[David Cutler]

Thank you for putting the time into making the video @Vince. I look forward to checking it out this weekend.

[Vince French]

Bedtime reading to send you to sleep Dave? My wife told me earlier that the short version was fine but she wasn’t sure if she could make it through this one! 😂

[David Cutler]

She just doesn’t understand the life of a Revu addict… 🤣

[Vince French]

There are very few people that do 😂

[David Cutler]

Made a few minutes to watch the video @Vince . Very impressive setup! Thank you for the shout out as a member of the Brainery.

One quick question with your custom line types – are the widths of your lines also set to scale? If yes, how do you account for different scales on different sheets? If no, do your “Noggin Boards” measure accurately where you appear to be measuring from the edge of the lines?

Now I need to make the time to update my custom tools to keep up!

[Vince French]

Thanks David!

The line widths are not set to scale as I don’t believe this is possible with the custom types such as these – maybe Troy will tell me otherwise though?

At present the line widths for the rafters work out as 50mm (2″) wide at a 1:50 scale which I think is a good starting point.

There are two ways in which I look at how this would all work as they don’t scale though: –

1. The designer actually adds all of the roof members to their drawings in the correct scale – obviously the most preferable option! This way the noggins will just be marked-up between the drawn rafters.

2. You probably saw another drawing tab on my video called “Roofing Template”. I have been looking at adding details to this in order so they can just be copied into another drawing. Lengths of standard noggins to suit different rafter centres and thicknesses e.g. 50mm (2″) rafters at 600mm (24″) centres will require noggins which are 550mm (22″) long, 38mm (1.5″) rafters at 450mm (18″) centres will require noggins that are 412mm (16.5″) long, etc.. I’ve also looked at setting up standard gable ladders, etc. – all works in progress for now though.

There other thing with this set-up is that Power Query allows me to build in tolerances for grouping measures. I think I mentioned in the video that for the pricing of the “Labour” (sorry – “Labor”!!!) element the lengths are rounded up to the nearest 100mm (4″) otherwise the amount of descriptions in the bill would be never ending. Therefore the noggins to any rafters at 600mm centres will normally end up being rounded up to 600mm long. Noggins to rafters at 450mm centres will rounded up to 500mm long, etc..

With regards the lengths for materials ordering, these have the wastage factor added in and are then rounded up to the nearest 300mm (12″).

If required, I can adjust these rounding up figures down to 50mm (2″) or basically whatever I want and Power Query will instantly recalculate everything for me.

If you have any suggestions for additional features, details, etc though then please shout – I’m sure there are bits that others would like to see on this that I just haven’t considered. The beauty of Bluebeam and Power Query is that they are easily added. 😃

[David Cutler]

All good points @Vince

Like most endeavors one reaches a point of diminishing returns with the level of detail. If your goal is to develop a detailed parts list for off site cutting Revu is probably not accurate enough. If you’ve goal is to generate a reasonably accurate bill of materials you are definitely there!

Thank you for sharing all of this great information!

[Vince French]

The great thing about Power Query is that if you want a report that details every length of timber to the nearest mm or 1//32″ then you can have that too – it might just be a very long list. But there wouldn’t be any extra input required – it would simply just be a different report that is generated from the existing data.

[Michael Echave]

Thank you Vince, this is a prefect example for a custom workflow

[Vince French]

Thanks Michael!