Room Defining Elements - Masses?

[michael.hunton362875]

All,
I have searched the forum to try and find a similar thread with no luck. Here is my situation:

Question-Can a mass be room binding?

I am working in a rather unique existing condition that required the development of masses to define occupiable space - The shapes read like organic undulating forms that define occcupiable space between the other one. I created walls by face from these masses so that when I build partitions, I can create rooms and get area calcs.

What I can't figure out is if a mass can be room binding or not? I created a very very thin wall type (1/16") on the face of the mass so that I can creates rooms and areas-but I'd prefer to not have to at all. Graphically, I don't want to have to create a wall that won't exist ever in reality just to calculate room areas.

Ahh...I just thought of an idea as I am typing this...maybe I can get an automatic trace around the forms with a room separation line...I will try that. Any other thoughts would be helpful.

[Alfredo Medina]

Welcome to the forum. It is not clear what the final goal is, but to reply to your question: No, a mass is not room-bounding by itself, but based on its faces, it can "produce" room bounding elements such as roofs, floors, and walls. Also, the mass contains information about volume, area, etc, that can be seen in a schedule of mass elements. I hope it helps.

[damon.sidel]

Ahh...I just thought of an idea as I am typing this...maybe I can get an automatic trace around the forms with a room separation line...I will try that. Any other thoughts would be helpful.

I think you might be on to something here: it may not be very "automated" but you can certainly use the room boundary pick command to create room boundaries from the mass. That may be the way to go to avoid fake walls. With a quick test, if you have a mass you can only pick edges, not faces. So if you want a boundary based on something other than the top or bottom profile, you'll have to split the mass at whatever level you want to calculate the room boundaries. Other than that, seems to work.

[dhurtubise]

Areas don't require those walls to generate numbers. But a mass element in itself can't be made room bouding so your logic was good :)