Note - the screen shots here are for ControlDraw 1, but the principles apply
to ControlDraw 2
Models can be built in several ways:-
Top Down Modelling
Stitch Together Later Model
Cut and Paste Modelling.
See also a note on Pictures
Top down Modelling
Start a new ControlDraw file and draw a high level process overview of the plant.
Place objects on the page that represent major processing areas within the plant. These
might for example be a building if you are modelling a large process or an area or major
equipment item within the plant.
Starting the Overview:
You should set the class of each of these objects to a suitable value, typically if you are
modellingNot a single process cell in a batch process these will be classes such as unit or common resource. If you made your diagram with appropriate objects this step should not be needed. Choosing Process Flow as the diagram type makes this easier. You can set the objects' class in the Symbol Details form. You should also set the class of the first (overview) page to something like Plant Area or Process Cell.
Setting the page class in the Page Details form.
If you are drawing an overview at a higher level for example a Large plant, then the objects on the overview page would have classes such as process cell or plant area. Typically such an overview diagram (page one of the ControlDraw model) of a plant also shows basic material flows connecting the objects. You can connect the objects to show these flows.
Connecting the overview symbols:
Having built your top-level diagram, double click on each object and
then click on the child button in the symbol details form. This will create a new
ControlDraw page as a child of the object on the first page that you double clicked.
Adding a page under the Product Manufacture
symbol:
You can go back to the overview page by clicking on the upward
pointing finger in the toolbar or by pressing the page up Key. Then you can create a child
page for the next object. You can very quickly build the basic hierarchy of the model this
way.
You can then extend upon your model by adding detail to each of the
child pages
When you get to the unit level it can be quite useful to show icons
for the operations, phases or sequences that can be performed in the unit, as well as
showing valves, vessels, motors, pumps and so on. In this way you are beginning to
indicate on the ControlDraw diagrams the functionality that is needed for a piece of
equipment, something that is very difficult to find on a piping and instrument diagram.
There are two good examples in the sample files that should give you
a good idea and a structure that you can follow. These are the milkshake plant and the
boiler examples. In both of these sample files you will find that Page One provides a very simple
high-level view of the main areas in the plant.
Stitch Together Later Model
Although we have described the process of creating models so far by
a Top Down process, this is not the only way that it is possible to build models with
ControlDraw. Another method is to draw the lower levels first (maybe whatever you are able
to obtain the information for) and then add the overview and hierarchy later by assigning
child pages to objects.
You can make a single object into the parent of a page in the symbol design form by
selecting from the drop down the list next to the child button. This is however a very
slow process and, of course, ControlDraw provides a much faster one. This is available by
choosing a Tools Apply child from the main menu. When you select Tools apply child, a list
of all the pages in the model appears floating above the page. You can then click on the
page in the list of pages and then on the objects on the drawing screen, and immediately
apply that child number to the object of you click on.
An even more power method is also available, because when you select a multiple objects on
page and then use Tools apply child all of the selected objects will be given that child
number. This is most useful in the case of the things like valves or motors and those
things of which they are many on one page. For example if all of the valves on a page are
numbered XVxxx you can use Ctrl-F to select all the objects that have XV in their text and
then tools apply child to make them all parents of a Valve driver page.
Applying a Valve driver to all the valves on
a page
Cut
and paste modelling.
For experienced users of ControlDraw one of the most
powerful features is that you can re-use considerable part of other models in order to
make the process of building your model very much quicker than it would be if you were
starting from scratch. For example, at the simplest level, you can re- use valve driver
and motor driver diagrams. At the more advanced level, you can take entire process units
or even process cells from another model to import these into a new model. Look-up
"Append a file" in the manual for further details on this.
A note on Pictures
As you should know by now it is possible to include a picture for
every object on a page. This can be very useful and make it much easier for people to
understand what the diagram is showing. However, it is not essential that everything has pictures and you can convey a lot of information just by showing rectangles with text inside. So you can very rapidly produce a model without worrying about the pictures.
ControlDraw comes with a set of symbols that is accessed from the
Palette or the Control Panel. This symbol library includes a large number of items and
covers many of the basic building blocks such as valves and motors, reactors and vessels,
and many more. But there are far too many types of equipment to cover them all and many
really function in a very similar way so it not necessary to have ControlDraw symbol for
every type of equipment.
For example a pump is the same whether it is left to right or right to left and will have
the same type of motor driver underneath.
The ControlDraw symbol set is augmented by an additional library of pictures, which you
will find in the picture path in the ControlDraw installation. The Allpix.d00 file that
comes with ControlDraw shows all of the pictures in the PicturePath.
For example the ControlDraw symbol library has just one object called pump, but a whole
collection of pump pictures.
You can very easily assign another picture to a ControlDraw object
from the symbol design form. This provides a list of all the picture files, clicking a
file name on this list associates the picture with the symbol. In addition a button on the
symbol design form, browse pictures, calls up a form that very quickly displays all of the
pictures that it finds in the picture directory path.
In order to make it likely that you can find an appropriate picture
quickly, a two character naming scheme is applied to the pictures. All pictures that might
have similar attributes start with the same two letters in the File name. And when you
First call up the symbol design form the list of pictures that appears includes only those
that share the same two first characters as the picture at the symbol presently has
assigned to it. The same applies to the picture browser, and in both forms selection
fields are provided so that you can just select all bitmaps.
ControlDraw Main Features
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