Object Styles and Material Scheduling

[daburow686766]

I have a large task ahead of me - reconciling a host of custom casework families that all share various nested families. I have 2 of them set up with all the schedulable information linked and parameterized so I can output a coordinated list of items in a useful format for our office. The problem I have now is trying to schedule the materials based on the object styles of all my components.

After fighting with nested material parameters overriding other parameters, I decided to default every material parameter to <By Category>. That way, all of my casework will share the single material definition that I set in the object style for that category (except for the unique instances where I apply different finishes to the parameters). It worked swell until I tried scheduling, and my standard material type is listed in the schedule as <By Category>.

I'm wondering if there's any way to put the object style material definition into a schedule? Or am I stuck applying the same materials to every type and instance I have inserted in a project when I need it to report in my schedule?

[Mike L Sealander]

I think you have to use Shared Parameters for the material definition.

[jsteinhauer]

I think you might want to add a subcategory to your casework, as well as using a shared parameter. Nested components might want to be set as shared as well.

Cheers,
Jeff S.

[daburow686766]

I've done both; my material definition is in all cases defined by a shared parameter and defaults to the object style subcategory I created for casework. Those parameters show up in the schedule just fine. Problem is, the schedule propogates with "<By Category>" for every material that is defined by the object styles of the project. It needs to list the actual material, but it looks like Revit won't do that for me.

88670

Attached image shows what I'm getting. Note that per my object styles, all my casework is assigned to the same material that I want, but the schedule outputs <By Category>, except for items where I have manually input the material in the type properties of the family. I'd like to avoid having to do that for every instance in every project.

Thanks

[Mike L Sealander]

I say "punt" and call up the factory.

[jsteinhauer]

Couldn't you just say in your spec that the material for said schedule/category is XYZ represented by '<By Category>' in the schedule, unless otherwise noted? There isn't really any way to make it do what you want without assigning the material to every type/instance.

Sorry,
Jeff S.

[daburow686766]

I say "punt" and call up the factory.

Problem is, I am the factory. :lol:

Thanks for the thoughts.

[jsteinhauer]

Mike means Autodesk. Contact your reseller or Autodesk directly and ask them. Unless you are working for them and are trying to solve this issue for us.

Cheers,
Jeff S.