Custom Shared Parameter Label

[Anonymous]

I’m trying to create an area tag for my room for a code review. I have 3 storage rooms, side by side. They are each calculating separate SF based on the area of the room. Fine. But I want the room tag to “sum up” the SF of the 3 rooms together without removing the room boundary. I couldn’t find a way to do that. 

I decided to change the area to be text I can type in so I could keep my rooms. I created a shared parameter in my label. I called it area with text for the input. Once I loaded the room tag into the project it Greyed out my new label. WHY?!!! I’ve spent the last 2 hours trying to figure this out.

ps Sometimes I miss auto cad. Simple can be better. 

[SteveKStafford]

Rooms and areas are not related to one another. Areas don't know anything about rooms. When you place rooms you can create an Area plan that relies on its own boundaries. If you'd like to group three rooms into one area then the boundaries you create for that area should be sketch so it does not include the walls between the rooms that would divide them into three, leaving one area to identify.

Area plans are meant to allow for documentation that regards different conditions of the building like , occupancy, departments, hard/softscape and many others. Rooms are an aspect of some of those kinds of reports but Areas don't respond to anything but their own Area Boundaries which can be placed over walls or merely sketched wherever you need them.

[Anonymous]

I should have rephrased my question. I need to do a space usage tag. I have room tag that includes the area of the room, fine. But I have multiple rooms that are used for the same thing. I want a tag that will auto populate the area of those spaces as one usage. I could use an area plan, but I don't want to. I want to use a regular floor plan.

I found a work around for now.

[SteveKStafford]

That's precisely what Area Plans are intended for.

You could overlay an area plan on a sheet, above the floor plan. It provides the automatic result with information that will update as a design changes. The area plan graphics can be reduced to as little as areas and area tags being visible.

[FAIR59]

You can "misuse" Spaces and Zones for this purpose.

• place Spaces in the rooms in question [ Analyze ] [ Spaces and Zones ]
• 
• start a Zone, and add the spaces.
• name the zone ( total area or something similar )
• make a Zone tag including the Gross Area parameter in the label.
• tag the Zone

[ToanDN]

I second using Spaces and Zones approach. Zones are better than Areas because an Area cannot total Rooms located apart from each others, a Zone can.

[SteveKStafford]

I've done the same... a space can only belong to one zone however.

The disconnect between area and rooms allows for multiple scenarios in a way that spaces and zones don't. I've often wished area and rooms knew about each other like spaces/zones do, then opted for using spaces/zones...but have then been confronted with multiple area summaries...and found myself back at room/area. If only requiring one kind of report then it can be a winner.

I didn't advocate for it, imagining that other outcome.