Sector / Area / Quad as model info?

[tom_durfee]

I'm not sure of the terminology (I'm only an Audio-Video integrator, not an Architect) I would like to have the sectors / quads / whatever of the building a sort-able piece of information like Levels, for the purpose of family-type counts on a schedule. For instance, counting TVs by Level then Sector.

What I mean by sector / quad is when the building is virtually divided in the plan by A,B,C,D etc, typically for the organization & division of the view and sheets, but in this case Level + Sector determines where the cables will be ran, to those sectors' respective IDF. 

I see the Area option under Architecture > Room & Area > Area > Area Plan, but this doesn't seem to do what I have in mind. In this case, the sectors are within the same match-line constrains throughout each level. I imagine being able to draw four rectangles over the site plan which cover top to bottom.

Rooms seem to act similar to what I'm looking for, it's possible to sort a schedule by Level then Room, but that's too fine of categorizing in this case.

Thanks in advance.

[barthbradley]

This might be a job for...Scope Boxes. At least in part. 

[cbcarch]

Perhaps you could use Departments for your "Sectors"--you can then schedule by Level, Department, etc.

Rooms can have a Department parameter as well, which also helps in creating colored plans where Rooms are colored by Department.

[tom_durfee]

I turned on Scope Boxes in VV, the Architect already has some there. I created a new one on Level 000, but I can't find it in the Schedule Properties as an available field. 

[tom_durfee]

Looks like the Architect already entered the Department information for each room, unfortunately it does not give me information pertaining to or translatable to the Sectors / Quads.

BTW, on the titleblock, they have a Keyplan, in order to highlight the Sector corresponding to the sheet, you have to select the titleblock, then click on the parameter A,B,C, or D. That fills in the quad (built into that keyplan family). Point is - this Keyplan is not automatic based on view region, it is manual. so it doesn't seem to have any linked information to the model.

[barthbradley]

The operative word I used was "In Part". I was coming at it from the view perspective (e.g. keying to what's shown in the view). @cbcarch offers a scheduling solution I think is smart and could be used in conjunction. 

[tom_durfee]

Gotcha. I tried to create a family parameter based on the scope box, I got lost in the weeds.

But that does give me the idea of creating the parameter for the TV family, then manually tagging each A,B,C or D. I could then go to each level/sector view, select all instances of the TVs in that view, change the parameter to correspond to where it lives. That would let me sort by that parameter... long road to what I was hoping to automate.

Thanks again, everyone.

[barthbradley]

What about activating Room Calculation Point in Family? 

[tom_durfee]

I'll look into that, thanks.

I ended up adding Room Number to the Schedule, exported to .txt, opened in Excel, gonna mess with a pivot table from there. The specific issue now is that the room numbers give me a hint as to what Sector they are in, but not exactly. They seem to (mostly) correspond to the Grid numbers, but some numbers are incomplete.

[cbcarch]

You can add a Project Parameter and assign it to rooms, designating "AREA A", AREA B", etc. according to the Architect's nomenclature and location of the Rooms in the building.

The "AREA A" property can then appear in your Schedule.

Take a look at Manage Tab>Project Parameters> Rooms--you can add one here.

Hope that helps.

[tom_durfee]

Good idea. I'll give that a shot. That will at least save me the trouble of tagging each instance of the TVs, and automate future adds/changes.