Product briefing: Modeller Rapid Routing
Rapid Routing™.is
a key part of the Hazmap Modeller product, demonstrating that the connectivity and
function of pipelines is as vital as the as-built geometrical description of the
position and orientation.
It is proving to be a
highly cost effective way of producing as-built "CAD friendly" intelligent
pipe data, the reasons are simple :
 | It creates exactly the
amount of 3D data required to accurately define the geometry of
the route. There is no need to distil or extract simple
positions, orientations and dimensions from redundant 3D data in a scanned
point cloud. |
| Incredibly it does this with
almost no measurement being necessary
when compared with conventional photogrammetric
systems. |
| Positioning is possible
from a single image
it is ideally suited to dense and cluttered plant areas
where having coverage from more than one view |
| The method encourages
accurate functional description
of the piping components being positioned. They are categorised both in
generic terms, Valve Bend, Tee etc and optional also
user labels Valve-T300. |
| The inherent
description of inter-component connectivity and geometry
reflects the as-built reality in a way that integrates easily with CAD
piping software originally intended for green field design work.
|
The basic principle of operation is as follows:
|
Define a starting point and initial direction:
A single point is measured on
the pipe to be routed using the Hazmap Measurement tools ( tangent
measurements will define the OD of the pipe will be available and used to
automatically size the pipe). The user clicks on the point and define the initial
direction of the pipe, in this case north. |
 |
| Specify the direction of
the next section of pipe, in this case up.
Sizing can be specified or derived from the original measurement. For
example the pipe attribute may be used to define a nominal OD and the
graphical techniques shown here work with a larger lagged OD. |
 |
| The next
section of pipe is positioned, by a click on
the centreline of the pipe on the left. This action is
actually positioning the bend seen at the lower end of the red
section.
A 90 deg fixed bend is being used
here but a variable angle bend is available. |
 |
| Define the next element,
in this case a flange.
The flange is an
inline element, i.e. it does not change the direction of the current
pipe section.
A click of the mouse positions the flange
constrained to the current section. |
 |
Position the next element, by a single mouse click on the first
flange of the assembly seen on the left.
Hence in a few seconds we have successfully defined
part of a pipe route including:
| Starting point |
| Orientation |
| Size |
| and first two components, a bend and flange |
The route can then be saved or exported to a variety
of CAD packages via user customisable scripts.
|
 |
