Intelligent Spaces

[Chris D]

I attended a briefing today about ActivePlan which opened my eyes about the intelligence of spaces. They have developed a system that links with AutoCAD/Revit to associate objects and data to Room Spaces. The thing is that Vectorworks can almost do this itself with just a little more intelligence.

http://www.activeplan.co.uk/overview.asp

One of the key things to make this work is that if you put a piece of furniture (or any other symbol or PIO) in a space, then it should know that is in that space.

This should be very easy because space volumes can be defined in their settings - does the insertion point of the symbol or PIO overlap with the volume of a space? You can probably write a script to do this now.

The other minor thing is that spaces need to report which storey they are in.

This opens up a whole realm of being able to schedule:

- Spaces by Storey

- Fixture and Fittings by Space

and with intelligent objects, or even with Record Formats attached to symbols, you have a lot of scheduling power at your disposal.

[michaelk]

Chris

Great idea.

I've long wished that space objects could be used as locations.

As a workaround I've been using regular polygons. VW tell if an object is within a polygon and the location can be a criteria in a database.

It's not a worksheet function yet. So you can list all the furniture in a room, but you can't ask a sofa what room it's in....

mk

[Hippocode]

Chris

As a workaround I've been using regular polygons. VW tell if an object is within a polygon and the location can be a criteria in a database.

It's not a worksheet function yet. So you can list all the furniture in a room, but you can't ask a sofa what room it's in....

mk

Any updates on this ?

Is there a decent workaround for this (btw how exactly did u make it work with the polygon ?) or has it changed for newer versions of VW ?

[michaelk]

Any updates on this ?

Is there a decent workaround for this (btw how exactly did u make it work with the polygon ?) or has it changed for newer versions of VW ?

This has been the same for many versions. Although I haven't investigated to see if setting "location" objects in layer planes matters.

I'll post an example in VW2012. Let me know if you need it in another version.

Basically naming a polygon, polyline, rectangle, circle, oval etc in the OIP Data Tab makes it behave like a location.

That location information is available as a database criterion, but NOT as a database function. (would that it were.....)

I've never been able to get a space object to behave as a location. I'm pretty sure it's not possible. (would that it were....)

example attached

mk

[Chris D]

This is great Michael, but in the way of all great VW workflows.....it's definitely a workaround, and a difficult one to manage at that.

For instance your location polygons are duplicates of what would be spaces, collected together on a separate layer, and manually updated when you remember to do it.

It does demonstrate that VW has a lot of underlying power, but the execution of the user facing functionality is terrible.

[michaelk]

It's most definitely a workaround. But I find it to be a better workflow (for me) than using room classes.

The ability to use space objects as locations and an =LOC function would be a huge improvement.

mk

[bcd]

You can use Space Objects as Locations by calling on the Name in the Data tab.

[michaelk]

Brian. Good catch!

I wonder if that was part of the last service pack? I know it didn't work a few months ago. (or maybe that project was still in 2011...)

Maybe the next SP will have a =LOCation function

mk

[Hippocode]

Any updates on this ?

Is there a decent workaround for this (btw how exactly did u make it work with the polygon ?) or has it changed for newer versions of VW ?

This has been the same for many versions. Although I haven't investigated to see if setting "location" objects in layer planes matters.

I'll post an example in VW2012. Let me know if you need it in another version.

Basically naming a polygon, polyline, rectangle, circle, oval etc in the OIP Data Tab makes it behave like a location.

That location information is available as a database criterion, but NOT as a database function. (would that it were.....)

I've never been able to get a space object to behave as a location. I'm pretty sure it's not possible. (would that it were....)

example attached

mk

I'm using VW 2010, would u mind ?

From what I've read we just could make our own polygon PIO instead of the custom space.

This would make it easier to sort all placed symbols by the custom space and we won't mix up normal polygons/objects with the ones the PIO generates..

Has anyone done this yet before I start breaking my head on it ? Too bad the basic scripts are locked, would be copy-pasting the normal polygon tool and adding some variables and printed text

[michaelk]

Here is the attached file in v2010.

If the example is too convoluted, I'd be happy to post a simpler, more direct example.

hth

mk

[Hippocode]

That seems to work indeed.

Is there a way to change the DATA name variable of a polyline trough vectorscript ?

[maarten.]

SetName(h : HANDLE;name : STRING);

[Hippocode]

I've made a simple script to create my own polygon with an assigned name.

PROCEDURE Example;
VAR
  Xstart, Ystart, Xnext, Ynext, Xprev, Yprev :REAL;
request1,request2,result1,result2,RuimteNaam,RuimteNummer:STRING;
name: STRING;
BEGIN
	RuimteNaam	:= PSPACENAME;
	RuimteNummer	:= PSPACENUMBER;

{Closepoly;}
Beginpoly;
 		Message('Pick FIRST point...');
 	{ SELECT FIRST POINT }
GetPt(Xstart, Ystart);
AddPoint(Xstart,Ystart);

{ PREVIOUS POINT }
Xprev:=Xstart;
Yprev :=Ystart;

{ DRAW NEXT POINTS }
{ DO WHILE NEXT POINT /= FIRST POINT }
WHILE((Xnext <> Xstart) OR (Ynext <> Ystart)) DO BEGIN
	{ NEW POINT }
	Message('Pick NEXT point...');
	GetPt(Xnext, Ynext);

	{ STOP IF NEW POINT IS PREVIOUS POINT (doubleclick) }
	IF((Xnext=Xprev) AND (Ynext=Yprev )) THEN BEGIN
		Xnext:=Xstart;
		Ynext:=Ystart;
		AddPoint(Xstart,Ystart);			
		END
	{ NEW POINT }
	ELSE BEGIN
		MoveTo(Xprev,Yprev );
		AddPoint(Xnext,Ynext);
		{RESET PREVIOUS POINT }
		Xprev:=Xnext;
		Yprev :=Ynext;
	END;
END;
Endpoly;

{Add Text}
{HCenter(h,x,y);}

request1 := 'Geef het lokaalnummer in:';
request2 := 'Geef de ruimtenaam in:';

result1:=StrDialog(request1,RuimteNummer);
result2:=StrDialog(request2,RuimteNaam);

name:=concat(result1,': ',result2);
SetName(LNewObj,name);
END;
RUN(Example);

For more functionality I tried making a PIO from the script, using a 2d path object type PIO.

IT doesn't work as a PIO so I4m missing something ?

I can draw the lines and the object gets created, still the object itself is invisible but can be snapped on..