When working with Smart 3D in an integrated environment, you often hear the term "design basis." The design basis is a collection of objects that represent the pieces of data from other authoring tools outside Smart 3D. Smart 3D's role then is to add graphical meaning to that data.
For example, consider the following pump: its name is P-100, it is a horizontal centrifugal pump, its maximum operating temperature is 80 degrees C, it includes a 250 mm suction nozzle and a 200 mm discharge nozzle, and so on. You know several pieces of data about the pump, but you still do not know exactly what it looks like. You then place a pump in the 3D model. Now, all the data provided about the pump (the design basis) is correlated to the 3D model. The design basis for and rendering of the pump are at least two different objects (there may be more), but they are related to each other in such a way that the pump is more completely understood.
The Generate Design Basis tool generates the metadata for design basis objects. In the previous example, the metadata for the pump includes properties for identification, physical attributes, process requirements, responsibility for construction, and so forth. That information is derived directly from a set of schema files: EFSchema, PIDComponentSchema, WBSComponentSchema, and so forth. The Generate Design Basis tool translates the information to a form that Smart 3D can understand.
The correlation between the Smart 3D rendering of the pump and the design basis object for the pump can be in a few different states:
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Uncorrelated (the 3D pump is not related to the pump design basis).
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Correlated, but the data does not agree (the 3D pump may be black, but the pump design basis says that it is white).
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Correlated and the data agrees (everything is okay).
For the Uncorrelated case, generally the design basis is selected, and then the 3D object is selected. However, if you have 3D objects already existing in the model, you can relate the two objects using the SmartPlant > Correlate with Design Basis command.
If the objects are Correlated and the data disagrees, the viewer indicates this situation. You can compare with the design basis and see the difference. Then, you can take whatever action is needed to make the 3D object match the design basis object, perform a selective update, or perform an approve inconsistency. It may be trivial, like changing the pump coating requirement, or it may be more complicated, like changing the type of pump. The changes depend on how much these objects disagree.