Pipes3D

Starting a Project

Begin by creating a standalone surface (cylinder, cone, or arc). Continue to build the project by intersecting or appending additional pipes, or adding ports. A pipe must be selected before you can attach another pipe to it. Click on a pipe to select it.

Your first pipe is considered the base or “parent”.

Attach (intersect or append) pipes to the parent, or create circular or rectangular ports on them.

These are considered “children” of the parent. If you delete a parent, you delete its children.

Creating Surfaces

When a new surface is created, a popup window will appear asking the properties of the surface.

The surface will not be able to be created until the required fields are entered. After the required fields are entered, click the Apply button to create the surface.

Offset From Origin

If you want a series of pipes that aren’t connected but are related to each other spatially, you can enter a distance from the origin for each axis. In most cases, however, these measurements can be left as zero.

Editing a Surface

To edit a surface, double-click on either the surface, or the name in the project navigator.

When the edit window appears, make the changes and click the Apply button for the changes to apply.

Units

Select the units you want to use from the dropdown box in the lower right corner of the window.

Project Navigator

The Project Navigator is located on the right side of the window.

This tree gives you another way to understand the pipe configuration you’ve created. It reflects the parent/child relationships within your pipe configuration. Right click on any pipe to edit, rename, or delete it.

Window Controls

Zoom

Use the mouse wheel to zoom in or out.

Panning

Hold down the space bar and move your mouse to pan.

Rotating

Right click anywhere in the view window and move your mouse to rotate the view.

You can also click on any part of the snowflake in the lower right corner of the view pane to select a face to view.

In the bottom left corner of the screen, you can note the direction of the x, y, and z axes as you rotate your project.

Additional Controls

The view tab gives you additional options for changing your view direction or for zooming.

Multiple Projects

You can have multiple projects open at the same time. Each project will have its own project tab.