Is there a 3rd Party tool for Quantity Take Offs

[dcerezo]

Having come over from Revit where take offs were a breeze, I realize that doing the same thing in ArchiCAD is....cumbersome....to put it gently. Is there a 3rd party add on that anyone can recommend which makes this task easier?

[Laszlo Nagy]

Could you post a screenshot of the result you would like to achieve? Maybe screenshot you achieved in Revit so we can see how the same result can be obtained in ARCHICAD.
Are you familiar with Component Schedules? I think you might want to do an Element Schedules where you should be doing a Component Schedule.

[Anonymous]

ArchiQuant provides users with a simpler and more immediate way for Quantity Take Offs and Cost Estimation linked to the construction elements in an ArchiCAD Virtual Building.

http://www.cigraph.it/en/node/324

[godi]

You can do it easily (but with a little previous work) inside AC without any 3rd party app, only using properties and lists.

You first need to assign components to every object, with is own properties scripts in objets, windows and doors, or with a linked property library object for walls, slab and so on. All this properties can be parametric and dependent of every element own special characteristics as you like to define it.

When you have this preliminar work done (yes, it can be tedious if you have a huge library of objets or composite elements) all you have to do in every project is to ask for a list of components, that you can have listed by floors, zones, etc, with equal elements grouped or not, etc.

We have been using this for years without making any manual measurement in any project.

But, and I can't understand why, Graphisoft has neglected this way of work in benefit of schedules, a system with which is impossible to obtain a real and effective list of materials.

For now you can still use this list system, but not with the new stair and rail objects, Graphisoft has not implemented properties in these. You will have to measure they "by hand"

[dcerezo]

That just seems crazy to me. There needs to be an easier way. The data is in there....the 1's and 0's are in there. Instead of all of us having to put in all of this time to figure out how much drywall our project has, GS needs to put in the time to make it easier for us to find out.

The current solution is like going to a bakery and them saying, "Well, we don't sell you bread....we sell you all of the ingredients, you make it. It's really not that hard."

Give me a break.

[Erwin Edel]

Make a schedule, specify criteria to get to what result you expect, get information. If you need some basic information on the fly, there is Element Information palette. At the level of building materials it is quite fast to get quantities, provided your model is reasonably decent.

The struggle is to link costs to quantity without going back to the system of lists as described by Godi. That takes quite some time to setup.

For our projects we use a spreadsheet for cost calculation and I use schedules to get quantities for certain things. Some things I don't model (trim mostly) and I just calculate that with the numbers I've put in the spreadsheet for the most part. Depending on the size of the project I ussually have a cost calculation done in a day or two. These are quite detailed though. Initial estimates we just go for gross volume multiplied by expected level of luxury.

[godi]

Erwin wrote:
Make a schedule, specify criteria to get to what result you expect, get information. If you need some basic information on the fly, there is Element Information palette. At the level of building materials it is quite fast to get quantities, provided your model is reasonably decent.

The struggle is to link costs to quantity without going back to the system of lists as described by Godi. That takes quite some time to setup.

For our projects we use a spreadsheet for cost calculation and I use schedules to get quantities for certain things. Some things I don't model (trim mostly) and I just calculate that with the numbers I've put in the spreadsheet for the most part. Depending on the size of the project I ussually have a cost calculation done in a day or two. These are quite detailed though. Initial estimates we just go for gross volume multiplied by expected level of luxury.

I don’t know in other places but in our country every architecture office uses specialized applications to make cost estimation.

The only think we need from the architecture design app is a detailed quantities list of every material or works with a reference to link it with a particular budget item in the database of that specialized application.

In Archicad that list can, at least in the present moment, be obtained only with the properties system. You need some preliminar work, is true, but once it is done you have it ready for all your future projects. When every 3D build design finished you can have his quantities list in seconds

[Cosmin Ghioanca]

This post is so old. I don't know if you've found an answer to your question or not, or if use ArchiCAD anymore. Yes there are some third-party programs that can do the math for you but you shouldn't trust third-party apps more then you trust the basic app.

Don't panic! ArchiCAD can do the job just like Revit does it. In Revit you specify some parameters of calculation needed for any kind of take out and you need to do that for all material used. It's the same thing here, no big deal. Both programs come whit a basic template that contain info's about some general materials used in different regions of the world by specific standards. But none of them are just enough to be considered ready-to-use. I'm using the program in Romania and the firm that sells the licences is making more personalized templates for this region so that if get the licence from them you get this premium function.

Now, in my opinion over that template that I got from them, I worked few more days (and still make more updates on every project I have) so I can get something that I can trust working whit.

You need to do just that and form the point where you have a nice template you can generate schedules. Accurate and specific material take-outs of any kind of material used, at any construction faze, for every single element if needed. Those quantities I export to an excel that can be imported to an estimation program that I use for 90% of my projects.

Up there I've said 90% because there is that 10% where I just take those quantities and copy them to another excel template where I have the labour prices, VAT and other prices, taxes and totals (just for fast estimations - some clients just need a total approximate cost of building).

Hope that this will help you!

[Aaron Bourgoin]

this arrived in my mailbox yesterday: