cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Community Tip - You can change your system assigned username to something more personal in your community settings. X

Controlling pipe orientation?

mschubert-2
3-Visitor

Controlling pipe orientation?

How can I control the orientation of my pipes (both spec / non-spec)? When I route a line, e.g. through a datum point array, the pipeline seems to rotate by 90 degrees at some (but not all?) bends.

This is annoying for placement of fittings and disrupts rectangular pipelines 😞

Does anyone know how to keep the pipe in one orientation or rotate it after routing?


This thread is inactive and closed by the PTC Community Management Team. If you would like to provide a reply and re-open this thread, please notify the moderator and reference the thread. You may also use "Start a topic" button to ask a new question. Please be sure to include what version of the PTC product you are using so another community member knowledgeable about your version may be able to assist.
7 REPLIES 7

first you need to delete all the fittings like bends etc. for the segments which you need to change .

then you need replace the appropriate segment, in this ways you can rotate the required segments without rotating all the segments.

Regards,

Jayanta Sarkar

But how can i rotate a single segment in a pipeline?

If i try to build the pipeline from unattatched segments the corners aren't mitered. If I route in one go it keeps rotating.

14-04-25_rec-pipe1.gif

I think I misunderstood in previous post, Your rectangular pipe lines are getting roated 90deg while you r routing? is that your problem? I have not done rectangular piping yet. I think you need to case log.

Yes, that's my problem. The Screenshot above was taken in WF4 M140, in Creo2 M040 the rectangular pipe seems to be okay.

In both builds fittings are facing in (seemingly) random directions - so it is also an issue for circular pipes. The branches below were all fitted with the same angle/orientation, but can't agree which way to face 😕

14-04-28_circ-pipe1.gif

So we are talking about the Twist Angle of fittings.

At least in non-spec-driven piping I believe it should be possible to change it, redefining the fittings Orientation (assuming nothing has been attached to the T-ports yet).

For spec-driven, I can't tell.

The twist angle of fittings isn't so much the problem as the twist angle of the pipe itself.

I can re-orientate fittings or change the angle during placement, but i'd like to not do this everytime the pipeline changes direction.

So what I'm looking for is a way to control the local c-sys that piping seems to be using during routing. If (local) Z is the direction the pipeline is following, then (local) X should always face away from the upper side a given global datum plane / an axis of an global c-sys.

I think the internal mechanism for routing is the same in spec and non-spec driven piping.

I am not sure, whether this helps. It's information from a developer some years ago for Wildfire 3.0 about how Pro/ENGINEER automatically places a fitting when inserting it into a pipeline:

  • Fitting's ports are used for alignment
    • The port with END_TYPE parameter, in most cases it is port0
  • Z axis of the fitting's port will be aligned with the segment the fitting is placed on.
  • Y axis will be aligned to a vector calculated as follows, with respect to the default csys of the model:
    1. If the segment is on XZ plane of the default CSYS, then the vector would equal Y axis of the default CSYS.
    2. If the segment is parallel to Y axis of the default CSYS, then the vector would equal X axis of the default CSYS.
    3. Otherwise - a vector will be calculated towards Y axis, along a line formed by intersecting the plane that is perpendicular to the pipe segment, and the plane common to Y axis and the segment.
  • The rotation angle influence the way Y axis of the fitting's port will be rotated about Z axis.
  • If placing a fitting on a free port (instead of the segment) then the same algorithm is used, with replacing the vector that follows a pipe segment, with the Z axis of the selected port.

Top Tags