How to estimate the cable length of cables that aren’t drawn ?

[Angayo]

he task is to get an estimate (to an accuracy of about 10%) the total length of data cables in a building (with perhaps a subdivision in types, floors, …). The cables aren’t drawn in Revit to save time. The cable trays are drawn though. The traditional way of getting the information is to print floor plans in a good scale, take a ruler, measure all cables (where they are expected to lie) and do the math with a calculator.

At first sight that wouldn’t be faster to do on computer, but there must be a way.

Here is an example with part of a building floor :

There are single and double wired data connection points that have a hight above the floor (a property). There are cable trays that are just under the ceiling. There are wireless connection points (not shown) on the ceiling. There is a gather point that is either a server room or a shaft that leads to another floor.

How could one get such an estimate efficiently in Revit ?

One way to proceed to get the cable length on a single floor that is simple, but may not be accurate enough, is to get the distance in a straight line from each connector to the gather point and multiply with a correction factor to account for detours. Height difference between the connection points and the ceiling must also be added. That is simple provided Revit can provide the distance of each element from a category to the gather point. Is that an idea that could work ?

Does anyone have other ideas ?

[ToanDN]

Create a cable tray schedule with Length and calculated value to multiple
the cable tray length with the number of cables running.

Edit: i didn't read the part after the picture (read on a phone). I see the complications now. Will need to look ininto it when i get to the PC.

[Angayo]

How does one get the number of cables running in a cable tray, given that the cables aren’t drawn ?

Is it possible for Revit to automatically draw cables ? This appears to be possible with Dynamo (an add-in that I am not familiar with). Even if they aren’t drawn accurately, it could be good enough to get a length estimate.