I work a lot with detailing multiple types of pipe in Revit. I make schedules that list each spool in my project with a unique piece number because they need to be made differently. For example, if I have one spool that has flanges on both sides, My description would be FxF (or flange x flange). The spool next to it could have a bell on it so I would need to label it as F X Bell (or flange x bell end). Up until now, I have always had to manually enter this description in the pipe end treatment field that revit provides. I am curious to know if something like this can be automated with a Dynamo Scripts.
I am not sure how to get revit to recognize unique pipe connectors on a spool and make it auto populate a description field. This would be especially helpful when I get revisions because often times the end treatments will change on several pipes and I may not always remember to go in and change the description like I should.
Any help or resources would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Could you just do this by Pipe Type? How do you determine which pipes get which description (sorry, unfamiliar with this process) or which spool they’re a part of? If you can logically explain the connection between pipe and spool then you can automate it through Dynamo.
i dont have a great example but in the image above, lets say I have 3 spool pipes I need to put in a schedule on a sheet. Each of these spool pipes has to be made with specific connectors so that they all fit together like they need to in the field.
Piece 1 would need to be described as Bell X Plain End
Piece 2 would need to be described as Flange X Plain End
Piece 3 would need to be described as Flange X Bell
Currently I have a pipe end treatment description parameter setup so that I can manually type in the above piece descriptions. For every spool in my drawing I type in exactly what it needs to say.
What I would like to figure out is, instead of me manually typing in each of the spool descriptions, Is there a way Revit can recognize spool 3 has one flange family connected to one end and one bell family connected to the other end. Then have some type of formula that says grab the description of the flange family (F) + grab the description of the bell family (BELL) , and output a combined description (F x BELL) that I could then add to my schedule.
I am just trying to see if I can automate that process because there are times for example I may need to change a bell family to a flange family and I would like Revit to automatically update the description if for whatever reason I forget to manually change it when I am revising the drawing.
Perhaps. Pipes can get the members they connect to, so I think it would depend on if there is a way to know what type of connection type that piece uses, such as a parameter value or the family name.
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That’s what I was doing a lot of experimenting with because it seems like if this is going to work, Revit will need to allow me to assign a description parameter to a pipe connector so that I can then have several pipe connector families saved depending on which style of pipe I am creating. But I also don’t know if or think the standard Revit pipe system spools can detect which types of pipe connectors are attached to it’s ends to even be able to create such a parameter. I started experimenting with fab pipe setups because I saw another forum where you could make the fab pipe detect which type of connector should be attached. What I took away though was that it was kind of like what the routing does, it allows you to setup which family fittings should be used on a pipe system. There maybe something more there, I just don’t know a lot about fab pipe.
I understand that Piece 3 is Flange x Bell because it has a flange end and a bell end, but what determines that it has those two ends specifically? You mentioned it’s because one end is connected to a flange family and one end is connected to a bell family. This makes me think that your families are already defined, which is great. If that’s the case, then you should be able to use Jacob’s suggestion to get the connections and their connected families to determine the end conditions.
It’s all a manual process for me right now. I look at the contract drawings I am copying like the image I posted. I determine this needs to be a bell x plain end joint or I determine this joint needs to be flange-flange joint. I will either let Revit make the default connections I have set for it, or if need be I change the family to what it needs to be, I manually change the family type.
Yes I have families defined and pipe systems routed to use the correct fittings joints etc. What I am wanting to focus more specifically is a unique text based parameter/ formula that lives inside each different pipe segment. A parameter that is able to know what fitting families are currently attached to it and be able to physically print out a box in a Revit schedule that appears on a sheet.
I think the big thing is finding out how or if there is a way to get a parameter that can do this but it must live inside the pipe segment and be unique to each spool between connector families.
I don’t think you’re going to be able to get anything to automatically read the connections. You can’t add parameters to connectors directly and pipes are system elements so you’re already limited on options there.
That being said, if you can’t logically define which segments get which connection types then you can’t automate anything anyway. If it’s all based on the connected elements then you just have to read those family types and write the connection to a parameter.
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