P&ID Modeler for Revit 2019

By Andy Davis

Many Autodesk Revit users would be quite excited by the idea of being able to coordinate 3D Revit models with 2D P&ID schematics, and back in August 2017, Autodesk announced the release of P&ID Modeler for Revit.

The initial impression, from the name, suggests the ability to create and edit P&IDs in Revit. However, what P&ID Modeler for Revit provides is a streamlined workflow for modelling piping systems in Revit from P&ID schematics authored in AutoCAD P&ID.

P&ID Modeler for Revit is a cloud collaboration tool. It enables design collaboration between AutoCAD users, through the BIM 360 Team collaboration capabilities of AutoCAD Plant 3D and Revit users via Autodesk Collaboration for Revit.

When working in a Revit cloud collaboration project, Revit users can open an AutoCAD Plant 3D collaboration project and list the P&ID drawings within it. The list is displayed in the Revit P&ID Modeler window. If a user then selects one of the drawings, a preview of that drawing is displayed together with a list of pipe lines defined within it.

By selecting each of the pipe lines in turn, the user can pick the P&ID objects on the line and model the corresponding pipes and fittings in Revit. The functionality is very similar to that available in P&ID Line List window in AutoCAD Plant 3D.

The Revit P&ID Modeler window displays preview images of the P&ID drawings and the relative position and details of the P&ID objects on each pipe line to aid accurate modelling. Visual warnings are displayed if incorrect items are placed in Revit or they are placed out of sequence.

To facilitate the modelling, each AutoCAD P&ID object must be mapped to a corresponding object in Revit. For example, P&ID schematic lines and symbols need to be mapped to their real-world 3D representations in Revit.

In addition to mapping objects, some items of data may also be mapped, specifically, the P&ID Service property value may be mapped to a Revit System Type and the P&ID Tag property may be mapped to a Revit shared instance parameter. All mapping is stored within the Revit project.

The following table lists the mappings that are required:

At the time of writing, the P&ID Tag property is the only item of data that can be mapped through to the Revit model from the P&ID.