topic Re: Calculate Menu - Doing Math in Documentation

Calculate Menu - Doing Math

Anonymous — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 15:17:47 GMT

I would like to be able to track the total wattage of the lights I place in the plan (wattage calculation for energy code). I have already got my light objects correctly reporting wattage to an Interactive Schedule which then nicely counts up each fixture type and lists the lights out to a schedule. I then move this schedule to Excel and do some math to get my final wattage calc.

I would like to skip the whole Excel part. Is there a better way to do this using the calculation tools? If so, could someone show me the very basics of doing math with two fields from a schedule, or at least where to look.

Thanks for any advice.

Re: Calculate Menu - Doing Math

Karl Ottenstein — Tue, 31 Aug 2004 02:57:26 GMT

John wrote:
I would like to be able to track the total wattage ...I would like to skip the whole Excel part. Is there a better way to do this using the calculation tools? If so, could someone show me the very basics of doing math with two fields from a schedule, or at least where to look.

You can't do arithmetic in the I.S.

However, just selecting a 'sum' for the wattage value gives me a grand total of wattage (and you can do various subtotals as well if needed) ... which I think is all you want to do? If this doesn't help, post a screenshot of what you're seeing vs what you want to see.

Karl

Re: Calculate Menu - Doing Math

Anonymous — Tue, 31 Aug 2004 03:56:53 GMT

Karl,

That's really a great step forward and helps me out greatly (and emabassingly simple too ). Your tip will allow me track total wattage as I design which is 80% of the problem I had before.
Now, if I might get a little greedy...

What I would ideally like to achieve is shown in the attached schedule below. If I could get ArchiCAD to total the wattage for each fixture type and grand total the wattage column that would be great. I'm willing to use the regular calculate menu if necessary.

Thanks again, your first tip is a big help.

Re: Calculate Menu - Doing Math

Karl Ottenstein — Wed, 01 Sep 2004 04:38:18 GMT

John wrote:
What I would ideally like to achieve is shown in the attached schedule below. If I could get ArchiCAD to total the wattage for each fixture type and grand total the wattage column that would be great..

You're welcome. 😉

Well, you can do some of this, but not with the format that you show. To get a report that looks exactly like yours, I'd probably resort to exporting to Access/Filemaker or Excel.

You can subtotal by otherwise-indistinguishable-items in the I.S.. (E.g., all element that have the same values in all fields displayed in the schedule.) as shown in the attached screenshot for several library parts placed in a plan (I'm using the lib part name to distinguish the lamps ... rather than a model, etc.). Note the subtotals and grand total, but that they are on their own lines. (I didn't mess with fonts and line spacing ... trying to give a quick answer.)

Simply click on the 3rd button for the Watts ... which is the subtotal "flag".

Cheers,
Karl

PS You can ignore certain lamps (by their ID or other field value), but you cannot have them appear in the I.S. schedule, yet not be subtotalled as in your example.

Re: Calculate Menu - Doing Math

Anonymous — Wed, 01 Sep 2004 23:55:12 GMT

Cool. I think I've got it now.
Thanks for your help. I've never could quite figure out what those little buttons did. Now I know.

I guess as wishlist item I would wish for some very basic spreadsheet functions in the I.S. so that schedules and such could be done w/o Excel. Not sure if anyone would make that a high priority wish though.

Anyway thanks again.