Calculations on Room Areas

[Scott Womack]

We have a retail client, that has asked us to assist them in going to Revit. Biggest problem now is being able to do calculations (within Revit) on Room areas. We have to use rooms, since this is the only way to have fixtures automatically list what room they have been placed in.

We need to be able to sum areas of a series of rooms representing gross departments, and then list rooms (sub-areas) to subtract the areas to get net areas. Is this possible within a schedule?

Areas/Area Analysis will not work for this process.

[aaronrumple]

You would create a schedule for each department. Each room can be associated with a department - this is one of the default parameter. The schedule would list all the net areas and then total for that department.

All the schedules could be exported to Excel for further calculations or to a database.

[Shaun v Rooyen]

Aaron is right somtimes it is just easier to export to excel.

Never the less. Here is an example of schedule I did to work out the RU of buildings. You might have to unhide some columns and lose some filters to see more.
If you have problems understanding the workings of it let me know!

[jbalding48677]

I don't quite understand you specific issue, but it sounds like what we have done with unit plans where we need the "gross" area of an apartment and then net areas of the rooms and sub-rooms (closets). If that is in deed the case area analysis will work.

Let me get into the office and expand on this...

In the mean time could you post an example? An image of what you are trying to do?

(to be continued)

[Scott Womack]

Yes, Let me pull something together. Sorry about the delay. I attached a PDF of a portion of the Autocad Floor Plan that we want to replicate in Revit. The square boundry would be the "gross" sq.ft. of a department, while the edge of the floor pad would be the "net" square footage of the department. The client wants the fixtures to automaticlly pick-up/schedule with the department names, as well. I was told that this was only possible with Rooms. not areas.

[aaronrumple]

I hate to say it, but I'm not sure I'd use Revit for managing large retail departments. I worked extensively with May Co. (... now owned buy FDS) when I was with Hagerman. So I understand some of the needs for analysis and area calculations within departments and the nesting of islands and spaces. We created a new FM system to meet their needs based on AutoCAD backgrounds and .Net. I'll have to give our .Net guy a lot of credit - he did a great job working out all the relationships of spaces.

Unfortunately, Revit doesn't have any good means for this intricate net/gross/sales/department calculation. You can certainly identify a lot of the areas and rooms on Revit, but the reporting is going to need to be done outside Revit. You are probably looking at a custom database program.

As you noted - furnishing are room - not area aware.

I've attached a sample of some of the things you can do inside Revit with areas. It will get you maybe 75% of where your client wants to be.

If your interested in what we did for May Co. - look for SpacePlanner at www.hagerman.com (http://www.hagerman.com/) using FM Technology. (I'm no longer affiliated with them...)

[Tom Dorner]

Aaron is correct, either a custom database or if any of our friends at FM:Systems or Archibus are monitoring this, the opportunity is there to step up to the Revit platform via the API.

Tom

[Scott Womack]

Aaron, How much of this area calculation and or Rooms is exposed via the new API? Is this another way to attack this type of problem?

[Danny Polkinhorn]

Aaron, How much of this area calculation and or Rooms is exposed via the new API? Is this another way to attack this type of problem?If you're looking at a custom solution that involves an API, yes, you're better off sticking with Revit. Room Elements and Parameters are fully exposed in the API, so you should be able to get all the information you need as well as run calculations on the data. It would be easier than building all the back-end room objects you would need in AutoCAD.

At this point, there are very few people customizing Revit because the API was just released. If you don't want to tackle it yourself, I would suggest the Autodesk consulting group. Or, if you have some relationship with an FM company, try to convince them to assist you.

Hope that helps,