Scheduling filled regions in elevation - suggested alternatives?

[-luisa-]

Hi all,
As part of a massive conservation project we need to cleverly mark up elevations of the existing building to show parts that need different types of treatment. Filled regions would be the ideal tool for this - except that I need to keynote AND schedule the areas of those 'patches'.
Essentially, I need to be able to schedule the total amount of area of the elevation that needs treating, what type of treatment, etc, at the same time ensure consistency by using keynoting in those elements.
A detailed component would help with keynoting but doesn't provide the area of the 'patch'.
Any ideas?

[damon.sidel]

A detailed component would help with keynoting but doesn't provide the area of the 'patch'.

The only way I can think to do this off the top of my head is with an adaptive component of generic model category. It could have one adaptive point and you just place it on a vertical work plane and adjust some size parameters, or it could have four adaptive points and you could place all four corners (or more corners if there are irregular areas).

The other way I can imagine doing it is with a generic model in the shape of a rectangular solid with height and width parameters. It could be very thin. It could float in front of the elevation.

Both of these could get you there, but I'm sure that them being objects (rather than 2d annotations) could cause some headaches.

Final idea, you could draw the fill region AND place a detail item. You would have to manually input the area from the fill region into a parameter of the detail component, but then could tag and schedule the detail items.

[-luisa-]

Thanks for this Damon,

I am keen on testing your last suggestion. I am reluctant to add more 3d geometry to an already complex model. I am thinking I could just use a User Keynote which picks up the wall behind the filled region to avoid adding a detail component to deal with the keynoting. Then adding a 'Manual Area' parameter right next to the 'Area' system parameter would make it easy and quick to detect if it needed updating, and I could then use another parameter to filter the filled region types.

That was very useful - thanks!

[damon.sidel]

Glad it was helpful!

One last thought on your "I am reluctant to add more 3d geometry..." comment. When there is 3d geometry that I am using for quirky purposes like this, I like to take advantage of tricks to "hide" it. The most simple way would be placing all of it on a Workset that is off by default in all views. The other way I've done when that is unsavory is create a Design Option Set with two options. The first is the primary and it is empty. The second option has the offending 3d geometry in it. That way I can switch to that design option in just the views I want to see that geometry.

Just some additional thoughts if the Manual Area becomes unmanageable.

[david_peterson]

there's a sweet script in Dynamo that allows you to Tag (so I would assume schdule) areas of filled regions. Is that what you're looking to do?

[-luisa-]

Yes david_peterson, that would be ideal, I assume it could extract the areas as well? Where can I find this?

[irneb]

An alternative (if the facade is a solid wall and not a curtain wall) is to use the Split Face tool. Effectively you'd be drawing the same borders as your filled regions - but direct onto the 3d object's faces. This would even allow you to do so on curved surfaces - which would be very problematic using filled regions.

Then you can "paint" the various faces using any material of your choice (allows for varying surface hatches as well as render/realistic view appearance). Which then allows you to both tag & keynote those, as well as schedule them.

- - - Updated - - -

Yes david_peterson, that would be ideal, I assume it could extract the areas as well? Where can I find this?

I think david was referring to something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd53-ofHCgY

[-luisa-]

irneb,
Split face could work but this is a historic building with complex elevations, wall sweeps, and other features - I believe some of the walls are already using split face to show different materials so this would get tricky.
On paper a filled region is all I need as this will only be shown on a particular set of technical elevations, but the ability to schedule and tag is missing.
I might venture into Dynamo for this but suspect the team may prefer to do a bit of manual work instead!
Thanks all.

[david_peterson]

Here's a you tube video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd53-ofHCgY
Here's a tagging method
http://therevitkid.blogspot.com/2015...+Kid.com%21%29
There's a ton more out there.
Hope this helps.

[sdarali]

I always advise to keep as much as possible the use of Revit tools for their intended use (e.g. use a wall command to make walls and nothing else). So if the "Filled Region" command lacks a scheduling functionality, instead of finding alternative command we can extend the functionality of Revit using .Net programming or a Revit Script. For your particular use, the below script is sufficient to produce the schedule. If you need help plugging it in into Revit, I can provide instructions. Currently the script will create a schedule for the Active View (currently open view) listing each Region Type and its Area, but it can be extended to run through all elevations.


public void ScheduleFilledRegions()
{
var uidoc = ActiveUIDocument;
var doc = uidoc.Document;
var collectorFilledRegions = new FilteredElementCollector(doc, uidoc.ActiveView.Id).OfType<FilledRegion>();

string data = "";

foreach (var e in collectorFilledRegions) {
var regionArea = e.GetParameters("Area")[0].AsDouble() * 0.092903;
var regionType = doc.GetElement(e.GetTypeId()).Name;
data += regionType + "," + regionArea.ToString("#.###") + Environment.NewLine;
}

TaskDialog.Show("Filled Regions Schedule", data);
}