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Creating Schedule Help

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Message 1 of 9
marc_48
429 Views, 8 Replies

Creating Schedule Help

I maybe trying to do a bit too much with the schedules, but I will put this to you all and see if someone with more experience can help.

 

I am creating a schedule to pick up the room areas and additional information to do with artificial lighting.  That bit is the easy bit.

 

What I am trying to do is put a column in the schedule that shows how many light points are within that particular space. I have looked into ticking the quantity box, but that picks up just the spaces.  If there was a way that this could be used to pick up the blocks in a particular space, and not the spaces that would be the simplest way to solve this (I think anyway).

 

Just to let you know, I am using Dynamic Blocks for the light fittings.  As I can have all the different types within the one block.  I have heard that I can do this using the MultiView blocks (I haven't explored this yet), but the amount of blocks that I need is going to be increased (from what I know about MultiView blocks).  The simpler this is, the better I believe.

 

I have tried using Count under the Automaitc Property, but when used, adds the blocks as an extra row, not into the desired column.  I may have to add something to the block to get it to do what I want it to do, but don't know how to do this.  At the moment, I am putting this information manually into the space properties.

 

The next part to my question, and again, I maybe asking a bit too much here, but I want to take two totals from two different columns to create an average. If I could do this in the one table, fantastic!  If I have to create a second schedule to pick this up, that is ok I suppose, but I would then do the math for it manually and just write it in if that was the case.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated and sorry for the length of the post.  Just trying to be as detailed as possible.

 

I'm using ACA 13

 

Thanks!! 

8 REPLIES 8
Message 2 of 9
leothebuilder
in reply to: marc_48

I think you can achieve what you want with the block count.

You will have to use MultiView Blocks for each light fixture and add a property location.

From there you can create a schedule that can report for each space the amount of fixtures.

To report an average of the result of two columns that may be possible by adding a formula column to your schedule, but I haven't tried this myself. (I've used formula cloumns, but not to average results of two other columns)

Betcha  David Koch is going to give you some pointers on this.

Message 3 of 9

To calculate the average of two column values, you can use a formula property or a formula column.  You would have to use the latter if your calculation involves either the quantity column or another formula column.

 

While you can attach a Location property to AutoCAD objects, they will not "sprout" a location grip, and will not be able to read in property data from the Space.  I have not worked with Dynamic Blocks much, since they do not play nicely with AEC objects, but I would assume that, as AutoCAD objects, they would have the same limitation as "regular" blocks.  One way for your Space to "know" how many objects of a particular type are within it boundaries would be to add a Location property to those objects, as Leo suggested, that could read in a specific, unique property of that Space, such as the room number.  You would then add a Formula property in a Property Set attached to the Space that would scan through the drawing database, looking for those particular object types, and, if found, checking the property data attached for a match to the value of the property for that particular Space and incrementing a counter variable (in a loop).  The value of the counter value would then be returned by the Formula property and could be shown in a Schedule Table.

 

I have never done that myself, so I cannot say how involved the Formula property might become, or what sort of performance hit might be involved.

 

It may also be possible, to write some sort of program (inside a formula property or as a separate, standalone program that could push values to manual property values), that could scan the drawing, determine the extents of each Space, determine which Space each of the target objects of interest is "within", and then determine the total for each Space.  That would not be dependent upon a Location property, so it could work for any object type, but is definitely well beyond my experience with customizing AutoCAD/AutoCAD Architecture.  That is not to say it cannot be done, just that I would not be able to offer any advice beyond the vague description above.

 

If you do not have extensive experience writing custom programs for AutoCAD, the Location grip method would likely offer the higher chance of success.


David Koch
AutoCAD Architecture and Revit User
Blog | LinkedIn
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Message 4 of 9
marc_48
in reply to: David_W_Koch

Thanks to the both of you for your help in this.

 

I decided to create a multi view block that shows the wattage for each light (Instead of creating each one individually for the different types of wattages, I have created a multi view block and added an attribute to it).  This way I can add the location tag to it & then hopefully grab the attribute and use this in the schedule as well

 

Sorry for my ignorance, but I am not sure how to add the location tag.  If there is a tutorial somewhere about how to do this, that would be great.

 

I have included the dwg file for you to see what I have done (to help you understand what I am doing).  I am not asking for you to do the work for me.  I would rather do this so I can learn how it is done.  If I can get this done, I have another schedule that I wouldn't mind creating with similar information  The file has what I have created so far.  It is just the manual way.  I obviously want to take this to the next stage.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Message 5 of 9
leothebuilder
in reply to: marc_48

It looks like your drawing is ACA 2013 version.

I have ACA 2012 and when I open this drawing it explodes the AEC objects.

 

You mentioned "attributes" for the Multi View block, did you mean Property Set Definition ?

Attributes go with the standard autocad blocks or dynamic blocks.

PSD's go with multi view blocks.

 

Did you create a property set definition for the light fixtures?

Have to get you on the right track first before going into location PSD

Message 6 of 9
marc_48
in reply to: leothebuilder

Sorry, I am fairly new at creating these kind of things.

 

I have saved the version down to ACA 10 for those not up on 13.

 

That makes a little bit of sense in regards to the PSD for multi view blocks.  What I had done was created a std autocad block with an attribute in it.  I then created my multi view block with that block.  I can then change that attribute in the properties palette in each multi view block i insert.

 

I am still not sure how creating a PSD for a multiview block is then going to be able to be read in my schedule??

 

One step at a time I suppose

Message 7 of 9
David_W_Koch
in reply to: marc_48

Saving to the 2010 format will not yield any usable AEC objects for someone using 2010, 2011 or 2012.  (ACA files are not backward compatible between file format changes; ACA 2013 is the first release in teh 2013 format.)

 

It sounds like you are not familiar with the Schedule feature in ACA.  Property data can easily be included in an ACA Schedule Table.  Each property becomes a column in the schedule; each object becomes a line in the Schedule Table.  If you want to display the values of one or more properties near the object, such as the wattage of a light fixture, you can create a Schedule Tag to do so.

 

You might find some of the resources listed in this blog article of interest:

http://architects-desktop.blogspot.com/2006/08/adt-schedule-feature-resources.html


David Koch
AutoCAD Architecture and Revit User
Blog | LinkedIn
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Message 8 of 9
marc_48
in reply to: David_W_Koch

I understand how I need to create a property set definition for it to be included into an ACA schedule.  I have created a basic schedule, which I can use the property set definition I have set up for a space.  It is a bit more manual then what I would like, but since creating it, I have found out that I need to take it further has I have too many variables to work with. And from what I can understand, I will be able to do this (with a lot of patience), just need to know how.

 

Now, with the multi view blocks.  I have created a property set that applies to the multi view block.  I go to edit the multi view block to attach the property set I have created with a location tag inside, but I can't attach a property set to it.  Do I need to add something to the property set definition (It is set to apply to a multi view block).  I can't check if my location tag is going to work.

 

Thanks

Message 9 of 9
David_W_Koch
in reply to: marc_48

Property Set Definitions have an Applies To tab.  This is where you specify whether the Property Set is object-based or style-based, the objects or styles to which the Property Set can be applied, and - if desired - (for a finer degree of applicabilty) the Classification(s) to which the Property Set can be applied.  Your Property Set Definition needs to have Multi-View Block checked here.

 

Not sure if this is contributing to your problems, but also note that an attribute attached to a Multi-View Block cannot display a value from a property in a Property Set attached to that Multi-View Block.  You will need a separate Multi-View Block, set up as a Schedule Tag, to do that.  Unlike attributed AutoCAD blocks, where the data is entered into the attribute, with the ACA Schedule Feature, the data is entered into properties which are attached to the object (or the style of the object).  Schedule Tables and Schedule Tags are just two ways to display that data in a drawing.


David Koch
AutoCAD Architecture and Revit User
Blog | LinkedIn
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