topic Re: Trying to calculate ACTUAL Wall Areas in Project data & BIM

Trying to calculate ACTUAL Wall Areas

jojojojojojojojojojo — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 14:55:45 GMT

Hello! I dont really know where this topic belongs to, but I seem to have a very specific thing I need to do. I work in Iceland right now and in order to apply for a building permit, there you need to fill out a form not only for Gross Internal Area, Room Sizes and so on, but also for the qm size of the External Walls, with and without openings. I am not talking about the area they take up on the floor plan, but the literal area of their surface. very annoying.

In microstation and Revit there seems to be a feature like the Zone Tool that can also be used in 3d but im missing that in Archicad. The only way i can think of is to calculate this manually or to use the Fill Tool on every single wall...

Can anyone think of a better idea? merci

Operating system used: Windows

Re: Trying to calculate ACTUAL Wall Areas

CosminF — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 15:50:02 GMT

Hi,

You can either recall that information
- in schedules by listing the Gross surface area of wall outside face (net or gross = with or without window openings)
- using autotext labels on elevations or on the floor plan directly, recalling the same function (gross/net surface area ...)

Further reading on the wall listing parameters: https://help.graphisoft.com/AC/20/INT/AC20Help/03_2_Views_Virtual_Building/03_2_Views_Virtual_Building-101.htm

Re: Trying to calculate ACTUAL Wall Areas

Barry Kelly — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 03:58:33 GMT

I would have to check this, but I do not have Archicad in front of me at the moment.

Yes, you can get the external surface area of a wall with or without openings.

It should work perfectly fine for a single walls that is not connected to any others.

But be aware of how the walls connect at the corners.

One wall will be the full length of the reference line and the joining wall will stop short as it is trimmed to the other wall.

The total external surface area of all walls should be correct, but the individual are reported for each wall may be slightly incorrect as the length is adjusted for the trim.

I could be wrong about this (I hope I am), but it is something worth checking.

I will check, but won't be for a day or two.

Barry.

Re: Trying to calculate ACTUAL Wall Areas

CosminF — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 05:39:22 GMT

I also don’t have archicad in front of me but in scheduling for example, if the modelling is correct, you can disable intersection from layer settings and then the surface shouldn’t miss/double the intersecting part.