I am about to start a large project which is likely to have 1000 + individual items.
I need to get off on the right foot as it would be catastrophic having to change methodology part way through.
How is the best way to manage this drawing package.
Thank you.
What are the deliverables?
Its a small process plant. Consisting of access platforms, pipework, vessels, pneumatics, and electrical power and control. I need to produce a complete model of all the elements and then 2D drawings of items and layout.
Do you have example project?
Having a good data structure going in is a key component to success, common data for all parts and systems. This structure can be a combination of user texts and layers.
Blocks are also recommended, but would only go 1 deep in nesting if possible. The primary use of blocks is to make changes easier as well as have an oriented Plane associated with the geometry.
You might run into troubleā¦ In my project I only performed limited amount of actions and mostly autommated through Grasshopper. If you will need to make a lot of manual changes to Blocks and you probably will have a hard time because Rhino will not be responsive enough.
You say that because of āgood practiceā or technical reasons?
In general getting too deep in nesting gets problematic regardless of the software. In Revit nested families with associated parameters can take a horribly long to load into a project after changes, Autocad and Rhino get cumbersome the more hierarchy you add.
An alternative to nesting is to create associations via data rather than buried 5 or 6 deep in blocks.
Iāll start working on a little example out of this āsmallā process plant.
Keyanās work is probably the ultimate example of using data to manage complexity vs nesting in a large project.
Where can I buy a computer that runs Rhino 8 like this? No wonder you guys are confused by all the s***loads of UI bugs we post and the others we donāt have the energy for.
Dear @hamwic99
I couldnāt advise strongly enough not to run that in Rhino.
I am a rhino user since Rhino 1.0 and have always relied mostly on other software to produce documentation. Since Rhino 6 I have tried to do some documentation in Rhino and it can work for sporadic deliverables, but still is really frustrating.
On the back of past experience I had moderate hopes for Rhino 8, with its promising Clipping Dynamic Sections. I am sad to say that that even my moderate hopes were frustrated. It was crippled with serious bugs at the start, and proved to be fundamentally flawed in its development. Although there was some interaction in fixing key bugs, the response to the more fundamental flaws was met with low interaction and certain replies reflect a deep misunderstanding about how large projects are run.
To be fair, I have stopped looking into documentation a couple of months and have been doing through the painstakingly methods of Rhino 7 in Rhino 7. However, I have about 27 years of experience to back the expectation that nothing fundamentally changed in the last few weeks.
That is only the handling of documentation donāt get me started in the handling of blocks, which I would assume would be important on a process plant. I disagree with Japhy in when he says deep nesting gets problematic regardless of the software. It is not my experience and I feel there is simply a misunderstanding about how people are trying to work with them.
If this image reflects the geometry you will be working with, it seems that there is nothing incredibly complex that other CAD software cannot handle.
N
Thank you all for your feedback.
Gives me something to ponder.
Despite 30 years of CAD experience I am still looking for the magic wand that will do the boring stuff.
@Japhy I actually wasnāt kidding when I asked what kind of machine runs Rhino 8 like that video. Do you have any specifics on it by chance, or know who I could ask that does?
Thanks
That is @krahimzadeh computer, a thinkpad or lenovo if i recall.
I was running this on my desktop, which is an upper-mid range PC, but the example here is only using a fraction of the resources. Is there a particular performance aspect youāre wondering about?
In my experience, once you get past 2 levels of nesting in blocks, itās not a performance issue, but it can be cumbersome for the user to understand and track the hierarchy. If you are rigorous with your naming and usage of Layers and Block Definitions, it certainly works, but I canāt emphasize enough how critical it is to maintain discipline. Itās easy to find yourself in a nest of blocks with their objects on different layers and things becoming untenable. Rhino 8ās update block definition interface definitely has improved things here.
Iāve had success using Rhino to generate large, complex models, as well as automated 2D drawings. For me, the use of User Text and other data helps to relieve the burden of relying on Layers. In fact in my own workflows I rarely have more than a handful of Layers anymore. That said, my workflows are heavily Grasshopper-reliant, so thatās a consideration.
Iād have to know a bit more about the kinds of deliverables before I could offer anything else useful.
Itās a bit glib to say, but all of them.
Layer panel, cursor lag, materials panel is a black hole, the list is endless and resolutions do not appear to be forthcoming anytime soon.
Hm - well, I can chat about large models and metadata all day, but this is a bit outside my area! All I can offer is that Iāve been running Rhino 8 on that desktop, a newish Windows laptop (decent, not a gaming laptop), and a 4 year old MacBook Air M1 and havenāt run into any issues.
I see. If I were you Iād count my blessings.
Hi @nsgma
which software / workflows do you use then for Documentation?
I used to work with Microstation 10 years ago but for various reasons I am currently relying on Rhino + BricsCAD.
