Extracting Areas (Room, Wall, Window)

[ronsarlo]

Background:

Hey guys,
I work in a multi-discipline firm that's making the tough transition all-revit.

I'm a multi-displcine guy, mostly structural, sometimes arch and I seem to be doing a bit more mech as well.

I'm hoping for a bit of help and guidance here.



Task:


I am working on a multi-unit condo with a mostly complete model.
I need to extract the following:
- Room areas
- Exterior Wall areas per unit
- Exterior Window areas per room
Resource:

I have access to Revit 2011 (Arch, Struct and MEP).
I have direct access to the Arch Model.

Issue:

I seem to be stuck on:
- How to extract out only the exterior wall areas on a per-room basis.
- How to extract the window areas.

I'm almost certain that I cannot achieve my end-goal using a linked model, so I was planning to use MEP to extract


I'm really fingers crossed here that I don't have to do individual elevation exports to CAD and math it out there.

Any help you guys got would be greatly appreciated!

thanks!

[Exar Kun]

Window areas can be accomplished with a calcuated field in a schedule.

For the wall areas - first you say per unit and then you say per room. Per room would be difficult but per unit should be easy enough. Just add a parameter into your walls and sort & group by that parameter in a schedule, totalling all the areas

[ronsarlo]

I see. Sounds like I have some research to do for those calculated fields.

The embedding a parameter in each wall segment sounds very 'manual'. I would still end up creating over 60 rooms as i need wall areas for each. That is a lot of margin for error.

I don't mean to belittle your advice, but is that my only option?

[cliff collins]

We do lots of hotels, which are very similar to multi-family bldgs.

We model each guestroom type as separate Revit project at the early design stages.
We may have anywhere from 5 to 20 different types, depending on the project.

So it is very easy to create quick schedules and calculate areas of the specifics you need, if your Revit project is just a single room type.

The guestrooms are linked into the "Shell and Core" tower and can remain separate files which can be edited outside the SC project, and if desired later on they can be "bound" into the SC to have a more "single model" approach if the scope/size is within data
limitations in Revit.

cheers

[ronsarlo]

Chris, that's exactly it, it's a multi-family building. (Sorry, for my lack of proper vocabulary, I don't have an architectural background).

Sidenote:
Separate revit files for each module is a rather interesting concept,
But if you did that, wouldn't you lose the advantage of sharing a family and making more global changes quickly?


Anyways, back to the main topic.

So it is very easy to create quick schedules and calculate areas of the specifics you need, if your Revit project is just a single room type.


I still don't quite understand how I can extract out the wall areas to a schedule while showing some sort of link or dependence to their bordering rooms.

I'm trying to get something like this:


Area________Win. Area________Exterior Wall Area (Gross)___(Net)____Floor Area
Unit 1
Living Room______10m^2______________________50m^2__40m^2_____700m^2
Room A__________6m^2_______________________60m^2__54m^2_____150m^2
Room B__________8m^2_______________________72m^2__64m^2_____175m^2

Unit 1
Living Room______10m^2______________________50m^2__40m^2_____700m^2
Room A__________6m^2_______________________60m^2__54m^2_____150m^2
Room B__________8m^2_______________________72m^2__64m^2_____175m^2

Sorry, I think that's as plain as I can make it
:Oops:

[ronsarlo]

Oh yeah, I have to this for 60-something units with various floor heights, so the modules total up to a rather high number of unique instances.

[arqt49]

Unlike windows, walls don't have a room association.
So, you will just have to add a parameter to them - room number seems obvious. Like Michael Dunn said.
And 60 units aren't really that much. With a wall schedule sorted by that parameter, you can do a very quick error check.
Because you cannot do a schedule combining windows and walls, you'll have to do a odbc or rdblink export, and then use a external program - spreasheet or database.

[ronsarlo]

Yeah, bummer that there is no association.

I'm really hesitant to do the Room Name/Number parameter, I don't really want to set our office down that path.
Simply put, it's info Mechanical needs to extract, and the only way to do that is to muck with the Arch model.

Arch would be nervous.
Mech would inevitably get grief for breaking something.
And the best users would end up getting dragged into cleaning up the mess.

There is not way of ensuring the authenticity of the information. Additionally, the Arch model would have to be built, not according to building element types, but for calculation uses. Not all walls that are on the exterior are calculated, and quite often, not even the entire length of wall.

Arch could quite easily delete a wall to redraw it, or re-number a room and the mech guys would have no clue it would happen.

Sorry if it seems like I'm being uncooperative. It just seems our traditional boundaries would be broken 5 steps from where we are. I'm sad to say that our "multi-disicpline" office still has issues of basic communication and trust.

thanks anyways guys.