building types in city plans

[clog boy]

There's something I need to do, but I don't know how.
It's common use to put a city plan (or area plan) on a real estate overview drawing. I'd like to fill it with generic models or detail components, or whatever, and I'd like to be able to click it and alter two labels (one as instance and one as type). I know it's possible with sheets and tags (blue text = editable).
Our current method is to draw the plan and put numbers on every property item, but that takes hours. It would be so much easier to just draw the streets and property lines, and put small models of a building in it with two labels (building type and address).

What family template should I use? How would you do it in real life?
Thanks.

[ford347]

I could be wrong as I've never had the need to do this nor tried it, but first though would be to create some massing families. I know people here have come up with some pretty creative stuff in the massing category. Maybe someone could elaborate? Then you could tag these famlies using a newly created tag that contained whatever information you needed it to and even schedule these components. I don't know how you would handle diff. shapes of homes etc., but if you could just use a generic shape for representation since this sounds like more of a location map, then I could see this working.

Josh

[jamie.casile80054]

hi bram,

i think josh sounds like hes on the right track. although, i would suggest not massing. use a generic model instead. you can give your shapes "stretchable" sides that you can push/pull when you set them in the project.
good luck,
jamie

[BMcCallum]

I would take these excellent solutions a step further and add dimensions to the family sketch to constrain the mass in it's length, width and height. Use an instance parameter for each of these dimensions.

Then, when this family is loaded into your site model, you can select individual buildings and change their properties to specific values.

In fact, this is such a good idea, I'm going to use it in my next site proximity plan, thanks everyone!