Schedules with Lengths

[Steve Jepson]

Why is is so difficult with ArchiCAD 11 to get the length of things in to a schedule?

Is there a way to add Length to the Available Criteria in the Elements ID Manager for beams and walls?

Suppose you are making a schedule for floor joists or something has been modeled as beams. Try to get the them tabulated into a simple schedule that totals how many of them are of each length.

As I am using ArchiCAD 11 more and more for Schedules, I am finding that length is a very difficult thing to get sometimes.

I have no problem getting the schedules I want from studs modeled as walls because I just change the word height in the schedule to length.

This way I can generate cut lists....how many of each length.

I want the same sort of cut list for joists and beams too but this is difficult because Length is not an available criteria in many places where it should be.

The Element ID Manager is a good example of this.

Is there a way to fix this?

[Richard Morrison]

Steve,

I think you may be looking in the wrong place. ID Manager is not where this stuff is going to be. Look at the default "Slab List" schedule for an example. You can duplicate this, and switch the element type to Beams, and you will find lengths under available criteria. You can generate subtotals of different length beams, no problems. The only annoyance is that lengths will be in inches. I haven't found a way to mix units in the schedules, yet.

[Steve Jepson]

Yes. I know what you mean. I only mentioned the ID Manager as one example of where you can not select length as an available criteria when it is the obvious choice of what you need.

If I model floor joists for example as beams I can not get a schedule with feet and inches.

If I model them as objects (Wood I-Joist 11) I can get feet and inches.

I think the root of the problem here is that you can not set Calculation units for Length to feet and inches in ArchiCAD 11.

Take a look the attached picture of some schedules I made just for fun.

Dimensions like this should not be possible!

Why is easier to generate mistakes like this than schedules that are all in feet and inches?

[Steve Jepson]

In order to get my schedule for plates in feet and inches I am using .gsm parts.

Joist Beam 11 can be configured to work as plate and you can get it into a schedule as feet and inches.

I can't do this if it is modeled as a wall or beam.

[Richard Morrison]

Steve wrote:
In order to get my schedule for plates in feet and inches I am using .gsm parts.

Have you tried the Cadimage Framing Add-on? From the initial description, it looks like it does a pretty good job with lumber schedules, although I don't know how well it translates into U.S. conventions.

[Steve Jepson]

Yes. I am using the demo now.

My initial impression is that I can get along with out it.

The way I do it now, I just paste a pre-modeled studwall into the plan, in elevation view I move the studs, trimmer, cripples and header all as one unit to the proper window location and tweak it a little to match the opening.

Multiply a few extra studs or something and my wall framing model is complete and so are my wall framing schedules.

In most cases I can model my wall framing faster than I can set up all of the configurations necessary to make the add-on work right.
I am sure this would get better with practice, however, I will always need to go back and edit some of the auto-generated parts anyway.

If you have the framing for some typical doors and windows already modeled, it takes very little effort to drag them into the wall and multiply some studs.

[Chazz]

Steve wrote:
The way I do it now, I just paste a pre-modeled studwall into the plan, in elevation view I move the studs, trimmer, cripples and header all as one unit to the proper window location and tweak it a little to match the opening.

But Golly.... We're using the most mature, comprehensive and expensive architectural CAD program on the planet. Why the heck can't it dynamically change the framing around as walls, roofs and penetrations are manipulated? Wall framing, at least as it is practiced in the US, is pretty easy: only a few rules need be observed and a few optional treatments defined (corners, headers, etc).

Am I asking too much?

[Steve Jepson]

I can not tell if you are being facetious or not.

ArchiCAD can do what you have described, using the add-on.

It works great.

I am just not sure yet if I would pay the extra money for it since I can also get these results the hard way with out too much extra effort.

That is why I am trying the add-on. The demo is free, give it a try.

Among other factors to consider is how useful it will be to me.

I don't need to do this sort of modeling very often.

[Chazz]

Steve wrote:
I can not tell if you are being facetious or not.

Kind of facetious, but respectfully so. My point being that AC should have it's own wall framing system. In the US residential market, this type of building is just so pervasive. Here on the west coast, even a lot of the commercial projects use wood frame, cavity wall type construction. Of course, ArchiCAD has the wall framing accessory, which kind of hints at what could maybe be done but like so many things in this program, it falls far short of the sort of industrial strength functionality required to be truly useful and deployable.

The thing that is so galling is that the US$500 Cadimage tool does not promise to do that much more than what ArchiCAD promises to do out of the box (mostly better, more automated framing elevations). Its just that Cadimage mostly keeps its promise.

[TomWaltz]

Doesn't Ralph Wessel have a really major wall framing package? FrameWright, I think?