Zone Area and Volume Calculation

[Tincan561]

I need the area and volume of zones in a schedule.

The zones are placed manually.
The zone stamp works perfectly showing the correct area and volume.
The schedule, however shows a volume which is not accurate.

When I modify and update the zones, I notice that little black anchor marks are placed on the zone, which renders a different area and an incorrect volume in the schedule. These anchor marks are somehow referencing net area relating to walls or other zones, which I do not want.

I am unable to see any options or settings to eliminate this interaction with walls and zones, and just want a simple schedule of measured area and volume, which are correct in the first zone stamp.

This is a project I just migrated from AC21 to AC22 and the stamps and schedules were correct in that version.

[Laszlo Nagy]

Maybe there is a Wall Recess there (for a Door/Window) and when the Zone is updated its volume flows into that space and this is why it becomes larger.
In the Option\Project Preferences\Zones Dialog you can see the setting in the "Add Wall Recesses to Zones" portion of the Dialog is what controls how large recesses are added to the Zone volume (and area, too).

[Tincan561]

It does not seem to be controlled in the options.
Every time I update a zone, the program creates new handles which adds area and volume.
I am unable to determine how to prevent this.

[Tincan561]

The post Zone Areas: Measured vs. Calculated (October 2017) helped me find an acceptable solution.
I recently finished my model with complex wall profile for the eave and it affected all of my area and volume calculations by adding black anchors to my zones.

In my case, however, I cannot lower the zone height below the eave profile because I need an accurate volume for our local codes, which have bulk volume restrictions. I am also unwilling to change my exterior walls to "No Effect on Zones" because I need the boundaries for rooms.

My solution was to move the zones off the walls and site. The updated zones are now accurate. It's an extra step or two, but much better than manually calculating each zone and importing a spreadsheet.

It seems that Archicad should address this. The zones I placed are all manual and should not be affected by any walls or aberrant complex profiles.

[Daniel Kovacs]

Hello Everyone,

Just wanted to let you know that we contacted Tincan561 and managed to find out what the problem is. It appears that zones find various points of complex profile walls that touch them from any direction, and they adjust their own geometry to them. This happens regardless of whether your zone was placed automatically or manually.

This is actually a bug, that we are still investigating to see how hard it would be to fix, so we are not sure yet when it will be released (fix #250685).

Until it is fixed there are several workarounds:

• Set the Wall's "Relation to Zones" field to "No Effect On Zones"
• Place these complex profiles as Beams instead
• Move the Zones away from these complex profile walls (eg. make them shorter)

Regards,