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BIM Failure


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Dear NAA.

Your make it hard for me to adopt BIM.

I consider myself an advanced user of vector works. I'm comfortable working in 3D with the majority of my 2D output being through section viewports. I can code my own tools. I delver architect services for prefabricated buildings that allow no check on site dimensions. As a drawing tool VW is good.

BUT as a BIM tool VW is a dud. Trying to get any data out of the model SUCKS. I have just spent 3 hours trying to get relevant information out for a simple retaining wall. There are only two types of objects. Wall and Slabs.

My issue is you don't provide any consistency that allows a systematic approach to using the work sheets.

I am familiar with creating reports from the worksheet. There are good things you can do with this. I particully like that I can edit values in the work sheet that updates PIO's.

HOWEVER for the two most important objects (the majority of the building) the Slab and Wall tool work differently.

When I try to create a worksheet that access the Wall PIO record, it appears that this record does not exist. I can only have access to the Wall Data Record. It would seem that there is now two record. The PIO record and the Wall Record. The PIO record is the important record as it is the data from which the geometry that I look at is based on.

Slabs have access to both the 'Slab' PIO record.

I create a report for 'Slab' objects. The data you return for ('Slab'.'Style') are integers. For consistency for your other objects this should be a Pop Up object with defined values. I am able to change the integer value in the worksheet. This then buggers up the pop up values, but does not change the object itself.

This fragmentation of access to the data needs to be resolved for me to use VW as a BIM tool. The I in BIM is information- I need simple clear and consistent approach to access it from the model.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Justin,

Wall and slab objects don't have PIO records because they are not plug-ins, but internal objects. I realize this does not address the consistency issue you ask for.

Slab styles are not a true 'enumeration' (fixed-list popup value) even though they are presented that way for convenience in the mode bar.

For walls and slabs in particular, we introduced some new worksheet functions at the same time we introduced the Slab tool that you might find useful:

ComponentArea();

ComponentName();

ComponentVolume();

These will work in both worksheet-style and database-style sheets to report on the quantities of walls or slab components.

See the VWX file and illustration below for an example. Hope this is helpful. Feel free to email me directly if you have questions or want to discuss further.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Justin, thinking a little more about this issue, an alternative way to solve it is with a "retaining wall" wall style, not too different from the "stem wall" wall style shown in the files below. This way you can use the Length() function to return linear quantities of the retaining wall and ComponentVolume() to return the total yards / M3 of concrete.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Vincent, I know this sounds rather simplistic or perhaps even disingenuous, but the latest is the "Paste Function..." command. Just type the equals sign in a worksheet cell, then choose the Paste Function... command in the worksheet menu. You will get an annotated list of functions.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Say I have 2 wall styles that use timber framing of 90mm (component name 'TF90' ) but with different claddings.

I want to be able to get the area of the TF90 from of both wall types.

What is the formula?.

I keep getting a 'TYPES' error.

Also I want to restrict the search only to items on one layer.

That layer has a VP of all the objects in the file that need to be scheduled thus I need it to find objects in VPs

OR does your example works for named object only?.

Edited by Assembly
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I hope some one can correct me on this:

The return of these values in a work sheet is a string and not a number.

=('__NNA_Wall_Style_Format'.'Cost Index System')

=('__NNA_Wall_Style_Format'.'Cost Index Code')

Which means there is no simple way to use a Database spreadsheet to get the area of a wall style and multiply it by a rate in order to get a cost estimate.

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I can easily create a Database row and get a list of all wall styles and the related area.

Cell 1 '=WST' [sum]

Cell 2 '=WALLAREA_NET'

This is how easy it should be.

To make it easy I should continue and

Cell 3 =('__NNA_Wall_Style_Format'.'Cost Index Code')

Cell 4 =A2*A3 and I will have an estimate of cost for all the walls.

Now I try the same for slab. I can't see any way to emulate the same set up for slabs as I can for walls.

There is no similar 'SlabArea'

'=WST' does not have a corresponding '=SST'

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Thanks for the confirmation on =Area. (FYI it is not in the worksheet of Quatify)

Can you please also help with the other questions.

1) How can I use the 'Cost Index' Number in my worksheet so I can use it in a forumla?

2) Is there any way to do a search to find all the same component type of different wall styles?.

3) A framing member object Information.

How can I get the length of a rafter that is on a pitch.

The =('FramingMember'.'LineLength') returns the plan span.

The =('FramingMember'.'Pitch') Return a non numeric value.

Thus I can not use the pitch value to calculate the

Line 18 of work sheet.

4) Does VW2012 have slab types for roof faces yet?.

Lines 11-15 Comment on ComponentArea:

It seems that the componentArea requires a component index reference. Thus if a component, say timber framing, has a different index in different Wall Style Types then a specific forumla is required for each wall style. This could be a very tedious and time consuming worksheet to create and maintain. If this is the way it is intended then Lines 10-15 of the BIMtest worksheet might be a useful way. It allows you to write the name of a wall style, then adjust the Index number. This will automatically return the wall component name and related areas. This took me a good 2-3 hours to figure out how to get working.

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Thanks for the confirmation on =Area. (FYI it is not in the worksheet of Quatify)

Can you please also help with the other questions.

1) How can I use the 'Cost Index' Number in my worksheet so I can use it in a forumla?

2) Is there any way to do a search to find all the same component type of different wall styles?.

3) A framing member object Information.

How can I get the length of a rafter that is on a pitch.

The =('FramingMember'.'LineLength') returns the plan span.

The =('FramingMember'.'Pitch') Return a non numeric value.

Thus I can not use the pitch value to calculate the

Line 18 of work sheet.

4) Does VW2012 have slab types for roof faces yet?.

Lines 11-15 Comment on ComponentArea:

It seems that the componentArea requires a component index reference. Thus if a component, say timber framing, has a different index in different Wall Style Types then a specific forumla is required for each wall style. This could be a very tedious and time consuming worksheet to create and maintain. If this is the way it is intended then Lines 10-15 of the BIMtest worksheet might be a useful way. It allows you to write the name of a wall style, then adjust the Index number. This will automatically return the wall component name and related areas. This took me a good 2-3 hours to figure out how to get working.

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