Most existing Watts/PypeServer customers are using PCF's exported from CADmep. They can be exported from Revit too but you need some custom code to make an addin to use Autodesk's cloud service to generate the PCF.
If you're inclined to do PCF exports from Revit, you can get the code here....
https://blogs.autodesk.com/revit/2017/07/26/exporting-pcf-files-from-revit/https://blogs.autodesk.com/revit/2019/01/08/export-assembly-separate-pcf-file/However, as the PCF format wasn't intended to drive a pipe cutter, it's lacking a lot of information which requires a lot of property mapping on the PypeServer side.
An alternative is to use a PSVR file which is a PypeServer specific JSON format. When a Station & Tool is configured properly in Stratus, it'll export a PSVR file that when imported into PypeServer requires zero PypeServer property mapping.
There's a few keys to making this happen...
1) Materials in your Fab database need to be setup properly. That means the material has it's property set to "pipework" and under the Specifications (looks almost the same as sheetmetal gauges) you add entries for Sch 40, 80 etc. Here, you need to make sure OD and ID of the pipe are entered. This is so PypeServer knows the wall thickness.
2) If you're configuration/database was setup the "old" way where pipe OD was set in the Specifications, these need to be removed. Fabrication uses these over the new way. Not a Stratus issue, rather a Fabrication issue. This means you go to the Piping Specification, find the material and delete all the entries for OD's. You then set the material to "Any" and delete all those OD's as well. When you publish now, Stratus will see the proper pipe data from Fabrication.
3) Configure the "pipe cuts" section and related data of Stratus.
4) Go to Part Templates in Stratus and configure CID 2041 for multi-axis pipe cuts. This will show up twice and need to be configured twice between CADmep and Revit. Those two products treat the patterns differently so if you publish from from bothy, the pattern will be in there twice.
5) Also in Part Templates, find CID 2875 (O-Lets/Saddles/etc.) There will be multiple entries based on each ITM name that was published. Here, configure and let Stratus know if they're a Thread=O-Let, Saddle, Weld-O-Let, etc. This is what allows Stratus to know what size holes to cut to which part.
6) <temporary> Stratus needs to use the 2019.1 FabricationAPI to publish the data even if you're publishing from 2020. The recently updated the Publish to use the 2020 DLL's if they're found but Autodesk broke them so you'll need to make sure the CADmep folder for 2020 is renamed and that CADmep 2019 is installed with the latest update.
7) Need a tool configured in Stratus configured for PypeServer.
8) Need a Station configured in Stratus that points to the proper tool you setup.
9) <optional> You can create a Material configuration that automatically assigned the proper Station/Tool to the material (CS/SS). This prevents you from having to manually assign the station/tool when you generate the cutlist from the PAckage.
10) Go o the Package then the Cutlist section of the package. Click an the "Generate Cutlists" button.
11) Set the Cutlists to the proper Station/Tool (if you didn't do #6 above) otherwise select the cutlists and click the "Send Cutlist to Station" button.
12) Go to the SHOPS section and click on the proper station. From here, you can download the PSVR files for import into PypeServer. If everything is setup correctly in your Fabrication database, PypeServer should not need any further configuration to import the data.
A few current issues that can be worked around...
Stratus was using CADmep 2019.1 to publish the data regardless of which version of CADmep/Revit you used to publish from. This was the first version from Autodesk that gave them the access they needed to do what they do. GTP updated Stratus to use the 2020 version if you were publishing from 2020 but found Autodesk broke some things and the piping data isn't
This same config can be used when using the PypeServer integration except that you don't have to manually download the file from Stratus and Import into PypeServer. There's a few other steps to get the integration working. I'll leave those for a separate post. I'm using PypeServer version 3.426. Contact PypeServer if you need to be upgraded.
