I'm dreaming of a space inventory

[DianaK]

When I have a job that has a handful of spaces, I will create a worksheet for each space that reads off every symbol, and if possible, every entertainment plug-in object in that space to create a little worksheet that I can stick on a plate that shows a list of every item that rolls into that room.

 

Today I am looking at a job with over 300 rooms/spaces and I don't want 300 worksheets. I want to use a datatag, so if I have an add/update, I only have to edit the style once. In the past, I have used a workaround by turning every single object into a lighting symbol, and using an instrument summary, but that is not realistic for both of the conversion and unnecessary file bloat, and that it would still only work with the undesirable worksheet scenario.

 

I'm dreaming of a datatag  that connects to a space, and then lists  inventory of every symbol and plug-in object, including complicated entertainment plug-in objects, in that space. I just need the name of those objects and a total count for each type. I don't need every last drape, detail, etc.

 

Does something like this exist somewhere?  If not, then this is my request.

[Jesse Cogswell]

Gave a shot at this.  Attached is a Plug-in Object script that will behave more or less like a Data Tag, but will build an alphabetized list of visible PIOs (broken down by instrument type if a Lighting Device) and symbols (with symbol names) when placed within a Space object.  Text font and size are controlled through the normal Text menu.  Should even work in Viewport Annotations.

 

It also has a "lock" feature, so if you want to move it off of a space but have it contain the data, just tick the box and move it wherever you like.

 

To refresh, either double click the object or click on the Refresh Space Inventory button in the OIP.  The OIP button has the added benefit of refreshing all currently selected Space Inventory objects.

 

The tool should work with VW2022 and newer.  I'm leaving this one unencrypted, so please feel free to comb through the code and change anything (such as text formatting), but do save a backup first.

 

 

To install, follow the directions below:

 

1. Download the attached .vso file
2. In either a Finder Window (Mac) or and Explorer Window (Windows) navigate to your Vectorworks User Folder.  One easy way to get to this is to open up your Vectorworks Preferences, go to the User Folder tab, and click on Open in Finder or Explore.
3. Navigate to the Plug-ins folder.
4. Place the downloaded .vso file in the folder.
5. Restart Vectorworks.
6. In Vectorworks, go to Tools - Workspaces - Edit Current Workspace.
7. Click on the Tools tab.
8. In the box on the left, navigate to the JNC category and expand it, you should see Space Inventory in there.
9. In the box on the right, find a Toolset to place the tool, such as Building Shell.
10. Drag the Space Inventory tool from the box on the left to the target destination on the right.
11. Click OK.
12. Happy spacing.

I must admit that I don't use the Space tool very often, so there might be some weirdness that I missed in testing.  This tool was lightly tested in VW2022 and VW2023, but I didn't try it on a drawing with 300 spaces in it.  Things might get a bit...slow if you have a really large drawing with a lot of spaces.

 

Give it a shot and let me know if it works for you.

 

Space Inventory.vso

Edited May 23, 2023 by Jesse Cogswell

[DianaK]

Got this far in replicating the manual text data, shown Left, with Graphic Legends, shown Right.  Plug in objects like Projectors with screens are breaking the system.  

[DianaK]

17 minutes ago, Jesse Cogswell said:

Gave a shot at this.  Attached is a Plug-in Object script

 

Give it a shot and let me know if it works for you.

 

Space Inventory.vso 20.98 kB · 0 downloads

Excited to try in the morning.  Keep you posted.  Thank you!

[DianaK]

15 hours ago, DianaK said:

Excited to try in the morning.  Keep you posted.  Thank you!

@Jesse Cogswell 

That gets me far closer than before, and it is very fast.

I’m attaching my test file

I have tested that this does work on the design layer, it does work in the annotations, and it does work outside of a viewport.

• Could we have the counts on the left?
• I can do this manually, but if it is not difficult: could I have the ability to add a header via the OIP or something? In some cases it would say Inventory in some cases they want vocabulary like Bill of Materials, or Rental Items, you can see the example I posted a little earlier in this thread.
• It would be great to exclude all data tags from an inventory list. In this case I'm using a datatag to read off the space number, but I usually use one to read off the space name or name an area or similar
• It would be great if it did not say “Symbol –“ before each symbol
• Is there a reasonable world wherein it would display video screen with size and separately projector with type (or symbol name)? How about a television with its symbol name?  This is also one of the dilemmas I'm still running into when I work on the graphic legends version of this. 

Space Inventory working.vwx

[Jesse Cogswell]

@DianaK feature requests added with a couple of extra goodies thrown in for good measure.

• Counts now have a drop-down control to determine which side they go on, defaulting to the left.  I built it so that the quantities appear left of the title text, if you would rather the quantities be in line with the titles, remove the curly braces ( { } ) around lines 526 and 529 in the code.
• Title field added with a parameter to determine text size separately from the rest of the plug-in.  Check boxes added to show / hide the main title as well as the Space number and name.  Whatever text is on the bottom will be underlined, both fields will be bold.
• Data tags are excluded.  I wrote and tested this tool in VW2022, it looks like the Space tool was reworked in VW2023 to do the number and name as a Data Tag, I can see where that would be annoying on a Bill of Materials.
• "Symbol - " has been removed from the inventory list.  If anyone would like to add it back in, you would need to remove the curly braces around line 416 in the code.  I did leave quantifiers on Lighting Devices so that all lighting devices will be grouped together in the list.
• Yes.  See below.

Now for the extra goodies.  Based on the sample file and the description of what you were looking for, I imagine you are doing some corporate theater / event production with things like pipe-and-drape, so I added some ways to better itemize some things.

• For Televisions, the listing will now appear as Television - <diagonal size> <TV Type>, so the one in your example shows up as Television - 42" Flat Panel.
• For Video Screens, the listing will now appear as Video Screen - <width> x <height>.  Projectors attached to Video Screens are now broken out to their own line item.  The coding on this was a little tricky since it has to process the same object twice, so try not to screw around with the code too much unless you know what you're doing.
• For Soft Goods objects, you now have an option to either count the number of Soft Goods objects are itemize all of the components with a checkbox in the OIP.  When itemized, curtains will be counted separately based on the OIP fields Height, Stock Drape Width, Material Type, and Color.  The listing will read Soft Goods - <width> x <height> <color> <material>.  What's important about that is to make sure that you have the proper data in the fields.  If you have a 50' border curtain but don't update the Stock Drape Width field from the default 10', it will read that you have five 10' border curtains.  Pipe-and-drape curtains will also individually count bases, uprights, and sliders based on size and color.
• Rope and Stanchion objects likewise have an option to be itemized.  It will list out the stanchion bases, stanchion posts, and stringers by size and color.

These kind of breakout itemization is pretty time intensive, as it all has to be coded manually and requires some spelunking into the objects to get the right parameter names (major shoutout to @Pat Stanford for Pat's Patented PIO Parameter Peruser™ that dumps all that info into a spreadsheet), so if you have any more such requests, I'm going to start billing you hourly.

 

Let me know if this works for you.  The rest of this week is fairly busy for me, so I don't think I'll be taking another look at this unless something is really broken, but the code is open in case you want to try your hand at adding anything else.

 

 

Space Inventory.vso

Edited May 25, 2023 by Jesse Cogswell
Sorry, just looked at your Bill of Materials above and added code for Video Screen type.

[Jesse Cogswell]

Because I just can't quite help myself, I added an option to box the text up to make something a little more presentable and closer matching @DianaK's example.  The option is called Box Text in the OIP and is checked by default

 

Space Inventory.vso

[DianaK]

@Jesse Cogswell This appears to be extremely foxy.   I will test it out on the current show stat.  You won't have to worry about me bugging you again for at least a week.  Thank you so much!!

Edited May 25, 2023 by DianaK

[Mark Aceto]

On 5/23/2023 at 11:49 AM, DianaK said:

Locations.  I make them white with a barely perceptible grey border underlaying everything because I make them fast and loose under existing geometry on an always grey or invisible layer.  

 

I have a love / hate relationship with the Space tool because it's over-engineered for most users that aren't referencing Revit MEP's on Sharepoint... but one of the cool things about Spaces is Styles.

 

So you could have a style for:

• Breakout rooms
• Catering
• Boneyards
• Dock KEEP CLEAR
• Life Safety / Fire / Egress
• BOH / Production
• Artist / Dressing / Green Room
• Heavy Equipment / Droid Garage
• Corgi Corrals... 

That would beat the various 25% colored rectangles and text display I manually do for every layout.

 

And, then obviously save them to your library for future gigs... 

 

BTW credit goes to @The Hamma aka "Space-Lord" who probably has a lot of other great ideas for this workflow... 

 

Edited May 25, 2023 by Lunar Waneshaft

[trevorgooch]

FWIW, I keep needing to count things by breakout room, with loads of plug in objects, and want to make little equipment lists/BOM's.  Something different than a graphic legend, and more than a data tag.  So, i revisited my unfrozen-caveman-gaffer/neanderthal solution, and discovered a few neat things in the process.

 

My existing, manual solution:

• Create a worksheet that looks and counts one space (or named object) as you'd like.  Use LOCATION in the criteria.  This gives a chance to present symbols and plug in objects in a way that's useful for you, or perhaps match a vendors quote layout
• Update the worksheet's database formula to change the LOC= to LOC=A1
• Make a bunch of copies of this worksheet, and edit the first cell to match the name of the space you need to count.
• Place an image of the worksheet on each sheet.

So, I tried to dip my toe into scripting. 

• First, i wrote a script to make sure that each space object had a name, and if there was a custom space name, copy that into the OIP Name.
• Then I wrote a script to make a copy a the top open worksheet for each space object, incorporating the name of the object into the name of the worksheet.
• And I figured out how to take that space name, and put it into the first cell of the newly created work sheet, so all of the lookups were correct.

At this point, it occurred to me that I wasn't really using spaces in any meaningful way.  I was back to just needing a named "thing" that I could use as a location, unique to each sheet layer.  Or.. unique to each viewport!

 

So, here's what I have come up with:

• Use @michaelk's neat-o script to rename viewports!  Now they all have a somewhat meaningful name!
• Run a script so that, for each viewport:
  • Name the viewport crop object relative to the viewport name.
  • Make a copy of the selected worksheet, named to match the viewport, with the A1 cell updated to our viewport crop object name.
  • Find the layer the viewport is on, and create a worksheet image there.

I can make a single worksheet that looks the way that I want it, and quickly have one unique copy per viewport, landed on the appropriate sheet layer.

 

Also, I and a complete vectorscript noob - this is missing much error checking, and dialog event handling, and probably introduces some risk of catastrophic data loss.  It does give an alternative to a graphic legend.

 

I've attached a file with the script in it.  

 

Worksheet per Viewport.vwx

 

 

[Thomas K.]

@trevorgooch

thank yo very much for the time you put into working that out !!!