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Writing information into 2000+ zones

Anonymous
Not applicable
I am currently modeling a 2200 room hospital, for coordination and management puposes.

Having all the architectural drawings in 2D, we are trying to write into the zone stamps the finishes information (floor, ceiling, walls, skirtings, etc.)

This has to be done manually, zone by zone, on the floor plan, with the drawings as ghost stories.

The obvious way to do it is selecting a zone, ctrl+T, inputting the correct letters to the variables (I am using the DCA Zone Identifier stamp, but this applies to any other stamp), and moving to the next zone.

for 2000+ zones, this is mind boggling.

Would there be any other way to do this input? No schedules, because the info is in plan view, and each room has a different combination, with no clear logical assignments.
25 REPLIES 25
Anonymous
Not applicable
I guess some zones will have the same settings, why don't you use the pipet?
Anonymous
Not applicable
Thats a no go.
I could hunt down similar zones on the material combination (floor, wall, ceiling, soffit...), height, name, ID and zone categorie.

But then they have different zone numbers, or just one of the above is not equal, so it could help a bit, bt not significantly.

My wish would be inputting zone data via the zone stamp.
Anonymous
Not applicable
My English is not perfect so sorry if I misunderstood you. Is it relevant for you to use Interactive Schedule? I think it is the easiest way to edit zone settings.
Anonymous
Not applicable
Miguel,

I'm not sure if this will help you or not, (You probably know this already!) but you can select only a few select zones on plan, then right-click on the zone schedule in the navigator and select 'List Floor plan Selection only'.

If you made sure you only selected the zones you knew had the same finishes, it might simplify your task. You could even try creating a separate schedule to edit each individual parameter, then you you could use 'show uniform items as a single entry' to change them all at once. Any zones accidently selected with a different setting for that parameter would be displayed separately and not be edited. This is a major advantage over just using the settings dialog (ctrl+T) to edit multiple zones!

Hope it helps - good luck!
Anonymous
Not applicable
Thank you for your help.

In fact, this is a very heavy model, and there are many variations for the finishes. For the same floor type I have maybe 6 types of different walls, and 6 more ceilings, skirting, etc.

So selecting the few that have exactly the same combination on a 15000 square feet floor plan is no easy task.

Schedules is not the ideal solution either, for the same reasons.

As I said, the best thing would be to input the data directly into the zone stamp.
Erika Epstein
Booster
Have you looked at OPS (Onuma Planning System)?
That allows you to bring in zone information.
Erika
Architect, Consultant
MacBook Pro Retina, 15-inch Yosemite 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Mac OSX 10.11.1
AC5-18
Onuma System

"Implementing Successful Building Information Modeling"
Anonymous
Not applicable
Yes, Zonematic also does that and is much less expensive:
http://www.mad.fi/mad/englishzonematic.html

But in this case, the zones are already created, and I want to add information to them. From what I know from the OPS, it does not do that, does it?

And even if it does, using it would be like using a Howitzer to shoot a rabbit. And as expensive...
😉
Erika Epstein
Booster
You can export the zones from AC to OPS add the info and then bring it back to AC.

As to cost, I'm not sure what there rates are, I just use it as our BIMstorm team won a free studio.
Erika
Architect, Consultant
MacBook Pro Retina, 15-inch Yosemite 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Mac OSX 10.11.1
AC5-18
Onuma System

"Implementing Successful Building Information Modeling"
Ralph Wessel
Mentor
Krippahl wrote:
I am currently modeling a 2200 room hospital, for coordination and management puposes.
Having all the architectural drawings in 2D, we are trying to write into the zone stamps the finishes information (floor, ceiling, walls, skirtings, etc.)
Take a look at Codebook - it might help you manage this and other aspects of the design.
Ralph Wessel BArch
Active Thread Ltd