MEP2008 Structural beam material takeoff?

[k.g.larsson]

I am trying to determine the best way to add materials (not for rendering) to structural beams in ADT/MEP 2008.

I have a range of different profiles, IPE, UPE, KKR, VKR etc. on palettes, linked to structural member styles in a definition file. The goal is to achieve a schedule of beams with materials, lengths, weights and surface area of various beams used in a model.

Question 1:
I note that there is no way (or I haven´t found it) to link a material Propery Set to a beam in the palette tool, but if the PS is defined in the template I can link the PS to a beam (in extended data properties) after insertion, right? Please tell me I´m wrong, show me a way to make the material follow the tool at insertion!

Question 2:
I would like a material property to be categorized and selectable at or after insertion !! according to the type of beam !! . As for KKR it would be the material S355J2H or S355MLN, for Tubular profiles it would be ST35 or ST37 and so on. Materials that are not applicable should not be selectable.
I would also consider using some sort of material property standard, applied to specific projects, but that is not a priority at this point.

Question 3:
In the property set def. it is possible to add material property, but how is this supposed to work? What are the prerequisites? Could I use that function?

Please help me with this. Any hint and advice will be greatly appreciated.

BRGDS
Gunnar L.

[dkoch]

Some quick answers:

Q1: Style-based property sets will travel with the style and will insert with an instance of that style, but those properties apply to all instances of that style. Good for automatic properties and for manual properties where the information entered does not vary for each instance. One workaround others have used to get object-based property sets to be preattached is to make a block of the object with the set attached and use the tool to insert the block, exploding on insert. For structural members where you want to add the object and specify endpoints, etc, that is not likely an acceptable method. You can make a "tag" tool that attaches property sets without adding a tag; that would be my recommendation.

Q2 & Q3: I have not used Material Properties extensively and would need to understand in greater detail exactly what you are trying to do to know if they would be of use (or would provide functionality that would be superior to using other property types for your given application).

[k.g.larsson]

Thanks David.
I´ll explain some more, hoping that we can make this into a tool thats easy to use and not too difficult to configure.
It really surprises me that PropSets will not travel with beams, it would be a "natural feature". Would it be possible to hack something to make that possible, like You can link a tag to a space tool for ex.?

Q1) It has to be object based. Although either of the types are editable after insertion, the situation may occur that I need to change material on some beams but not on others, due to strength requirements.
Blocking the object is one solution, but it´s not good to loose the other functions.
A tag (or PS)-tool might be viable, in that case one per profile type. Accidental mixup might occur so it´s not foolproof, but it might be useable.

Q2) I could perhaps use a combination of lists (multi purpose objects) and link them to property sets. That would require a cluster of assorted lists and one property set per profile type. It is doable, perhaps?
But, In addition to Q2 in my first post, I would need to be able to defer from the "standard" by writing something else in a text property. That text should then replace the standard text in the schedule. I suspect that would require some sort of formula, like "If X is empty, use an item in the list Y"

I could perhaps write a formula in each (style-based) property set for every defined beam type, but that would exclude the use of lists (does not work in style PS), and it would be time consuming for me.
The Ideal scenario for beams would be to incorporate some of the functions of piping tools and to have a dialogbox to choose parameters in, and have it easily editable in the ContentEditor, but that is for a future wishlist I guess. Or could I make "pipes with beam profiles"?

Q3) I´m just wondering what that material property tool in the "Definition of property set" is for. When I click it shows me 2 choices, the left pane seems to lack some info, the right one requires some predefined properties to choose from, but does not work the way I though it would. Is there some preferred work method for this tool?

I hope this did clarify things and not the opposite. If I made it confusing please tell me, and I will write a step by step requirement list.

Thanks!

[dkoch]

A tag-less tag tool will allow you to add an object-based Property Set (PS) to an object, but it will not fill-in any of the non-automatic data. So while that means you would not need to have the Property Set Definition(s) (PSD) in your template file, you would still not be getting filled-in data.

You can ease the pain of entering data in a manual property by making it a list-type, and providing List Definitions that have your standard nomenclature built in. If you suspect that you will not be able to make the List Definition all-encompassing, then you could set up a manual override property and use a formula property to choose between the list or override values, but it may be more efficient to enable the user to type in values not on the list. On the Items tab of the List Definition, check the "Allow individual property values to vary from this list" toggle, and users can either choose a list value or type values not on the list.

Material properties can read information from the Material Definition attached to an object. At minimum, they can be used to get the name of the Material Definition available as schedulable data. If you have a PS attached to your Material Definitions, then you can use a Material property attached to the object to read in the value of a property in a PS attached to the Material Definition. Here is an example, using steel beams.

You could set up a separate Material Definition for each type of steel used for steel beams. The display settings and render materials might be identical or could be different, if you need them to be. Each Material Definition would have a PS attached that would include properties for values that vary between the different material types. So you could have a manual property that holds the minimum yield stress, and enter the appropriate value for each type of steel. You would apply the appropriate steel Material Definition to each steel structural member in your drawing, either by style or by object override. You may not want to create duplicates of every structural member style to have the Material Definition set by style, in which case you would assign the most common steel Material Definition to the structural member styles, and override the Material Definition when necessary on individual structural member objects. Then you would have a PS attached to the object (this could be object-based, if you have other object-based, manual properties that vary from object to object, or style-based, if there are no such manual properties) that would have a Material property linked to the minimum yield stress property in the Material Definition.

The actual property value only is entered once (and, if necessary, is only changed once), on the Material Definition. The proper value carries through to the object by placing the correct Material Definition on the object.