Change Route

Plant Engineering > Pipeline Tools > Change > Change route  

With this function the route of an already installed pipeline can be changed. All segments of the pipeline whose length is still changeable will be taken into account. These are essentially straight pipes, straight segments of bent pipes and guidelines. This means that guidelines and parts are treated equally. No parts will be deleted.

 

Basic procedure

Select point to be moved
When you call the function, the Select point to be moved option will be active by default, prompting you to chose the point that you want to move.

When moving the cursor over the drawing's pipeline all eligible points of the respective pipeline will be highlighted (Special colour Marking 1). Select the desired point. In the drawing this point (Special colour Marking 3) together with the respective pipeline will be highlighted:

Left-click to adapt this point. HiCAD will ask you to specify the target point of the changed route.

 

Select target point
When HiCAD requests a target point the display of the pipeline changes: It will have a line representation which shows the route of the pipeline. The lines will be highlighted in different colours:

• grey (Special colour Marking 4)
  The extension of the grey sections cannot be changed.
• green (Special colour Y-axis)
  These sections can be stretched or compressed.
  
• orange (Special colour Marking 5)
  If a maximum length has been set for straight pipes in the Plant Engineering settings, pipes that have reached this maximum length will be highlighted in this colour.

Line sections that have already reached the maximum length can only be changed if the Observe maximum length checkbox in the dialogue window has been deactivated.

Apart from the line representation two points will be coloured. The light point (Special Colour Marking 2) is the point that you have selected to be moved. The dark point is the so-called fixed point. Fixed points are points whose spatial position is unchangeable. After selecting the point that will be moved HiCAD suggests a fixed point automatically. An explanation on how to change and add fixed points can be found in the Fixed Points section.

If you are satisfied with the current cursor position press the middle mouse button. The changed route will be processed.

 

 

In the example above the function was exited by pressing the middle mouse button and the selected target point for the changed route was a point in space. More specifically, the point was chosen which is the point closest to the viewing direction of the cursor with the least changes made to the pipeline route. In general, however, the target point will be a point already existent in the drawing, e.g. a connecting point of another pipeline or a vessel's nozzle. Read more about it in the Selection of Target Point section.

 

The dialogue window

In this dialogue window you can specify the options for the selection of the target point. Also, you can find various options and buttons here via which you can influence the route, e.g. fixed points, connections with angles or fixed length sections.

Please note that the availability of options depends on whether you selected a pipeline end point (1) or a point in the middle of the pipeline (2) as the point to be moved.

(1) Pipeline end point , (2) Point in the middle of the pipeline

 

Option	E*	M*
Mode
Select point to be moved			Click this button to re-select the point to be moved. The dialogue will change its initial appearance again. This function is helpful in cases where the selection of the correct point is difficult, e.g. if the pipeline ends in narrow parts such as seals and several points are very close to each other.
Change route			By activating this option you switch back into the Change route mode, e.g. after specifying fixed points, connections with fixed angles etc.
Select connections with fixed angle			Use this option to select connections for which no direction changes should be allowed. The procedure is the same as the one for selection of fixed points. A single click on a connection marks the connection, another click removes the marking. see Change Angles topic
Select fixed points			Via this option you can switch to the fixed point selection. Fixed points are points on a pipeline whose spatial position is unchangeable. see Fixed Points topic
Select fixed length sections			Alternative to fixed points whole segments can be marked as unchangeable. see Fixed Length Sections topic
Target point selection
Plant Engineering point selection			If this option is active, only Plant Engineering points will be selectable. This is the default setting. see Selection of Target Point topic
Standard point selection			If this option is active, any other points can be selected. see Selection of Target Point topic
Snap own points			By default, the points of a pipeline the route of which has just been changed will not offered as target points. But if you want this, activate the Snap own points checkbox. see Selection of Target Point topic
Route options
Create straight sections			With a route change it is not only possible to change the lengths of existing pipes, but also to create additional straight sections. A frequent use case is to increase the distance between two parts, e.g. between a elbow and a flange. see Create Straight Sections topic
Observe maximum lengths			The Change route function knows maximum and minimum lengths for the expansible segments of a pipeline. To do so it reads the minimum and maximum pipeline lengths from the Plant Engineering settings. Optionally the maximum length can be ignored. For this to happen, deactivate the Observe maximum lengths checkbox. see Maximum/Minimum Lengths topic
Create connecting guidelines		—	It can happen that the straight segments of a pipeline are not sufficient for shifting the point that is to be moved to the target point. In these cases a connecting guideline can be used. For this to happen, the checkbox needs to be activated. see Connecting Guideline topic
Move connecting parts		—	If connecting guidelines are created it makes sense to move parts like seals or flanges to the end of the newly created guideline. This behaviour can be changed here. see Move Connecting Parts topic
Use grid			Route changes are supported by coordinate grids. The origin of the grid is always the point that is to be moved. The orientation is always selected in such a way that one of the grid axes points to the connecting direction, and a second one is located in the XY-plane of the active coordinate system. The grid is visualized by means of dotted auxiliary lines. The line spacing of the grid is set to 100 by default. see Use Grid topic
Text display
Changed lengths			Sections with changed lengths are changed by a new route are represented as dashed lines. If you want to display the changed lengths as texts, activate the Changed lengths checkbox. see Text Display topic
Relative position in grid			If the Use grid checkbox is active, the grid is visualized by means of dotted auxiliary lines. If the Relative position in grid checkbox has also been activated in the dialogue window, the distance to the start point will be written, along the grid axes, to the auxiliary lines. To distinguish such distances from the texts with the changed lengths, they will be preceded by a capital Δ (Delta). see Use Grid topic
Direction options
Allow direction changes		—	By default, the connecting direction of Plant Engineering connecting points are used in such a way that the orientation of the pipeline can be changed. If you deactivate the Allow direction changes checkbox, no direction changes will be possible any more. see Change Angles topic
Specify connecting direction		—	The connecting direction cannot just be changed at Plant Engineering connecting points. The Specify connecting direction allows you to pick an arbitrary direction in the drawing. You use the function of a context menu (right-click) for direction specification. see Change Angles topic
Undo direction changes		—	If you select this option, all directions will be reset to the state of the original pipelines, i.e. all specified direction changes will be undone. see Change Angles topic

* E = Pipeline end point, M=Points in the middle of a pipeline

 

The Change route option is greyed out until a point to be moved has been selected After selecting this point, the route can be directly changed by determining the target point.

As long as no target point has been specified, you can cancel the function by clicking on without changing the route. Alternatively, you can press the ESC key.

 

Please note:

• The function can also be called via the context menus of pipelines, guidelines or parts.
• The route change is indicated by highlightings in different colours. For example, fixed points are highlighted in the Special colour Grid, allowed points in the Special colour Marking 1, or unchangeable pipeline sections in the Special colour Marking 3. If desired, colour assignments can be changed via the HiCAD Colour Editor.
• If the pipeline contains parts that prevent a correct route change, e.g. because of invalid Part type IDs, or due to failure to comply with the rules for the creation of own parts, the following warning message will be displayed.

If you click OK you can still carry out the route change - However, we recommend cancelling the route change and correct the highlighted parts instead.

 

Please also read the information on the special cases Inserted Pipe Lengths. and Pipeline Sets.

Pipeline Tools (PE) • Plant Engineering functions