How to Draw Piping Isometrics in Autocad??

[suhailpo]

Can anybody tell me the step by step methods and shortcut tips for drawing Piping Isometrics in Autocad?? I dont have any experience in Isometric Draings in autocad..And companies are asking for the same.. If anybody can help me out, I can practice and try..

[tzframpton]

Are they simply single lined schematic designs, or are you trying to represent isometric details showing a good amount of detail?

 

To at least get you started, try this. Type SNAPSTYL at the command line and set it to 1. This gives you the "Isometric Crosshair". Use the F5 key to rotate the crosshair in the three different orientations it has. Next, be sure to set your Polar Tracking on, and set it at an incrementing angle of 30 degrees. As you draw, just keep in mind the isometric perception and you'll do fine. When it comes to circles, you can use the ELLIPSE command and choose the "Isocircle" option. This gives you a view of a circle at an isometric angle very easily.

 

This is the very basic setup. Come back with any more questions you may have.

[ReMark]

It might help if you look up the concept of creating an isometric drawing on the Internet. Methods used in manual drafting can easily be transferred to CAD.

[digger]

First you need to do some research to learn exactly what a piping isometric is.

There is plenty of information on the web.

There are hundreds of symbols used in the presentation of isos.

This may be a little advanced, but there is a good free piping isometric symbol image tile menu (program) at http://cben.net/.

Search for pipeiso.

Download both the PIPEISO_.zip and PIPEISO.MNS.zip.

The PIPEISO.MNS.zip is a revision of the menu in the PIPEISO_.zip.

I assume you can still use image tile menus in your AutoCAD 2010.

[suhailpo]

Thanks Digger..I have downloadwd it..and i tried to load it Autocad window using "APPLLOAD" command..but its not working..Anything wrong???

[Tankman]

If you're talking isometric symbols, this *.dwg might come in handy.

 

And visit this tutorial too http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/course/48-568/2DVideosWEB_files/frame.htm (Chapter 40).

Piping_Iso_Block_Legend_2D.dwg

[digger]

Thanks Digger..I have downloadwd it..and i tried to load it Autocad window using "APPLLOAD" command..but its not working..Anything wrong???

 

suhailpo,

Use MENULOAD.

Edited August 14, 2011 by digger

[janaka]

After looking around online for awhile, I came across your post, and found it to be 100% and a bit more useful thank you very very much.

 

Janaka:)

 

 

 

If you're talking isometric symbols, this *.dwg might come in handy.

 

And visit this tutorial too http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/course/48-568/2DVideosWEB_files/frame.htm (Chapter 40).

[mikekmx]

i do duct layouts (circular duct) all day long.

 

it's so quick and easy to do them in 3D...... draw a 3D polyline along the route. Radius the corners. Run xpipe LISP (do a search) and wala....

[dadoftnj]

I have almost 30 years experience as a pipe fitter, job planner, and pipe designer. For most of my career I have hand drawn all piping isometric drawings affiliated with my projects. Recently my employer gave me access to AutoCad Mechanical 2017. Without much experience with AutoCad I still thought this was going to be the cure all alternative to countless hours of hand drawing isometric pipe drawings. But I'm finding at the moment I can still hand draw an iso quicker than I can do one with AutoCad Mechanical. Since I've always used 30/60 isometric paper and draw to scale it's very quick to whip out a pencil and straight rule and pop out a drawing. Is this truly the program I need or is there another AutoCad type program geared specifically for pipe drawings that have a library of piping and valve components? Thanks!

[f700es]

The Vertical AutoCAD products (Architecture, MEP and Mechanical) can be difficult to learn and often require some new training and forgetting old ways of doing tasks. Have you went through any tutorials on AutoCAD Mechanical yet?

[tzframpton]

1 hour ago, dadoftnj said:

I have almost 30 years experience as a pipe fitter, job planner, and pipe designer. For most of my career I have hand drawn all piping isometric drawings affiliated with my projects. Recently my employer gave me access to AutoCad Mechanical 2017. Without much experience with AutoCad I still thought this was going to be the cure all alternative to countless hours of hand drawing isometric pipe drawings. But I'm finding at the moment I can still hand draw an iso quicker than I can do one with AutoCad Mechanical. Since I've always used 30/60 isometric paper and draw to scale it's very quick to whip out a pencil and straight rule and pop out a drawing. Is this truly the program I need or is there another AutoCad type program geared specifically for pipe drawings that have a library of piping and valve components? Thanks!

Well, this all depends. Hand sketched iso's is very fast and simple once you have the the info and not sure a CAD application can beat the time and effort for simple iso's to hand off to a pipe fitter. A CAD drafting program can be set up to produce very quick iso's once you have done it enough times but the time it takes would be the same I would imagine. Iso's in AutoCAD are honestly the same thing as a sketch on an isopad. Just different way to do the same thing. The only time this changes is when you have a specialty software that can model an entire piping system in 3D during a design phase of the project, then produce automatic isometrics in which a pipe fitting team would order material and begin fabrication from. But this calls for an entirely different approach to a project altogether. 

 

To answer your question directly: drafting in AutoCAD for piping iso's offers not much of an advantage due to the nature of simplicity piping iso's are. 

 

-TZ

[rkent]

2 hours ago, dadoftnj said:

I have almost 30 years experience as a pipe fitter, job planner, and pipe designer. For most of my career I have hand drawn all piping isometric drawings affiliated with my projects. Recently my employer gave me access to AutoCad Mechanical 2017. Without much experience with AutoCad I still thought this was going to be the cure all alternative to countless hours of hand drawing isometric pipe drawings. But I'm finding at the moment I can still hand draw an iso quicker than I can do one with AutoCad Mechanical. Since I've always used 30/60 isometric paper and draw to scale it's very quick to whip out a pencil and straight rule and pop out a drawing. Is this truly the program I need or is there another AutoCad type program geared specifically for pipe drawings that have a library of piping and valve components? Thanks!

I would say the trick to using AutoCAD for piping isos is to not draw a 2D iso, but rather a Ortho layout but viewed in a 3D iso view.  As an example, in MS, switch to a SW Isometric view, turn Ortho on.  Start drawing your iso, when you need to show a radius you just use fillet command, need a valve, insert one and it will look perfect, text is entered the same as always, just like dimensions.  No need for iso text styles, iso dim styles; no need for every block to be created in different planes, etc.  Wish you had shown that from a SE isometric view, no problem - switch to SE and finish and print.

 

When you have to show a Z direction then you will need to manipulate the UCS to input text and dims in the right location and plane, so that takes some learning but not much.

[tzframpton]

19 hours ago, rkent said:

I would say the trick to using AutoCAD for piping isos is to not draw a 2D iso, but rather a Ortho layout but viewed in a 3D iso view.  As an example, in MS, switch to a SW Isometric view, turn Ortho on.  Start drawing your iso, when you need to show a radius you just use fillet command, need a valve, insert one and it will look perfect, text is entered the same as always, just like dimensions.  No need for iso text styles, iso dim styles; no need for every block to be created in different planes, etc.  Wish you had shown that from a SE isometric view, no problem - switch to SE and finish and print.

 

When you have to show a Z direction then you will need to manipulate the UCS to input text and dims in the right location and plane, so that takes some learning but not much.

 

Great info, as always, rkent. 

 

-TZ