topic Managing Properties in ArchiCad in Collaboration with other software

Managing Properties in ArchiCad

Cosminn — Mon, 29 Jun 2020 14:12:38 GMT

Hello everyone, I've found the property tool a very powerful tool - however, there are situations where I don't know how to fix the issues.

If we are looking at one default property that it is included in the ArchiCad template - No. of bricks to purchase.

Let's say I have only 2 walls in my project where I want to use brick. I see no option to have just one row containing the total for No. of bricks to purchase (for both walls) - because the walls have different parameters for length, thickness and height - I see 2 rows with the No. of bricks to purchase for each wall.

I know that I can apply the SUM option - but for my client, it is not important the number of bricks for each wall, it is important to just have 1 row with the Total of No. of bricks to purchase.

I hope to make sense.
Daniel

Re: Managing Properties in ArchiCad

Laszlo Nagy — Mon, 29 Jun 2020 18:37:16 GMT

The solution in such a case would be to create a Schedule that schedules Walls only, in which you add only 2 Schedule Fields: "Element Type" and "No. of brick to purchase", then schedule them and check the "Merge Uniform Items checkbox.
However, this only works if the Data Type of your Property is "Length".
In your case, the Data Type of the "No. of brick to purchase" Property is "Integer", so it will not be merged into a single line no matter what you do.
You can read more about these in the below threads:

https://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=69665&p=310512#p310512
https://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=69772&p=310916#p310754

Another possible option would be to convert the "Integer" type Property to a "Length" type Property, but unfortunately, that is not possible either. You can convert an "Integer" type Property to a "String" type Property as an intermediate step, but you can convert a "String" type Property only to a "Number" type Property, but not a "Length" type.

So, unfortunately, I cannot offer any good help here.

Re: Managing Properties in ArchiCad

Cosminn — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 04:11:04 GMT

Thank you Laszlo for your prompt reply!

I did play with these options and no results so far. I've mentioned the "No. of brick to purchase" option because it was easier for me - I am actually dealing with a property for zones - but it's the same thing - basically, what I need (in case of zone tool) it's an area that I've to apply a multiplier or to divide the area with a number - So that means that I've to use this expression with a string or a number property type. And either string or number property type - won't go in one single row in the scheduling tool. Based on what I've noticed is that only native Archicad elements parameter will be merged in one row like you said - length, or Area from zones, etc but don't see the reason to create a property for those parameters, because I can pick those directly from the scheduling tool if it makes sense. Or maybe I am missing something...

Maybe it will be available on the next versions of Archicad. It seems that at the moment I will still need to use the old but the great - List tool to have a proper table that I can use,

Best!
Daniel

Re: Managing Properties in ArchiCad

poco2013 — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 05:37:53 GMT

FYI:
Unless I'm mistaken, you can convert a expression number to a unit simply by appending the unit to the end of the number and setting the return type to the applicable unit (i.e length or area) The unit appended must then match the setting in the "calculation units" setting for that data type or else Archicad will automatically make the conversion. Unfortunately , you then could not use a custom number as Archicad would then not allow a data unit assignment as described above.

You could convert number (integer) to length but then the schedule would display the length units also in the cell which would make no sense. Area does not display units (AFAIK), so you might use that data type.

Re: Managing Properties in ArchiCad

Cosminn — Sat, 04 Jul 2020 19:46:35 GMT

@poco2013 - You're right!
I knew about data conversion - but however - I have missed something I believe. Actually I don't need to convert data - I do have one property - Data type - Area and it's multiplied with another property - Data type - number - and it's simply just working!

Again I am sure that I've missed something days ago, so all good for now.

Thank you all!

Re: Managing Properties in ArchiCad

Cosminn — Sat, 04 Jul 2020 20:20:17 GMT

Ok - I got it - now - I am not working on this every day - so I do recall things now.

This is an exercise for the Zone tool.

So I have this property CP_AREA- Data type - Area, and the property value is an expression - and the expression sounds like this:

Measured Net Area / STEREN * 100

STEREN is another property - data type - Number - Value is 1500 (this number won't change at all)

All good so far - In the schedule I have just one row containing the total for this property- CP_AREA

Let's say that the value for this CP_AREA is 16.66, because:

Measured Net Area=250
STEREN =1500

what I need in my row from the schedule is to say P.O.T= 250/1500=15.37% (P.O.T, it's just a text)- Based on what I know so far, is that the only way I can have this - is to have another property, data type - String (let's call it P.O.T. Description )and the data value is an expression that will merge the CP_AREA and STEREN, like this:

P.O.T= 250/1500=15.37%

Here is the hard part, when I put this new property - P.O.T. Description in the schedule, because it's a string value - the schedule will not merge the information from all the zones in one row- and will provide separate rows for each zone. Right now I am solving this using multiple drawings in the layout and I am using the text tool in the layout in order to achieve this.

Best!
Daniel