topic Re: how do i measure square footage in my building? in Modeling

how do i measure square footage in my building?

Anonymous — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 10:23:27 GMT

hi,
i need to measure the gross and net area of my building. what is the most efficient way to do this in archicad

Re: how do i measure square footage in my building?

Laszlo Nagy — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:37:45 GMT

The Zone Tool is the one that can display area information. It can also be listed. You should probably use that one.

Re: how do i measure square footage in my building?

Rick Thompson — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 13:16:58 GMT

I normally select the floor slab and open the "Element Info" box.

Re: how do i measure square footage in my building?

Anonymous — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:29:47 GMT

I use a simple fill with the 'show area' toggled.

Re: how do i measure square footage in my building?

fuzzytnth3 — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:59:27 GMT

The Zone tool in combination with Scheduling can preform the Gross and Nett areas calulations for you.

There is an option within the Zone tool to control it's behaviour so it will either calculate the nett or gross area.

Re: how do i measure square footage in my building?

Arcadia — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 03:45:12 GMT

I don't use Zone's at all as I have no need for them in the work i do and find them cumbersome. My solution for working out area's is to create a layer called "calcs" then use fills (color coded for different purposes if desired) drawn over the area's wanted (ie roof, overall building area, individual rooms etc). Then open the element information window from the palettes menu. When you click on the fill you get the area, perimeter etc. If you color the fills you can tell quickly if they need to be updated when something changes. Works for me anyway.

Re: how do i measure square footage in my building?

fuzzytnth3 — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 09:01:07 GMT

What you describe is how the Zone tool works as well. But by using Fills instead you loose some of the power of Zone tool particularly in this case where the original query was how to calculate the Nett and Gross areas.

The Zone tool can do this quickly for you as I have shown above. Whereas to do the same thing with the Fill tool requires editing all your Fills and creating a second set of Fills to calculate the Gross.

The Zone tool also has the benefit that it can feed information into Opening and Finishes Schedules which save time and effort. Whereas the Fill tool can't feed Room Names, Wall and Floor Finishes into schedules

Don't be scared of the Zone tool, embrace it and make it your friend

Re: how do i measure square footage in my building?

Arcadia — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 10:52:02 GMT

Well that's all very well of course, but I don't need zones linked with room names or schedules or floor and ceiling finishes and ceiling hieghts etc. Like I said its cumbersome for my purposes when all I need to do is simply fill stretched over a particular area. It takes a couple of minutes to place the 3 or 4 that I need then i don't have to think about them again till I need the area's. Maybe one day I will really have a look at zones and see what I can do with them but other stuff is a higher priority for me at the moment.

Re: how do i measure square footage in my building?

David Maudlin — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 12:16:18 GMT

Arcadia wrote:
My solution for working out area's is to create a layer called "calcs" then use fills ... Then open the element information window from the palettes menu. When you click on the fill you get the area,...

The Fill Tool can show the area on the plan (check the "Show Area Text" box), and updates automatically as the fill is edited.

David

Re: how do i measure square footage in my building?

Mark Wallace — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 16:53:00 GMT

I use either zones or the fill tool as mentioned in the above.

Fills work great for sub-areas within zones.

Don't forget slab areas and roof areas included in the 'schedules' are another under utilitized feature. Can quickly tally multi-story, multi area buildings.

Mark

ArchiCAD 12 2523 USA Full + 11, 10, 9 & 7, Mac G5 Dual 2.3 Ghz, 1.5 Gb OSX.4.11, HP T1100, Epson R1800

Mark R. Wallace AIA

Re: how do i measure square footage in my building?

fuzzytnth3 — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 16:59:53 GMT

Mark wrote:
I use either zones or the fill tool as mentioned in the above.

Fills work great for sub-areas within zones.

Don't forget slab areas and roof areas included in the 'schedules' are another under utilitized feature. Can quickly tally multi-story, multi area buildings.

Mark

Yeah but only Zones have the ability to efficently deal with Gross and Nett area calculations which was the original question asked by laylool

Re: how do i measure square footage in my building?

Arcadia — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:28:12 GMT

The Fill Tool can show the area on the plan (check the "Show Area Text" box), and updates automatically as the fill is edited.

I actually hadn't noticed you could do that. What would be better is if you could get the Autotext function to pick up the area's of fills with different labels so you could display an area's table in the titleblock that updates automatically as you change the fill.

Is there any way of doing this?

Net & gross area's I guess is a zone tools issue. I personally don't need net area's just gross so its not an issue for me (assuming net area is area without walls?).

Re: how do i measure square footage in my building?

Rick Thompson — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:46:51 GMT

I already mentioned this above, but here is a screen shot. I think this is a sorely unused palette. If all you are after is square footage's, and no need to schedule it, all you have to do is keep it open, select the slab (or roof.. whatever).. and there it is. No fuss with fills and area text, updating etc.

Re: how do i measure square footage in my building?

Arcadia — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:56:00 GMT

This is fine but doesn't work for me as the main house slab does not extend to the perimeter of the building but only to the inside edge of the wall cavity so the area of the slab is not the same as the overall building area.

Re: how do i measure square footage in my building?

Erich — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:21:56 GMT

Arcadia wrote:
I actually hadn't noticed you could do that. What would be better is if you could get the Autotext function to pick up the area's of fills with different labels so you could display an area's table in the titleblock that updates automatically as you change the fill.

Is there any way of doing this?

Yes, use a schedule with the criteria set to Fill and the layer where your area fills reside. This will give you the table. However, I don't think you can place it in a master layout, it will need to go sheet by sheet.

Re: how do i measure square footage in my building?

Arcadia — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 09:41:19 GMT

I've just created a schedule for area's using fills and it seems to work quite well. Cheers.

Re: how do i measure square footage in my building?

Roopa A — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 09:05:50 GMT

By using zone, can we calculate the area of slab which has to take thickness also, and indicate value in the plan with different zone types