Floorheating Pipe length Dynamo

[colin.huwilerZQHS2]

I have a floor heating plan which I have drawn with MagiCAD.

Now I want to find out the length of a heating circuit. The length of each circuit should be written in to the connection (mechanical equipment) between flow and return. My problem is that I have no idea how to do this. I found a node of MEPover which selects all connected pieces, but unfortunately it often has random selection errors. Everything is assigned to the same system.

Anyone have an idea how to solve this?

[L.Maas]

Can you give more details? You mention that you have drawn things in Magiccad. You want to have the length of the circuit(s). After drawing in Magiccad what have you done. Imported it in Revit (version?)? So what are the elements (e.g lines, pipes, pipe fittings)? You also mention that you have written a script but that i gives errors. Do you have screenshots or better can you upload your script what you have sofar and what kind of errors are you getting?

We could be of better assistance if you could upload the files (Revit file and Dynamo script).

At the moment to little information to work with

[colin.huwilerZQHS2]

Thanks for the answer.

Magicad is a plugin for Revit which automatically creates heating circuits from MEP rooms. The heating circuits consist of pipes and pipe fittings (bends). At the point where flow and return flow meet is a mechaniqal equipment which separates the systems and has information such as volume flow and temperature. Unfortunately, the plugin does not add shifts and changes after creation to the length of the circuit. I need the length for calculations like pressure loss and need it to label the heating circuits. I want to use Dynamo to calculate the current length up to the heat distributor and then write it into the connection.
I found a Node from the MEPover package which promises exactly this function. Unfortunately the selection is different every time, even if I choose the same pipe, see video.

I use Revit 2019

[L.Maas]

The video did not work for me.

I have looked your project file. What i see is different systems using pipes and elbows.

You can group the elements by system and then get the length of the individual elements. That is what I have done in the concept script. You end up with the total length per system. Not clear where to store the data (but only 5 numbers), you can find something for that. I hope this is enough to get you moving forward. I only used vanilla Dynamo, no addtional packages used.

 Script is attached in a zip file (due to isues with the site)

[colin.huwilerZQHS2]

Thanks for the script. Unfortunately this is not what I'm looking for, I'm trying to figure out the length of each heating circuit (color), see picture. The individual heating circuits (color) are unfortunately not separate systems. A heating circuit (color) consists of 2 systems one the straight line and one the dashed line. All dashed lines respectively all straight lines are one system.

[L.Maas]

Ther is not clear distinction between the different circuits (i.e parameter, system type). SO then we have to use selection nodes

Minor changes to the script can solve this. I have added two examples.

1-Native Nodes only

Use a selection node. In Revit Select the circuit you want to determine. Then select  temporary isolate. Now you only have the desired circuit in your view.

Go to dynamo (on Manual setting) and use the select node and window select all elements in the view and run the script.

2-Use Steam node

Use the current selection node from steam (set boolean to true)

Select the desired circuit in Revit

Go to Dynamo and run the script

You have to switch boolean off and on when going to different circuit otherwise selection remains the same

[colin.huwilerZQHS2]

Yeah, that works. But I still have to choose manually. This is not practical for large projects due to the large amount of time involved. Do you know a way how I can calculate everything at the push of a button?nen Weg wie ich alles mit einem Knopfdruck berechnen kann?

[L.Maas]

The issue is that there is not a lot to go on to differentiate between the different circuits. For example a circuit has multiple systems (e.g HVL & HRL) and the different circuits share the same systems (e.g all use HVL).

I looked at some of the MEPover nodes (e.g Elements in connected network). But they proof to give unreliable results. It is not clear (without starting to delve in to the code) what the rules are to be part of the network.

The best solution (in my opinion) would be to clearly differentiate the different circuits in Revit (also good for traceability). Not familiar if Magiccad could help you there. But in Revit you could add a project parameter (e.g CircuitNumber) to the fittings and pipes. Then select all the elements in a circuit and give it a number or text.

In Dynamo this would allow you to easily separate the different circuits for length calculation.