Managing Colours and layers in AutoCAD Plant 3D

When working in AutoCAD Plant 3D you might want to have the pipes that are drawn up in different colours.

These colours might be representative of the conceptual DWG that was drawn up or you could have some preset up so that when you create the different pipe runs there is minimal effort trying to modify the colours to suite the clients preference.

To modify the colours, open the Project Setup and navigate to the Layer and Color Settings in the Plant 3D DWG Settings.

Here you will be able to either automatically define layer and color assignments when creating your pipe runs or you can manually assign them to layers that you have already created in the AutoCAD drawing template that you are using.

Creating an automation scheme is as simple as clicking New and entering a new name. If you are making a slight variation on an existing scheme, select that to start off with or create it from scratch from the default scheme which gets shipped standard with any new installation of AutoCAD Plant 3D.

When working in AutoCAD, you will mostly use the layer manager to define properties like colour, lineweight and linetype. The layer manager also takes care of properties of objects on that layer like the visibility, the locking of the objects on the layer as well as transparency of the objects.

With this in mind, when creating pipes in AutoCAD Plant 3D you will control the colours through the layers as well as the colour that is assigned to that layer. The software takes it a little further by assigning the layer to a property that the pipe has. These properties could be the Line Number Tag, Spec of the Pipe or even the height of the top or bottom of the pipe.

This property helps us identify which pipe it is. For example when you assign by Line Tag Number, the name of the layer will be 1098 or 4569 etc. Assigning the colour will also be done by a property like the Nominal Diameter, spec or layer. If you assign the colour by layer it will be controlled manually by yourself. If you assign it by any other property you will be able to assign the colour before as per the below image.

Pipe supports are also an integral part of the design and you are also able to automate the management of colours inside the Project setup. As per the below image you are able to use the same layer as the piping, have all the support put onto one layer or use the current layer. This is not managed by the software and will be a manual pick by yourself when desiging.

With any manual process there is always a possibility of errors creeping in. I always strongly suggest that if there is any automation that can be built into a design, rather go that route even if it disrupts a process that you have done for years. Change is difficult but it can also be very worth it.

Blog CTA Schedule a Demo Today

Still looking for answers? Start a discussion with other professionals in your industry! 

chat on our forum button

Was this helpful?

Thanks for your feedback!

About the Author

SHARE

About the Author

SHARE