Quantity take-off and construction estimating

[Patrick Fritsch]

I would like to know if there has been any advancements in the feasibility of extracting quantity take-off's from Vectorworks models? I was reading some of the past forum posts and it's quite convoluted, it would be nice if there were preset take-off template files like the one that was provided for concrete foundations on the forum, but for a complete Bldg's set of components . This might be tricky to do because not all bldgs will have all the same components but if all are tagged with IFC tags their should be a way to translate these into CSI Masterformat divisions which is the standard for estimators/spec writers in North-America.

Lastly, I'd like to know if there are any 3rd party dedicated building construction estimation software partners (such as WinEst or UDA Technologies) that are looking to develop integration of their products with Vectorworks?

If the answer is No, then this is my wish!

[Patrick Fritsch]

Nothing Hmmm! So we cannot extract construction material quantities easily for an entire BIM model?

It seems the holy grail of BIM is quite far from being attained. Most are just using BIM to coordinate details, Class detection and of course pretty renderings. This seems true for most other BIM applications as well, despite them all advertising it, just visit their forums.

Surprising as the first and most repeated question is " how much will it cost". For any size project!

[CipesDesign]

Patrick, Yes it's completely possible and although I do not normally do it myself I know that others do. Although they might exist, I am not personally aware of any specific add-ons or plugins, but I would refer you to Jonathan Pickup (hope that's ok Jonathan!) as someone who seems to fully understand how to set up the drawings and worksheets in order achieve what you are asking. I would expect there to be substantial up front time involved, but I would expect the back end payoff to more than make up for it.

[RickR]

I would ask if you are talking about applying something after the modeling is done or built into the modeling process?

I find VW has extensive tools for the limited estimating that I do. However they work best when I determine what I want to track as I move along in drawing. Doing it later requires back analyzing the model to determine what the objects represent.

[Patrick Fritsch]

Exactly like you say Rick, I'm trying to get info on "how" I should be modeling in the future in order to easily extract data. There does not seam to be any info nor any tutorials on the whole process of getting all the model entities quantity out to a spreadsheet? You'd think there would if NV are marketing it.

[Patrick Fritsch]

Sorry SBG does not address my question...

Are you willing to make a tutorial for me to show me how the get my take-off's from my VW model?

I know how to estimate, I use to be an estimator for a large construction company so I don't need the education on estimating stages/types during a projects life cycle.

If you've got the knowledge, I'll buy the training manual from you. I have some simple custom homes that I would like to avoid digitizing the current way as it just makes me feel like I'm redrawing the model that already exists with all those mouse clicks.

[Patrick Fritsch]

SBG your making assumptions when you say I'm "going to give it away". Most of the data is to be used by myself as I will be the construction Project Manager as well as the designer. On some others those General Contractors who will build them are already having me do their estimates.

So besides Blabla, do you have any training for me.

[Dieter @ DWorks]

The thing you need to do when modeling is using your classes in a correct way, as material take-offs will always have formulas where you search the objects based on class etc.... So a good classing system is the begin of it. I use the BB-SfB classing, as they class the objects by construction type and material, although I adapted it to my own needs.

VW could learn from Revit in this, as there you can search on types, like give me all columns of that material etc...

Edited March 8, 2014 by Dieter @ DWorks

[Jonathan Pickup]

Exactly like you say Rick, I'm trying to get info on "how" I should be modeling in the future in order to easily extract data. There does not seam to be any info nor any tutorials on the whole process of getting all the model entities quantity out to a spreadsheet? You'd think there would if NV are marketing it.

Thanks for the recommendation Peter.

I do have tutorials on using worksheets, and I have set up projects to count parts of rage design.

You will need to use worksheets and you will need to resolve how you will find the parts of the the design you want to count.