Defining Equipment Geometry
Each piece of equipment is built up from a set of
elements. Each element has associated with itself an elemental shape. The
elemental shapes that are used to create equipment elements are:
The elemental shapes and their parameters are described in Appendix B, Initial Equipment Library. Each element contains a set of placement variables. This set is the same for all elements. Each elemental shape has a set of dimensions associated with it. This set varies from element to element.
Elements may be of type:
- solid (default) - these are the elements that make up the physical parts of the equipment;
- service - these elements graphically represents space the equipment needs to be have available for servicing the equipment; or
- obstacle - these are what the router sees as volumes to avoid, obstacle boxes must be placed around solid and service types to prevent pipes from being routed through those elements (obstacle elements are ALWAYS boxes); All elements are drawn in CAD by default except for obstacles.
There is a set of main attributes associated with each class of equipment. These attributes include the dimensional variables of the equipment and are defined when a new type of equipment class is defined. These may vary from equipment to equipment. Users can define extra attributes for a class of equipment from the Equipment Class Editor dialog.