Massing-Room Area

[zanzibarbob7]

I'm doing some conceptual stuff and I want to schedule the Room Area in my masses. I am using several masses to represent potential Room areas and Volumes, as a visulaization tool. I can Schedule the Volume but I can't get around the Room Bounding for use of Room Area. Is this possible?

[zanzibarbob7]

I found the solution and thought it may help someone else. I edited the family and added an Area parameter (Width*Depth), then edited the Mass Floors in the Instance properties and click Level 1. This allowed me to schedule both Volume and Area for the Mass, keeping it colored and semi transparent for visual effect.

Guess I should have dinner and a glass of wine next time I have a problem, then the solutions come easy. It worked this time.

[Scott D Davis]

you could have also use "Mass Floors" to slice up the mass into horizontal slices. Each Mass Floor slice can then be scheduled to represent Area.

[zanzibarbob7]

Thanks Scott. I was just looking for the footprint and volume of a single Mass for the earliest stages of design.

[Scott D Davis]

Thanks Scott. I was just looking for the footprint and volume of a single Mass for the earliest stages of design.

In that case, there would only be one Mass Floor at Level 1 (as long as your mass sits on level one).

Both volume and area will then schedule, as well as surface area. You can add other parameters for Space Use/Occupancy, or other data fields if you wish to schedule them.

[zanzibarbob7]

Specifically, what I am doing is creating masses with a known area and volume and placing them on the floor like blocks. They will represent, what I estimate, the spaces I will need in the design. After scheduling I will take the total volume of all the suspects, get the cube root of the volume and create a mass cube with that length, to place on the site just to get a read on what size building I am looking at. As I said, this is the earliest stages of design.

I need the area to establish the room size and scheduling it will give me a record. Thanks for the suggestions.