for the pipe specification identification only in case, when
the matching ID cannot be found.
Save the pipe specification using
Save or Save
and close. In the Save As dialog, which appears, you can set
a name for the pipe specification file (if you want to have it different
from the pipe specification name) and its location (if you want to
store it somewhere other than the Pipe
specifications folder).
During
the save operation, the pipe specification is checked for non-unique
entries and existence of individual components within the database
(or other storage) of the current standard
parts provider.
For each value of the size parameter used within the pipe specification
content, a pipe component should be
defined. Pipe component means a component
with a key name which
has set the Is
Pipe attribute (typically Pipe
and Shape pipe).
If it
is required to only have generated parts within the pipe
specification, Generate
parts from the Pipe Specification menu should
be run. Please note that generating bigger amount of parts may be
time-consuming.