BIMSpace footprint area
According to v21 release notes, "The BIMROOM command has been replaced by the BIMSPACE command."
BimSpaces do not seem to have an area attribute as BimRooms did, like "Room Area", which could be displayed in a RoomTag automatically on generated plans, and tabulated via data extraction.
How can I tag and extract area information for BimSpaces?
Comments
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Hello Scott,
We temporarily removed the footprint area from the default BimSpace TAG because of some localization issues. This should be fixed very soon in one of the upcoming maintenance releases.
In the meantime, you can add "Space Quantity/Net footprint area" back to your BIMTAG using the following approach: https://blog.bricsys.com/tuesday-tips-bim-tags-bimtag-bricscad/. Please note that this will only work in the English version of BricsCAD.
Kind regards,
Tiemen0 -
Great to hear a fix is already in the works! Thank you, @Tiemen,
I'm not getting the "Space Quantity/Net footprint area" to work just yet...
Updating the _SectionTag definitions is a bit tricky. It won't let me simply insert and redefine the _SpaceTag block if that block is referenced in a multileader style. (Is that intentional?) So, first, I rename the old _SpaceTag block, say, with suffix "_old". Then I can insert or copy+paste the updated block definition. Then edit the MLeader style content tab to use the new block. Now the "_old" block can be purged.
It seems I have to go through this process for every existing drawing sheet file that already has old BIM tags. I tried copying and pasting MLeader styles, but—warning: "Cannot overwrite existing MLeader Styles"—that doesn't work.
Anyway, after I updated the SpaceTag and its corresponding SpaceTypeStyle, and either update or recreate BimSections, I can't get the area value to display. Briefly during this process, back in a model file, I did see a "Net footprint area" under Space Quantity [IFC2X3] properties of the Space entity, along with a couple other properties I hadn't seen before. But then after doing something in the sheet file, maybe a BIMSectionUpdate, when I went back to the model, those properties were gone. Now as earlier, I see only "Net volume", "Gross volume", and "Net perimeter" for any Space entity. Maybe this is part of what you referred to as "localization issues", but just thought I would describe what's happening on my end.
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Hello Scott,
How did you try to "redefine the _SpaceTag block"? I have used BEDIT to change the _SpaceTag block definition, and this works without issues, even it was already referenced in the drawing.
Even though rooms can no longer be created in V21, old rooms and room BIMTAGs in old files are still supported in V21.
If you do convert the room to a space in V21 (by running the BIMSPACE command), you will have to adapt the new space BIMTAG (as explained in my earlier post), and you will also need to enable the quantities in the BIMPROPERTIES dialog:
- Run BIMPROPERTIES
- Go to namespace: Quantities
- Click on the Quantity node in the tree, and set the Visibile property to True/Yes.
Please let us know if this solution works.
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Yes. That solution works! I had not remembered BIMPROPERTIES. Thank you for following up with that procedure. I expect I'll be exploring that command more.
The _SpaceTag blocks that I had redefined by my convoluted method displayed the footprint area perfectly upon running BIMSectionUpdate on the viewport.
BEDIT does work, too. (although not 100% perfectly—more on that further below.)
My method used Insert Block to bring the new definition in from a separate file (which in this case I had wblocked out of __SectionTag.dwg in ../Support/Bim/Sections and edited there, hoping to make the master edit one time). I get the warning, of course, that "[blockname] is already defined. Do you want to re-define it?" and click Yes. Now it proceeds to insert an instance of the block. However, it uses the pre-existing block definition, as if I had clicked No to the warning. Similar behavior occurs if I use Drawing Explorer either to Insert External File Blocks or to Copy+Paste block definitions from another file.
Because I managed to replace the block definition by the process I described earlier, I had incorrectly concluded that the failure to update the _SpaceTag block was related to its being part of an MLeader style. The MLeader style does prevent the block it contains from being purged. However, both my _RoomTag and (attached) _SpaceTag resist re-definition even in drawings with no MLeader styles that reference any blocks. Ordinary blocks with or without attributes haven't given me this trouble. I have not checked the other Bim Section tags.
Given this situation, using BEDIT as you suggest will be faster, even repeating it in multiple files. One minor issue I had was that upon redefinition using BEDIT, the new Space tag block got regenerated at a scale of 1 instead of scaled down to match the viewport symbol sizes. Deleting the oversized blocks and running BimTag or BimSectionUpdate restored the Space tag blocks at correct scale.
Is there a better way to deploy updates to block definitions into multiple files?
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Hello Scott,
We are looking into the WBLOCK replacement issue. Thank you for reporting this!
Is there a better way to deploy updates to block definitions into multiple files?
My suggestion would be to update the tag definition in the __SectionTag.dwg in ../Support/Bim/Sections, and remove the tag (block and mleader) in the drawing that you wish to update. If you then update the tags again (by running BIMTAG or BIMSECTIONUPDATE), it will retrieve the updated tag definition from __SectionTag.dwg. However, this will require you to delete the tag inserts first, before you can delete the tag definitions.
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A belated thank you, Tiemen. The block replacement issue has been fixed, I believe, in one of the latest releases.
Now my question is about how to control the precision of the net footprint area (or other quantities) displayed in the tag, separately from the unit precision set in the drawing file. I usually set LUPREC to 5 (or 1/32") and AUPREC to 2. However, I don't want so many decimal places for square footage. How can I round it off?
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