material takeoff not working?

[kczege]

I am working on an IPD project and was about to send out area calculations of the glass panels used in my model when I came to realize that the materials are being calculated per FACE of object, not by area of object.
example: a glass panel that is 5'-0" x 5'-0" should be 25 sf, but it shows up as what looks like the area of all 6 faces of the object.(above 50 sf)
How and why is this happening?
How can I create a schedule of materials that makes sense in construction?

[ttiefenbach]

What version are you in? I did a quick check in 2012 and 2013 and it came out with the correct "Area". Could you post a small sample file?

[damon.sidel]

At least in 2012 and before, this is the "correct" behavior. It's unfortunate, though. The way I've gotten around it in the past is with a trick I learned here on the forums: for each window family (or glazed curtain panel), I paint one side with a material I usually call "glazing," which is different from the material of the object which I usually call "glass". Then I do a material take-off for glazing, not glass. Works great for me, because we often do whole chunks of our building as generic models (balconies, terraces, etc, that are very repetitive) and I can apply the same material as a paint to any of those faces.

[renogreen]

Not sure what the problem is. I have not run into this. I just ran a quick test to check and my material takeoff for curtain panels comes out correctly using both the Area and Material: Area fields.

[damon.sidel]

Not sure what the problem is. I have not run into this. I just ran a quick test to check and my material takeoff for curtain panels comes out correctly using both the Area and Material: Area fields.

You are correct, that works fine for curtain panels. If you are talking about a Multi-Category Material Takeoff and filtering by material name for all glass, it will not work for any except curtain panels, thus the workaround to paint a single face in your families.

[dfluegeman]

Don't know if anyone is still following this thread, but it still holds true in release 2016. Although I was a Revit Instructor for 8+ years, I had never used material takeoffs before now, so I had never noticed this quirk. Thanks, damon, I will be putting your workaround to use in our Template and in our window families. I just don't understand why the same doesn't hold true for walls.

[david_peterson]

Dumb Question, but couldn't you also simply build a custom "Area" shared parameter into your curtain panel and schedule that? Seems to be a lot easier than applying paint.
To filter out by area you could add a project parameter (Location) to identify where the panel is location. Use the Type Mark to filter what kind of glass it is.
Just a thought.