Spaces for Individual Rooms

  • Spaces for Individual Rooms

    Posted by Don Walke on August 24, 2023 at 11:18 am

    I do a lot of interior room finish take-offs and organize my work by Room # and Room Name using “Spaces.” This usually involves first creating the spaces by outlining each room using the Spaces function, being careful to place the space lines outside the interior finish wall lines but leaving room so I have a place to insert the outline of the adjacent rooms. Turning off the snap to content helps.

    First, almost all of my takeoffs involve an area measurement of the room in plan view to calculate ceiling area, wall area, length of base, crown, ect. One of the techniques I use is to change the line type of the area tools to a custom double line. After imputing the area measurements, I simply turn off snap to content and turn on snap to markup, then use the space function to create spaces by snapping on the outside wall line that will always be a given distance outside of the wall finish line based on line width.

    Don Walke replied 1 year, 1 month ago 6 Members · 21 Replies
  • 21 Replies
  • Troy DeGroot

    Organizer
    August 24, 2023 at 11:30 am
    Points: 23,125
    Rank: UC2 Brainery Brown Belt III UC2 Brainery Brown Belt III

    This is fantastic @Don Walke. I’ve always loved learning different applications for simple tools or features. Thanks for sharing!

  • Vince

    Member
    August 24, 2023 at 12:00 pm
    Points: 13,291
    Rank: UC2 Brainery Blue Belt III UC2 Brainery Blue Belt III

    Great practice Don – got to love the offset lines! 😀

  • David Cutler

    Member
    August 25, 2023 at 6:31 am
    Points: 26,115
    Rank: UC2 Brainery Advanced Brown Belt UC2 Brainery Advanced Advanced Brown Belt Rank

    I like the use of the offset lines @dhwalkellc !

    Had a couple of questions after re-reading your post:

    – Do you start by making your area measurements first, then add the spaces?

    – Are you capturing all of you takeoff (ceiling/floor/crown/etc) with one area tool and custom columns?

    – How do you use the quantities after you complete your takeoff?

    I’ve toyed around with offset lines a bit, but not enough to be productive with them, yet. Probably need to go back and watch @vince ‘s video again….😎

    • Don Walke

      Member
      August 25, 2023 at 7:47 am
      Points: 5,362
      Rank: UC2 Brainery Purple Belt UC2 Brainery Purple Belt Rank

      Yes, area measurement before space. I played around with the “area markup from space” but I have so many custom column attributes assigned to my different area tools that it wouldn’t do me any good.

      Yes, I do capture all of the quantities from one area measurement. The area gives me the ceiling area and the “Length” gives me the wall area (L x D), base length (L), crown length (L).

      I separate the different items with custom columns, for example, base length is determined by a choice column (Y=1, N=0, D=-1) times “Length” with the “tool” having the choice column set as “Y”. There is also a number column “Base Height” with default setting at 12″ so initial results will be LF, and adjustments to height will result in a SF result.

      The nice thing with this is that with the interior doors, I have tools for different door heights ant the measurement is a polyline of the width with the base choice column set to “D” so that the markup deletes the width of the door from the base total. Wall area is also deducted. Door face area is totaled along with casing/jamb length or area.

      I’ve got over 70 custom columns with most of them hidden and I pull a CSV file sorted by room with column totals.

      It took a while to develope and if needed a series of custom columns can be creates in a couple of minutes if the need arises.

      • Isaac Harned

        Member
        August 25, 2023 at 8:21 am
        Points: 7,791
        Rank: UC2 Brainery Purple Belt II UC2 Brainery Purple Belt II

        Hmmm, I wonder if setting your customized tool as default would let you do the area and space together. I think I may need to create a test case later to try, but technically the “create measurement from space” should pull from the default.

        Wish you could set as default from the tool chest, may be something I have to suggest.

        • Don Walke

          Member
          August 25, 2023 at 8:30 am
          Points: 5,362
          Rank: UC2 Brainery Purple Belt UC2 Brainery Purple Belt Rank

          Area markup from tool chest would be great.

          I have a few dozen area tools for anything from flat, sloped (pitches 1 thru 12), barrel and elliptical ceilings, shutter area, wall area (if cant be acquired from plan view) so setting a default area measurement wouldn’t work.

        • David Cutler

          Member
          August 25, 2023 at 1:04 pm
          Points: 26,115
          Rank: UC2 Brainery Advanced Brown Belt UC2 Brainery Advanced Advanced Brown Belt Rank

          I wonder if they would setup a “make space from measurement” option….

          • Don Walke

            Member
            August 25, 2023 at 2:55 pm
            Points: 5,362
            Rank: UC2 Brainery Purple Belt UC2 Brainery Purple Belt Rank

            That’s a thought. I worked through that scenario and with my particular work flow, and with most of the additions (doors, windows, casing at exterior doors, wainscot, ect.) and adjustments (add/delete crown, 1/2 beams at perimeter, ect.) the markup is placed on the interior wall finish line, the same line that I calculate room area with. If I’m off just slightly, the markup will fall outside of the space and will not sort with that space without tweaking it.

          • Isaac Harned

            Member
            August 25, 2023 at 3:40 pm
            Points: 7,791
            Rank: UC2 Brainery Purple Belt II UC2 Brainery Purple Belt II

            Even a Paint Format for Custom Properties would work

            • Don Walke

              Member
              August 25, 2023 at 3:58 pm
              Points: 5,362
              Rank: UC2 Brainery Purple Belt UC2 Brainery Purple Belt Rank

              Two things that would be helpful, an “if” function and multiple tools for area, perimeter and polyline. Say, if there were polylines PL001, PL002, PL003 as choices under the measurement properties tab, you could have a custom column that tallies only PL002 and another column that tallies only PL003. Then, a polyline tool that is created with or assigned PL002 would only populate the designated quantities. As a work around I use a choice column with Y=1, N=0, D=-1 to act as a “switch” to turn on or turn off column totals.

            • David Cutler

              Member
              August 25, 2023 at 9:21 pm
              Points: 26,115
              Rank: UC2 Brainery Advanced Brown Belt UC2 Brainery Advanced Advanced Brown Belt Rank

              Are you looking for something more powerful than the current format painter @isaac ?

            • Isaac Harned

              Member
              August 26, 2023 at 8:29 pm
              Points: 7,791
              Rank: UC2 Brainery Purple Belt II UC2 Brainery Purple Belt II

              Indeed, layer info, custom column values, yeah all of that should be selectable as an option for the painter

            • Isaac Harned

              Member
              August 26, 2023 at 8:30 pm
              Points: 7,791
              Rank: UC2 Brainery Purple Belt II UC2 Brainery Purple Belt II

              Lets take it a step farther, I should also be able to apply an action as an option

            • David Cutler

              Member
              August 27, 2023 at 10:01 am
              Points: 26,115
              Rank: UC2 Brainery Advanced Brown Belt UC2 Brainery Advanced Advanced Brown Belt Rank

              Both this, and your original suggestion would definitely be handy @isaac !

            • Don Walke

              Member
              August 27, 2023 at 10:10 am
              Points: 5,362
              Rank: UC2 Brainery Purple Belt UC2 Brainery Purple Belt Rank

              Isn’t that the point of the tool box? I have, on the Painting profile, probably a hundred tools with layers and custom column attributes/values assigned.

            • Isaac Harned

              Member
              August 28, 2023 at 8:13 am
              Points: 7,791
              Rank: UC2 Brainery Purple Belt II UC2 Brainery Purple Belt II

              I should probably be a little more specific, the Format Painter, instead of the painting contractor 🤣

            • Don Walke

              Member
              August 28, 2023 at 9:34 am
              Points: 5,362
              Rank: UC2 Brainery Purple Belt UC2 Brainery Purple Belt Rank

              I know what you are talking about, I just wanted to express that the tools in the tool box have all of those attributes you are talking about already assigned. As an example, in the painting profile I have a polyline tool for the sf of painting area associated with an interior 8″ x 12″ ceiling beam. The tool already has the layer assigned (Interior Ceiling Trim), and custom column quantities (Ceiling Beam = Y = 1, Beam With = 8″ and Beam Depth = 12″. The formula column for the interior beam finish area (length x 1 x .67 x 1.00) calculates the area and totals all of the ceiling beams sorted by space (room).

            • Isaac Harned

              Member
              August 28, 2023 at 8:25 am
              Points: 7,791
              Rank: UC2 Brainery Purple Belt II UC2 Brainery Purple Belt II

              Submitted

  • Doug McLean

    Member
    August 25, 2023 at 10:35 pm
    Points: 14,588
    Rank: UC2 Brainery Blue Belt IIII UC2 Brainery Blue Belt IIII

    Don,

    It sounds like what you really need is Power Query.

    You can do quite a lot with one measurement, if it’s set up correctly

    • Don Walke

      Member
      August 26, 2023 at 7:19 am
      Points: 5,362
      Rank: UC2 Brainery Purple Belt UC2 Brainery Purple Belt Rank

      You may be right, however I watched part of the instructional video and it kind of gave me the willies. I’m retired and do this for fun and to help out a few subcontractors that I used to contract with as a GC, and what’s that about an old dog and new tricks? Anyway, I’ve seen many of your posts and you are very talented to say the least.

      • Doug McLean

        Member
        August 27, 2023 at 11:19 am
        Points: 14,588
        Rank: UC2 Brainery Blue Belt IIII UC2 Brainery Blue Belt IIII

        Its just learning a new skill.

Log in to reply.