AREA

[dsw98]

How would I find the "area" of an entire level

[aaronrumple]

Net? Gross? Floor plate?

[dsw98]

just the area around the entire house. Basicly like in Autodesk, when you'd draw a polyline around the entire exterior of the house to find the area.

[robmorfin]

You mean AutoCAD, create a gross area plan, don't let it choose walls automatically, you sketch what you want

[Joef]

I've trying to be a good Reviter and use the area tools that come with Revit but they are extremely time wasting. You go through the whole exercise of drawing the boundary lines and then if you have to manually change a line all the other lines suddenly hop to the middle of the wall. Even if you uncheck the apply area rules the lines still jump around. Then you have to go around and redraw the whole thing. Why does Revit assume that I want to measure to the center of the wall? ed. (Intemperate remarks removed by author)

[Tom Dorner]

Area plans for me are one of the most brilliant parts of the Revit program. We use them to do BOMA calcs all day long with amazing speed and accuracy. I commend the Revit designers for their foresight and brilliance by including this valuable feature in Revit.

Tom

[Joef]

If all of your area calcs are to the center of the wall you're in business. I guess it works for you. I would like a bit more flexibility.

[Wes Macaulay]

Not a whole lot of BOMA gets done in Canada. Joe, we lock dims between the area polys and the walls. PITA but once done, works great. In the bad old days (Revit 6ish) area plans could really bog the project. They don't seem to do that any more.

[Joef]

I'll go back and remove my intemperate remarks. The particular jurisdiction I am doing a house in has its own way of measuring the coverage allowances. The idea that an area measurement is either rentable or gross is a very narrow view of the problem.

[dpasa]

Area calculation in Revit is very useful and fast, although I believe I would change it completely. (????)
Let me explain.
1. I work in Greece. I would like to attach a schedule to a sheet but this is not possible since I can't rename the "Building common area", "Floor area" etc.
2. I really don't understand what area rules are. It would be more than enough to be able to adjust everything and create our own rules depending on what we need every time.
3. Formulas in areas should be improved
4. Area calculations should be exported to RTF or DOC or TXT and images.
5. Area calculations should be embedded as a column in a schedule (or as comment)

All the above are not something difficult to change, I wonder why I am the only one feeling uncomfortable with areas. I think No1 and No 5 aremost important. If there is a greek guy reading, he will understand.

[Tom Dorner]

Just because there are two "out of the box" area plan types in Revit doesn't mean that you can't define your own. Simply add a new type called whatever it is you want. Since your new type it is not the Gross or Rentable types Revit applies area rules to the apply rules won't even work. Area lines like any other Revit element can be aligned and locked or dimensioned and constrained to a particular location. With the proper understanding of schedules, shared parameters, exporting schedules and ODBC there is not much ground that Revit won't cover.

Tom

[D_Driver]

snip...
Simply add a new type called whatever it is you want. Since your new type it is not the Gross or Rentable types Revit applies area rules to the apply rules won't even work. Tom...snip

thats the part it took me (and many others) a while to figure out...

so for the others new to area plans, take a look at the Area settings button... this is what allows you to create new "types" - or rather new area schemes. with every area scheme, you have the ability to create a tag for that area plan type. this can be quite flexible...just make sure you do NOT use Apply Area Rules (on the options bar) as you draw lines...

They did add in recently some more controls on this on the Room Calculations tab of the area plan settings, but the strange thing is that this setting works only works on the room tags
at first I thought this would let me control the "Apply Area Rules" but it does not affect how the lines are added.
try adding a room tag (with area) and an area tag to a room with area boundaries, you will see the room tags area change as you toggle this, but not the area tag... very odd. perhaps useful, but a weird place to put this control
DdDD

[irwin]

I've trying to be a good Reviter and use the area tools that come with Revit but they are extremely time wasting. You go through the whole exercise of drawing the boundary lines and then if you have to manually change a line all the other lines suddenly hop to the middle of the wall. Even if you uncheck the apply area rules the lines still jump around. Then you have to go around and redraw the whole thing. Why does Revit assume that I want to measure to the center of the wall?
I would like to make sure everyone understands that the "Apply Area Rules" check box only controls the line you are about to create. (This is true of all controls in the Option Bar when you are creating new elements.) If it is checked and you create a line by picking a wall then that line will always jump to one side or the center of that wall as defined by BOMA rules. Unchecking the box later will not affect the behavior of the lines you've already created. If you create the line with "Apply Area Rules" unchecked, then it is just a line, which can be locked to wall centerline or faces, or left unconstrained. Such a line should never jump to the wall centerline or anywhere else.

It sounds to me like for what you are trying to accomplish you don't want the area rules to apply. In that case, you should uncheck "Apply Area Rules" before you create any of the lines. Also make sure you answer "No" when you create the area plan and it asks if it should automatically create area boundary lines from the external walls. That's because the lines it automatically creates in this step always have the area rules applied.

I'm guessing that in your case the lines that are jumping were originally created with "Apply Area Rules" checked. If so, that is the answer to your question "Why does Revit assume that I want to measure to the center of the wall?". Hope that explanation makes things more clear.

[Joef]

I thought I could save a bit of time by having Revit draw the lines around the walls, then go and change the ones that weren't where I wanted them. I didn't know that there was a whole BOMA logic controlling the linework. We deal with Lot coverages and Floor area ratios. To tell you the truth I had never heard of BOMA till now. I think I have a better handle on it now.

Joe

[D_Driver]

Irwin...

not to confuse this with a wish list...but
is there any way the Area Boundary tool's options could store the last used settings?
having to uncheck "Apply Area rules" every time I go back there is a bit tedious.

alternatively having a check box on the Area settings - perhaps on the Area Schemes page would be awesome. Better, if the Room Calculations>Room Boundary Locations could somehow get associated with the Area Schemes that would be SWEET!

[beegee]

It's useful to understand just how Revit applies Area Rules.

This pdf may help.

[D_Driver]

yes, thats a nice summation of the 30 odd page BOMA rules publication, and how the area rules 'should' apply, but revit knows nothing of whether an area is a 'store' or 'office' or common or vertical...hence the need to be able to control the options area rules as we are working wth them...

[Tom Dorner]

I thought I could save a bit of time by having Revit draw the lines around the walls, then go and change the ones that weren't where I wanted them. I didn't know that there was a whole BOMA logic controlling the linework. We deal with Lot coverages and Floor area ratios. To tell you the truth I had never heard of BOMA till now. I think I have a better handle on it now.

Joe
For those who do not know what BOMA is I have supplied some links below for you to check out.

BOMA stand for: The Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA)


Main website: http://www.boma.org/

Area measurement standards:
http://www.boma.org/ProductsAndResearch/StandardsandCodes/StandardMethodForMeasuringFloorAreainOfficeBuildings.htm

BOMA measurement methods are the defacto standard in the U.S. for measuring office space.

Hope this helps to clarify the Revit gross/rentable area plan's reason for existence and logic.

Tom

[irwin]

but revit knows nothing of whether an area is a 'store' or 'office' or common or vertical...
You tell Revit whether the area is store, office, etc. using the Area Type instance parameter of the Area Tag. Possible values are Building Common Area, Office Area, Exterior Area, Floor Area, Major Vertical Penetration, and Store Area. Revit uses that information when determining how to measure according to the BOMA rules.

[D_Driver]

WHEEE DOGGIES...

Just when I thought it was safe to get back in the water...


thanks! I use the areas for so many other things...see 24342 I had not dived into the basics!

[jvoight]

Sorry if this has been said before. But I like to select the floor and then look at its properties, the area will be listed. I use this for a quick reference and to make sure I close to my target. Keep in mind area of walls are not subtracted and stair openings are. jim

[Adam Mac]

I'd just like to thank everyone on this thread for having such a thorough (friendly) discussion
about a topic i haven't been too sure about.....until now.
After reading this thread i feel confident enough to start using this part of Revit.
Thanks all!