Volume Calulations

[Anonymous]

We work in an area where gross building volumes are required for certain town approvals. Is there an easy way to get the gross building volume out of Reivt? (We need the number that would be displaced if you dunked a solid version of the model into a pool of water. Chimneys cornices and all.)

[L.Maas]

I would use (in-place) masses for that. Create the mass(es) in the shape of the building.

[Anonymous]

There may be an easy way of doing it that i have missed, but in the past i have used model in place to do this

1) make a new generic models model in place family,

2) use multiple extrusions and work planes to select all the parts of your building (doesnt matter if different extrusions overlap)

3) join all the extrusions

4) complete the model in place family

5) click on the generic model and in the properties pane it will show you the total volume

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the response. We are using the massing method at the moment, and were wondering if there was any way to get a more accurcate volume from the elements we had already built in our model (after all they are already 3D elements.) If not, we will stick with the massing solution. Maybe I'll try to add that to the Autodesk Wishlist.

[L.Maas]

Can you explain why creating masses is not accurate enough for your projects? How do you hope to improve on it?

It might depend on your definition of volume.

(For example if I have a cube of 1*1*1m but inside is a hollow space of 0.5x0.5x0.5m. What is the volume of the cube is it 1 cubic meter or 1 - 0.125 cubic meter?)

[Anonymous]

The volume would be 1m^3 in this instance. The masses would not nessecarily be inaccuracte. It is more so that they are tedious. The limitations on percision of the masses come from the requirements of the town. We need exact volumes, i.e. every baluster and the exact cornice profile. We are a firm specializing in traditional architecture and these elements can get very detailed. It just becomes time consuming to remodel all of these elements a second time. I was only looking for a way to use the volumes of the model elements instead.

[L.Maas]

Ok, clear. I have not seen easy solutions for what you want. Basically it is a shrinkwrap function you would like.

Dynamo might be an option but have not seen scripts (yet) which can do this kind of thing.

I do not know how your projects are made. You might consider to add an object to all your (relevant) families. These objects should be the 'solid' for that family. All these solids should be made of the same distinctive material. All these solids can be scheduled by a material takeoff. In the project you would have to add masses with the same disitnctive material for areas where the solids are not yet present (e.g. system families). This might speedup the process, possibly saving lot of remodelling.

[loboarch]

I wonder if exporting the project out as basic solids and then getting a volume calc from something like Inventor or Fusion would be easier?

I take solids out to Fusion 360 to manipulate them outside of Revit for some specific workflows. I am pretty sure it would output a raw volume.

I can't test now, but I will give it a test with one of the projects I have done this with to see if I can get volumes out.

[RDAOU]

@Anonymous

What @loboarch suggested works...lol I can't believe I am agreeing with him 🙂 for one time

However the question is how complex is the project volumetry? and are we talking whole project including all its elements or you have specific features of the project in mind?

Depending on the complexity there can be ways to do it in Revit too. There is a feature which Dev team was so generous and brilliant to add yet many overlook it's full capability if not it's whole existance

Edit: See example below

If the geometry is too complex...large scale projects...you can still do the same and use dynamo to extract/generate Massing from a Generic Model or a Conceptual Mass in Revit (That script is readily available on Youtube) - Instead of importing the SAT into Project environment you just need to import it into Conceptual Mass

[loboarch]

I checked and Fusion 360 will do this kind of thing as well. You still need to export to SAT file and then run a script to get the calculation.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the detailed response. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that the volume this technique would find is only  the volume of the walls, and would not include thw volume that they enclose. Is this true?

[Anonymous]

Just so that everyone can see what is causing me trouble. I have built in-place masses using Revit's modeling tools or the export to DWG methods to find the volume of the whole building. What I can't get to work is the roof. This complex mass will not re import into Revit as a readable volume. I have attached a JPG of the mass I am trying to work with.

[loboarch]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Thank you for the detailed response. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that the volume this technique would find is only  the volume of the walls, and would not include thw volume that they enclose. Is this true?

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That is correct. You would need to combine with another method to get the "internal" volume of space.

That being said. while messing with this in Fusion 360 there was a tool that was enclosing the entire model with a mass, to make a volume/mold of the body. This may produce the total displaced volume but I did not mess with it long enough to see if that had real promise. the path i came down was finding the volumes of the bodies themselves.

I still think it might be possible to find the displaced volume, I just did not spend enough time playing wiht it to find out.

[RDAOU]

@Anonymous

Yes ... this extracts the volume of the elements placed in Revit... You will need to extract the rooms from revit and convert to mass. You can use dynamo to do that... Package you will need is called Lunchbox and a couple from Springnodes depending how you will be coding

I am not sure what kind of solution you would be ok with ... if you are good with a Dynamo solution you can post your question on DynamoBIM.org to be discussed in further detail OR check the ones on Youtube relating to how to extract from Revit and convert to masses...No credit in googling on your behalf and posting others' youtubes back on here lol 

[Anonymous]

A simple way is to export to autocad (dwg) and use the command "MASSPROP"