General Notes (PE)

In the Plant Engineering module, drawings and objects such as pipelines, parts and guidelines, etc. are usually handled in the same way as normal HiCAD 3-D drawings and objects.

Drawing file
A Plant Engineering drawing file has the file name extension .SZA.

Part structure
The structure of Plant Engineering drawings is based on the differentiation between Main parts and Sub-parts. Many Plant Engineering functions automatically create such structures. In this context, please also note the chapter Part structures of a pipeline.

Create part files
If you want to design your own parts and use them in HiCAD Plant Engineering, certain rules need to be observed. Please read the relevant chapter.

Part Management
Part management can either take place via the HELiOS database or the HiCAD catalogue. The desired part data source can be selected in the Plant Engineering Settings.

If catalogue parts belonging to your product are not offered for selection, you should check whether they have possibly been deactivated with the CatalogueMaker tool. Start the tool CATALOGUEMAKER.EXE in the HiCAD.exe directory. Further information on the CatalogueMaker is provided in the Online Help for the Catalogue Editor.

Part attributes
When inserting Plant Engineering parts into a 3-D layout plan, HiCAD does not only save the links of the part to the corresponding data record in the part data source (HELiOS database or HiCAD catalogue), but also copies the attributes (names and values) from the data record and saves it to the part in the layout plan. The advantage is that the attribute data are now also available, e.g. for a BOM, if the drawing is loaded on a workstation that has no access to the part data source from which the attribute data originate.
HiCAD provides attributes for Plant Engineering parts. You can change the designation of the attributes with the Catalogue Editor.

Checking of attribute assignment during part insertion
When parts are inserted, HiCAD checks whether certain, absolutely essential attribute names, resp. names of variables are actually used in the variant. If this is not the case, an error message is issued and the insertion is prevented. If you do not want to perform the check of attributes, resp. variables, switch it off by deactivating the Check attribute assignment checkbox on the Part insertion tab of the Plant Engineering Settings dialogue window.

Link to P+ID
A 3-D layout plan can be linked to a 2-D P+ID. In this case, the Plant Engineering and P+ID modules both access the same part files in the HELiOS database.

Part directory
Plant Engineering parts are stored in the the PlantParts folder of the HiCAD directory, which in turn contains the subdirectories Parts1, Parts2 and Parts3. These subdirectories are intended for various part representations:

Parts1
for parts in symbolic representation,

Parts2
for parts in hollow body representation and

Parts3
for parts in solid body representation.

In addition, the following sub-directories are available:

Symbols
for symbols

VariantStruct
Variant structures for the Variant Editor

HELiOS DB functions
Detailed descriptions of all HELiOS functions are provided in the HELiOS manual. .

User Interface/Operation
The user interface has been designed consistently for all HiCAD modules and Industry Solutions. You will find a detailed description of terminology, functions and general procedures in the HiCAD Basics chapter. In the following section, we only describe Plant Engineering-specific procedures.

Accessory parts
Accessory parts are parts that are not graphically represented in any of the Plant Engineering CAD documents (3-D layout plan, isometry, P+ID). Although they do have a article master data record in the part data source (HELiOS database or HiCAD catalogue), no corresponding file with a 3-D data model exists. However, fitting Plant Engineering parts in the 3-D layout plan often requires such parts that already contain all necessary accessories for a Bill of Materials - even if these accessories are not visible in the graphic. To fulfil this requirement, the Plant Engineering part needs to be linked with the corresponding accessory parts. For this purpose, the data records of the accessory parts are assigned to the data record of the Plant Engineering part.

Referenced pipelines
Referenced pipelines will be automatically saved (without any further query)when the isometry is generated. For layout plans, in contrast, HiCAD will always display a security prompt before saving.