topic Re: How do I generate quantities take-off in Collaboration with other software

How do I generate quantities take-off

Anonymous — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 15:58:24 GMT

Where do I begin to have A10 generate a bill-of-materials and door and window schedules?

Re: How do I generate quantities take-off

TomWaltz — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 16:02:53 GMT

Have you started working with the Interactive Scheduler yet?

Re: How do I generate quantities take-off

Anonymous — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 16:07:23 GMT

No. I really dont know what the Interactive scheduler is.

Re: How do I generate quantities take-off

Dwight — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 16:23:19 GMT

I direct you to page 261 of Archicad's Reference Guide. It will provide a foundation to the difficulty of making schedules.

Window Schedule Templates are located as in the attched image.

Re: How do I generate quantities take-off

TomWaltz — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 16:37:37 GMT

jeromewms wrote:
No. I really dont know what the Interactive scheduler is.

Then I'd recommend looking it up in your user manual. I was wrong in my terminology, though. AC10 calls it the "Interactive Element Schedule".

On your Navigator, there is a heading called Element Schedules. Under that, Archicad includes several example schedules to experiment with and that are decent for experimenting on your own.

Archicad has two scheduling systems, the one Dwight mentions and the one I just mentioned.

Re: How do I generate quantities take-off

Rick Thompson — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 23:01:30 GMT

jeromewms wrote:
Where do I begin to have A10 generate a bill-of-materials and door and window schedules?

If by bill of materials you need a material take off... number of framing members, GWB amounts.. gal of paint... etc, then the Interactive Scheduler is not much help. For that you will need to dive into the darkest, deepest, murkiest area of AC.. the calculation menu. It is so obscure it does not even appear as a standard menu item and must be turned on in the Work Environment to access (as in Dwight's attachment above). It is truly a beast and requires many frustrating hours to get anywhere. You can download a user manual at the link below. It's about as good as it gets to give direction, but it is painful. You can also download a "sample" material list from my web site (under any plan) to see what it can do. I can do a lot, but it's very painful. Perhaps AC11 will address this much requested wish to redesign it's functionality.

May the force be with you.. you will need it.

http://www.thompsonplans.com/files/TappingCalcMenu.pdf

Re: How do I generate quantities take-off

Dwight — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 23:27:10 GMT

The Calculate issues are long-term annoyances, in part because we are not quantity surveyors. It's like having rendering capability but not understanding that there is no such thing as white. Ugly rendering = Useless Quantity Take-Off.

I remember my first Archicad University, where some poor Brit tried to explain how to use the function. This was when the Menu was REALLY BAD. No template help, even. Everybody went. Other (empty) session's instructors even came. The room was overfull. Standing room only during an afternoon following the pub lunch. All the guys were angry. If they were Americans, there would have been a lynching. But they were Brits so they just mumbled, fumed and shuffled their feet.The Hungarians, a delegation from headquarters, were lighting pitchforks and stabbing each other in shame. It was confusing. They were all called Zoltan.

I use the schedule for most ordinary things, but it is most useful when counting parking spaces and the like.

The killer is that to extract meaningful building quantities demands enormous quantity surveying experience and patience with meticulous specification description. I believe that while contractors CAN exploit these features (and do so in Graphisoft's Project Management applications) architects are best remaining with door and window schedules and using the calculate functions to merely compare relative material usage between alternative schemes. This is relatively easy to achieve once you have established a nominal volume/floor area value.
When architects need more, they wave their arms meaningfully (see avatar) and delegate.

Re: How do I generate quantities take-off

PatriciaLe_o — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 15:56:59 GMT

Hi,
I'm almost in the same situation as Jerome was. I just did some simple interactive schedules.. but now I'm trying to reeeeeally get into this "schedules and quantities world".
I'm in a detailing project and I'm concerned about what kind of attention should I have on my model, like having separate layers or materials, or I don't know what else. Any tip is VERY welcome since last Rick's post was not so cheering.... I know I have lots of reading ahead. I read the Calculation subject on Reference Guide, part of the AC 10 Calculation Guide and just downloaded Rick's material... but I still didn't get it very well. I tryed to look for some examples (I remember there were some .pla on GS site, and I just can't find them!!!!) so maybe I could learn with what people usually do. Well, I'll keep on reading...

Re: How do I generate quantities take-off

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 12:05:50 GMT

Any news on this book? It is supposed to help.

http://tr.graphisoftus.com/faq_entry_details.asp?id=1368

http://www.fc-cadlink.fr/boutique/achat/produit_details.php?id=7&PHPSESSID=dd43ff46f77ce7dbc28f8d1b2b048f46

Re: How do I generate quantities take-off

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 14:33:44 GMT

jocontreras wrote:
Any news on this book? It is supposed to help.

http://tr.graphisoftus.com/faq_entry_details.asp?id=1368

http://www.fc-cadlink.fr/boutique/achat/produit_details.php?id=7&PHPSESSID=dd43ff46f77ce7dbc28f8d1b2b048f46

Looks like it's available see here:
http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=14877

Dan K

Re: How do I generate quantities take-off

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 14:35:02 GMT

jocontreras wrote:
Any news on this book? It is supposed to help.

This book is now available since few days in English version.

The french version was since november.

Re: How do I generate quantities take-off

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 17:34:19 GMT

Great!. Has anybody tried it? Want some feedback before I buy.

Re: How do I generate quantities take-off

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 17:59:24 GMT

I do…

The English version is too fresh to find users which really can give a serious feed back on it. The french version is only available since november then a bit short too.

Friday we will have a meeting and formation in Paris with Eric Wilk. We will be about 22 ArchiCAD users that already bought the books and can share first experiences about this.

The first small feed back on the french version are almost positive and tell the interest in the way to use the data base of ArchiCAD, to link ArchiCAD elements to Excel description, and the way to really personalize this informations.

The most interested french user work almost for individual housing, but not only.

Re: How do I generate quantities take-off

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 18:21:52 GMT

Fmr wrote:
...Friday we will have a meeting and formation in Paris with Eric Wilk...
The most interested french user work almost for individual housing, but not only...

Fmr,
I suspect many of the potential North American users would be using this reference to produce info for Single family Residences as well. It would be great if you could give us some feedback/user comments after your friday meeting.

Thanks,
Dan K

Re: How do I generate quantities take-off

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 18:25:44 GMT

Thank you very much. Im looking forward to purchase this book. It is the only area in Archicad that I havent tried. If we can make take offs from our drawings easily, It will be a huge benefit for us. I hope this book easily introduces us (computer illiterates) to the wonderful world of estimating. At least I hope the book has the same sucess as Dwight did with the introduction of his lightworks book to the community.

Re: How do I generate quantities take-off

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 20:28:57 GMT

jocontreras wrote:
At least I hope the book has the same sucess as Dwight did with the introduction of his lightworks book to the community.

I hope too, I use both and just regret to don't have a french version of the Dwight one…
Eric Wilk as really do a great job with this book

Dan wrote:
It would be great if you could give us some feedback/user comments after your friday meeting.

I will do my best to share the french feed back here.

Re: How do I generate quantities take-off

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 23:15:38 GMT

I have just purchased this book from Erik but have not yet received it. To me, the underlying database in ArchiCAD is the last great unexplored mystery. If it can be unlocked, the additional value it could bring to the project would be substantial.

I think this topic follows one of the underlying laws of the universe...."Everything is hard until you know how to do it......then it is easy."

I will post additional info as I get more into it. One last word though. Because of the wonderful job this brain-dead, dumb-as-dirt war criminal of a president has done trashing the dollar, the exchange rate with the Euro is not good. Counting shipping from France, the total Damage for me is $78.42. Let's hope it is worth it.

Gary Bley
Portland, OR

Re: How do I generate quantities take-off

PatriciaLe_o — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 17:47:57 GMT

I'll also have it next week. We've ordered last wednesday and it didn't arrive yet... I'll post some feedback ASAP, hopefully good ones.

Re: How do I generate quantities take-off

Anonymous — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 10:39:50 GMT

I will try to keep my prommise by giving some feed back from our meeting of french users :

Doing quantity survey need several important job before beginning to have serious result

1— Doing a great and well done 3D ArchiCAD model organized in a rigourous file —by example the Wall "Hot Line" position is
2— Making a good analysis of our own usual quantity survey to perfectly know how many cost each part of building. Then we will can perfectly associate to each ArchiCAD element —Wall, Slab, Object, Roof, Filll…— the good description and prices
3— Then, with the help of the book, you can associate, with "component" and "property script", archiCAD element to get quantity, cost and description.

An important part of the job is done with Excel, to prepare the job —Excel is quicker and easier than ArchiCAD to manage big list— and to finalize it.

Re: How do I generate quantities take-off

Andy Thomson — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 00:51:13 GMT

PatriciaLeão wrote:
I'm concerned about what kind of attention should I have on my model, like having separate layers or materials

Our office is exploring this in depth right now. We have discovered a kind of 'secret weapon' for efficient scheduling. We'll post our findings soon on the blog. We are scheduling everything now.