Explore the process of integrating a new gas meter family into an existing pipe system using the Autodesk platform. Discover how to load the gas meter family, adjust the piping to accommodate the new addition, and view the updated system in 3D.
Key Insights:
- The article outlines the process of adding a new gas meter family to a previously defined gas system using Autodesk. This involves loading the meter family into the system, adjusting the existing piping as necessary, and viewing the updated system in 3D.
- Although the Autodesk content did not initially have the gas meter family, the author demonstrates how to load it from an external source, such as a manufacturer. The gas meter is then located under 'systems' and 'mechanical equipment' within Autodesk.
- The article also discusses how to adjust the view settings within Autodesk to make the piping more visible. This includes changing the discipline to 'plumbing' and modifying the view height, allowing for a more accurate placement of the gas meter within the system.
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In our previous video, we went ahead and got a new pipe system defined, which is our gas system here. What we want to go ahead and do now is we want to go ahead and load in our gas meter family.
We tried looking for one through the Autodesk content, but there was not one there. We can go ahead and load it in the other way from, you know, we might get it from a manufacturer or wherever. So I want to go over to my insert tab.
I want to go to load family. I'm going to go to my, under my documents, your VDCI folder. I want to go to my BIM 322 file downloads, families and references, and then go ahead and select this gas meter, 250 cubic feet.
And there we go. I'm going to hit open. Now what I is I'm going to go to my systems, mechanical equipment, and there it is.
So find it in your mechanical equipment. You can also probably just go to architecture and it sounds kind of redundant, but you can go component and then it will be there also. So I'm going to go ahead.
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And now how this is working is that this is coming from the underground and then it goes into the building. We're going to adjust our piping a little bit. That's perfectly fine.
But what I'm going to go ahead and do is I'm going to go ahead and place this guy. And there we go. So let's go ahead and take a look at this in 3D.
If I go to my 3D view, make sure you orbit around to find it. If you might have a section box or what you could go ahead and do is select this and then go ahead and click on the selection box and that'll take you right to it. Perfect.
Let's go ahead and expand this out just a little bit. We can start to see some things. Notice I'm really not seeing my pipe right now.
That's because my view here is set. It's set to a discipline of coordination. If I set this to say plumbing, you can see the architectural information kind of becomes halftone.
Maybe I need to go a little higher. There it is. So it looks like we may need to move this guy up a little bit because it's right on that level one.
So I'm going to go to my plumbing. I'm going to go to my get that working section that we had my level one plumbing, I'm going to grab this working section, I'm just going to move it around the model with me. There we go.
Double click into it. Yes, see, so our gas meter is sitting on directly on the ground. We want it to be a little bit higher than that.
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go ahead and select this guy. I'm going to move. Let's go ahead and move it up one foot.
So it's a little off the ground. What we can do is is that these have global connectors. So I can go ahead and draw pipe from that.
And then saying my system type is natural gas, we can always change it later. But we'll kind of go ahead, come in, maybe go up a little bit, we're gonna have to do some finagling here. Go here, draw pipe.
And there we go. So let's go ahead and look at this in 3D. We kind of have some different locations.
Alright, let's go ahead and expand this so we can see our entire pipe system. So what do we want to do here? Well, what we can go ahead and do is I could go ahead and let's delete this, delete this, delete this, delete this, we're gonna use the pipe coming through the building. So you can I trim those together? Oh, I can.
I drew those in perfect alignment. That is fortuitous. Very lucky.
If I wasn't so lucky, what I could do is I can go here to align a go back to my floor plan align. And you can tab and you can get the center line of that pipe. And then I can pick the center line here.
And it would align those two. And then I could trim here to here. Boom.
In this instance, what I need to go ahead and do is I'm actually going to go back to my 3D view. And sometimes it's easier to kind of navigate around. I'm going to draw a pipe just kind of coming off of the 90 off of this.
There we go. And now I need to get this to that location. Well, I could move.
Let's see it wants to move that way. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go back to that plumbing view. Let's say I want this to be minus three feet.
We're going to delete some of this stuff. We don't need all of it. I'm actually going to take this guy, this is where I point a connection is.
And then I can align here to here. And it's just going to move that. Then I could trim these two together.
And there we go. We've input our gas system. Perfect.
I'm going to go ahead and save this file. And we're going to go ahead and get ready for the next step, which we're going start prepping for our midterm. So what I want to go ahead and do is we're going to create some plumbing plans, and then put those on sheets, we're just going to create some overall views of this plumbing system.
And then we will throw it together on some sheets and print it for the midterm.