Material: Area - calculated then tagged

[Anonymous]

Hi,

My issue has to do with the Material: Area parameter. I am trying to use the value of this parameter in a calculated value that reports to a shared parameter (that can then be tagged). The Material: Area is behaving nicely in terms of reporting the areas of painted geometries. However, when I try to tag it, the parameter proves hard to reach. I have also tried this in dynamo without any luck. I've tried set.ParameterByName with no luck.

In dynamo I've also tried to use the node Schedule.GetDataColumns from the Bimorph package, to 'copy/paste' the areas listed in a Material take-off column into another column (shared parameter) and use the new column's values to tag from - but I get the 'Dereferencing a non-pointer'...but there are no null values in my schedule...

any help would be greatly appreciated. 

[barthbradley]

I'm a little confused. There is no parameter named "Material:Area". 

[barthbradley]

This is how we find and use the in-built "Material:Area" Parameter.  This is why I'm confused about what you are trying to do.

[ToanDN]

You need the Clockwork package for Dynamo and use the Element.Materials+ node to retrieve the material area.  Then write it to a shared parameter in order to tag.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

thanks all for the replies, I found a way.

First of all I swapped the Material tag for a Multicategory tag that seemed happier to pick-up the shared parameters values  and use the area of the tagged shape in calculated value so when you tag it it takes the area of the whole shape and returns some other calculated number.

Secondly, I suppose this cannot be done purely in Revit so I've used dynamo's native GetParameterValue by name to just take "Area" rather than "Material: Area" and the result was ok, since it seems to return the area of the sketch of the extruded inplace geometry I am dealing with (i only need the top face of the shape (which I am painting). So as long as you have the dynamo script running in the background set on automatic the areas and numbers on tags update automatically when you push and pull the shapes handlebars. So satisfying! 

thanks again to all.