Creating New Pipe Specifications

The following article describes the typical procedure of creating new pipe specification and also several tips to do so effectively.

How to create new pipe specification

1. Select New from the File menu (or use the CTRL+N shortcut).
   

2. 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.
   

3. 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.

4. Set also the Header parameters of the pipe specification, Options, Insulations, and Virtual characteristics (if required).
   

5. 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.
   

6. 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.