Schedule Piping to ditinguish Vertical Pipe from Horizontal Pipe

[fawzimasri7137]

Hi,

I Created a Schedule: Pipe to show the quantities of all the pipe in my building, so i can export to excel and do more Estimation work on it there.  However i realized that i do not have a way to distinguish Vertical Pipe from Horizontal Pipe.

I did find certain pipe propoerties that i can use such as "Slope" - which is "not calculated" for vertical pipe; and the "Offset" properties which are used in  vertical piping.

However, i have no idea how to show these properties as one of the fields of my schedule output.

What is the proper way to  seperate pipe based on their orientation - vertical vs horizontal?

thanks

[SteveKStafford]

There currently are no parameters built-in that a schedule can show to use as criteria that differentiates a vertical pipe from a horizontal one. What do you do if the pipe is sloping? At what point does it become "vertical"? The "easiest" way to help Revit know which pipe you consider vertical's or risers is to supply a piece of distinctive information you can then use to filter a schedule by, or sort by. For example you could enter "Riser" into the Comments parameter. Then you can sort by Comments, separating pipe by the lack of a Riser comment and those that include it. Another way is to use a different pipe type for risers, just a copy of the pipe you are already using for example.

Either approach will take some effort, it just depends on which approach you think is "easier".

[fawzimasri7137]

Hi steve,

thanks for confirming that there is no built-in parameter in schedule that i can readily use.

Can you also confirm to me that i cannot use any of the properties of a pipe segment in a calculated field, such as i mentioned before, the "Slope" and the "Offset" fields?   i could then put some equations to gether to decide at what slope is the pipe considered vertical or horizontal.

Right now i have the drawing from a third party, which is typically the case for me since i am on the estimation side of things and not on the engineering side.  So for the short term, i need a solution that i can do on an existing drawing.... long -term, however, i can't see how i can make my customers accomodate me on this.

in any case, outside the comments or the material type, can you think of another property that i can ask them to change so i can filter by?  something that is real easy to change on the fly as they are drawing a pipe segment.

[SteveKStafford · Accepted solution]

If you are working inside Revit and using a schedule then the fields offered in the list are those that can be used in any form within the confines of a schedule. You can create new parameters and one could be used to make risers different, distinguishable, from lateral piping. That assumes you're willing to do this task over and over as you get updated models.

There is a lot I don't know about your work but I can imagine some things that could improve your circumstances. Some are things you can request of the design teams you are working with, others involve using alternative software to interogate the various BIM you get from them. For example perhaps Navisworks would be a better tool since you are an estimator. I'm not convinced that the Quantity Takeoff aspect of Navisworks is really robust enough to satisfy estimators (not the ones I've worked with anyway, if they can be considered typical) but it does help derive data from the model instead of using manual takeoff techniques either on paper or with PDF software like Bluebeam.

The Revit API can access information about geometry that isn't exposed to us in the Revit UI so it might be worth working with a developer to create some custom tools that help you ask questions and get better answers from the model.

I don't think any one software solution has seriously convinced estimators they've got the killer solution for them yet, unless you include Excel. 😉

[fawzimasri7137]

i am just starting to get my feet wet with using Revit / Navisworks for estimation.  Revit schedules seemed more straight forwrad to integrate in my current estimation workflow, after i export to excel.  Naviswork seems to require more work at onset in building a catalog etc, that i thought i would tackle it at another time.  I wonder now if Navisworks will have the same issue of separting Horizantl pipe from vertical pipe.

I have spent some time on using Revit API to bring out the properties of a pipe, but i am not there just yet... thanks for confirming that this would be the only route to obtain such info.

[Anonymous]

Hey friend,

I know it's been a while since you asked it, but have you found a proper solution for it?

I saw Steve's answer but didnt understand it well. I'm a new user and i wish to find a way to export a pipe schedule that can show when it is a vertical or horizontal pa, hopefully without using dynamo ( i am a bit afraid of programming:)).

Thanks:) 

[fawzimasri7137]

I never did find a solution for that.... sorry.

I don't know anything about dynamo... is there a chance to do a take off with it?  i don't mind programing, so maybe i should take a look at it.

regards