FEASIBILITY STUDY ON COMPUTERIZING THE DRAWING OF ISOMETRIC PIPING DRAWINGS

Abstract

A feasibility study has been made on computerized drafting. To yield an insight into the computerized drafting problem, a system has been developed for making isometric piping drawings. The equipment used consists of an IBM 7040 computer and an FAI 3500 plotter. A programme has been prepared for generating a three- dimensional model of the piping as well as its associated dimensioning and labelling. In this programme, the various symbols used have been preprogrammed and are called for by coded input characters. At the same time the associated dimensioning is automatically performed. The output of this programme, consisting of three-dimensional coordinates of line segment end-points, is punched out on cards. These data cards are then fed into the computer in conjunction with the GRUMMAN AIRCRAFT rotational programme DRAFT which has been extensively modified for this particular application. The operation of DRAFT, in this case, is to rotate the three- dimensional model into the isometric orientation and then mathematically project each point onto the picture plane. Instructions are then vener ated and stored on tape, for plotting this two-dimensional drawing of the piping. This method for producing isometric piping drawings was found to be competitive in cost with, and as easy to read as manually produced piping drawings.