assinging materials while importing

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I'm new to Ecotect trying to do my first cost analysis. This means I need to assign different materials to the different objects in my model, which is imported from Revit (via .xml format). Now to my problem:

In my Ecotect model all walls (interior and exterior) are automatically assigned to be "wall" elements. Obviously I want to assign different materials to the interior and the exterior walls, but now I can't think of any good way to separate them from eachother to select them. Clicking all the walls one by one doesn't really feel like an option, even if that is the only way I can think of to do it right now.

When I open the .xml file for the first time in Ecotect, it shows the window that lists the objects in the model and lets you assign element-type or material to them. However, Ecotect seem to ignore all settings I do in this window, since when the file is imported the objects haven't got the materials I gave them.

Anyone knows a good way to either make it work with assigning materials with the import-window? Or a good idea for how to separate the exterior walls in the model form the interior when they all just count as "walls".

[SeanBurke]

When you look at the Material Assignments Panel on the right hand side of the interface (checkered flag icon), you'll notice that every material has a primary, and an alternate material. The alternate material kicks in when two surfaces of the same material overlap one another (an interior wall, a floor, a ceiling). This is a very quick way of dealing with zones, and illustrates one of the ways Ecotect can tell the difference between surfaces inside the building, versus exposed to weather.

--
Sean D Burke, Assoc AIA, LEED AP
sdb consulting
BIM, CAD and Sustainable solutions training and implementation
Read my blog -> Paradigm shift

[Anonymous]

Yeah I've noticed that, it's a nice function. Still I'm looking for an effective way to separate my interior walls from the exterior walls without having to select them one by one. If I could do that, the material assignment itself wouldn't be a problem. Also I'm wondering why the materials I assign when I import a file doesn't stick. Anyone else had this problem?

[drajmarsh]

You shouldn't have to select them one-by-one. Just select a single wall and then open the 'Material Assignments' panel on the right-hand side. The material assigned to that wall will be highlighted. Right-click on the highlighted material and choose the 'Select Primary Material' menu item. This will select all visible items in the model which are assigned the same primary material.

Then, with all your walls selected, assign them something like 'DoubleBrickWall_Plastered' as the Primary material and 'Framed_Plasterboard' as the Alternate material. That's it - Ecotect will automatically work out which parts of each wall are exposed (Primary material) and which are adjacent to other zones (Alternate material) each time it needs them for a calculation. Even if you re-arrange all your walls and spaces, Ecotect will simply re-calculate the inter-zonal adjacencies and automatically work out the changes without you needing to re-assign anything.

This works exactly the same for ceiling/floor intersestions. The only thing to remember is to assign them the same alternate material without changing their element type (Floors should stay as floors, Ceilings as ceilings, etc).

Hope that helps...

Kind regards,
Andrew

--
Dr. Andrew Marsh
Principal Software Engineer
AEC-Simulation
Autodesk, Inc.