MINIMALIST MODELLING AND CODING OF REVIT FOR QUANTITIES

Sr. TANG Ki-cheung

[Link]

BIM Seminar Kuala Lumpur 2015 – 5D BIM for the Construction Industry
22 January 2015
Pullman Hotel Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
organized by
Royal Institution of Surveyors Malaysia
CAPABILITIES OF REVIT

Can Revit produce Bills of Quantities from Revit model with the press of a button?

Can Revit model provide quantities?

 elements
 parameters
 parametric modelling

Are the quantities in compliance with the standard method of measurement?

Are the quantities provided by a Revit model sufficient and ready enough to be converted to quantities according to the
standard method of measurement?
 some parameters not schedulable
 not the desired for SMM purposes
 concrete shoulders
 formwork
 wall and ceiling finish areas

Then, how can we use Revit model to produce quantities for estimates or BQ?
 third party quantity take-off software
 still need to write the descriptions and do some linking
 linking process may be quick or tedious
 changes can be monitored
 license and training costs

Quantity Surveyors are still required

Can we still get something useful from Revit models without third party QTO software?

SHOULD QS BUILD MODELS?

Are Revit models readily available from Architects and Engineers?

Without a BIM model, should QS build up models?

 dimension sheet
 cut-and-shuffle
 schedule
 scale rule
 curvimeter
 planimeter
 Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet
 Excel worksheet
 digitizer
 on-screen taking off, etc.
 why textural and not graphical

Modelling Revit vs drafting 2D CAD

 within the capability of the average QS

Bulk items like structure, fabric and finishes

 shorter time

Models provided by Architects and Engineers

  inspect and understand
 integrity
 QS parameters

Therefore, the answer should be yes

Should QS model every detail?

 items like windows, doors, fittings and furniture

Level of details of the models if provided by the Architects and Engineers

 no less than those traditionally provided for 2D CAD drawings
 for estimating, tendering and construction

HOW MUCH DO WE NEED TO MEASURE?

Measure every bit net each time?

Inter-relationship between dimensions and quantities

Description Primary Qty Multiplier Unit

Wall - grade C40 - T thick (centre line area) A Super
 Reinforced concrete Grade C40 A T Cube
 Wall formwork A 2 Super
 To deduct junction with slab if wall measured through
slab
 To adjust for openings
 To measure end of wall
Description Primary Qty Multiplier Unit
Column - grade C40 - W wide x D deep (height) H Run
 Reinforced concrete Grade C40 H WxD Cube
 Column formwork (junction with slab to deduct if H (W + D) x 2 Super
measured through slab)
 To deduct junction with slab if column measured
through slab
Suspended beam - grade C30 - W wide x D deep - S slab L Run
(length)
 Reinforced concrete Grade C30 L W x (D – S) Cube
 Beam formwork below slab L W + (D – S) x 2 Super
 Deduct slab formwork L W x -1 Super
 To adjust for shoulders to higher grade walls or
columns
Suspended slab - grade C30 - S thick (area) A Super
 Reinforced concrete Grade C30 A S Cube
 Slab formwork A 2 Super
 To deduct junctions with walls, columns and beams
 To adjust for openings
Room - finishes group A - net plan area A Super
 Floor finishes A Super
 Ceiling finishes A Super
 To adjust for beam sides
 To adjust for door opening
 To adjust for work behind fixtures
Description Primary Qty Multiplier Unit
Room - finishes group A - perimeter including columns - H L Run
room height - S skirting height
 Skirting L Run
 Wall finishes L H–S Super
 To adjust for beam sides and ends
 To adjust for openings
 To adjust for work behind fixtures
Window W1 - W wide x H high opening - T thick concrete N Nr
wall - Room A
 Window W1, fully described N Nr
 Glazing N Detailed dimensions of Super
W1
 Deduct T wall concrete N W x H x T x -1 Cube
 Deduct wall formwork N WxHx2 Super
 Add jambs and soffit formwork, T thick (or boxing N W+Hx2 Run
number as appropriate)
 Deduct Room A wall finishes (assuming no dado) N W x H x -1 Super
 Add Room A wall finishes to window reveal N (W + H x 2) x reveal Run
width
 Add Room A window cill N W Run
Door D1 - W wide x H high opening - T thick brickwall - N Nr
Room finishes group A
 Door D1, fully described N Nr
 Deduct T thick brickwall N W x H x -1 Super
 Add lintol N W + end laps x 2 Run
Description Primary Qty Multiplier Unit
 Deduct Room A skirting N W Run
 Deduct Room A wall finishes N W x H x -1 Super
 Add Room A floor finishes N W x part of T as Run
appropriate
 Door frames, architraves, painting, dowels, holdfasts, N Detailed dimensions of As
etc. D1 appropriate

Aggregate areas, lengths, girth first

 primary quantities
 converting into secondary quantities

Overall gross quantities first before making detailed adjustments

Descriptions can be very short

Just extract the primary quantities adequately described from the Revit model

Use Excel to handle the secondary processing

CODING AND WHY?

Information to be described in a concise, precise and consistent manner

Revit Family and Type descriptions

Separate from Architects’ or Engineers’ descriptions of Families and Types

Coding (“QS Desc”) sufficient, self-explanatory enough yet short and simple
 WA-C40-100
 CL-C40-500x600
 BM-C30-300x500 : 120SL
 SL-C30-120
 RM-F-A
 RM-P-A
 WD-W1-1200x1500 : IWConc100-RoomA
 DR-D1-920x2200 : IWBrick125-RoomA

Intuitive and
understandable vs
cryptic

SCHEDULES /
QUANTITIES

Revit schedules

 
 
So many schedules

Choices of columns must be well co-ordinated

Not practical to transfer the individual total quantity manually one by one

Schedule design
 Consistent left 6 columns
 Level and Mark for locational identification, for traceability
 Only Type, QS Tag, QS Qty and QS Unit are really essential for billing
 Other columns for calculating QS Qty or cross-checking, and can vary

Revit schedules to txt file to Excel worksheet

  

But only handle one schedule at a time

Macro:
 All schedules exported to ne Excel file
 3 columns of Type, QS Tag and QS Unit combined into a single “QS Desc” column in the style of “Type : QS
Tag : QS Unit”
 “All Dim” worksheet

 “QS Desc” worksheet

  file name time marked

BILLING WORKFLOW

Data
 (extraction from Revit schedules or direct measurement)
  Primary Qty
 (processing )
 Secondary Qty
 (processing )
 Estimate or BQ

PRIMARY WORKSHEET

First 5 columns only of “All Dim” worksheet copied to “Primary worksheet”:

Seq column

Highlighted columns
Direct measurement formula used for Row Qty, say at Row 6, is =PRODUCT(E6:J6), meaning product of Dim1 ….
Times3.

SECONDARY WORKSHEET

Column A only of “QS Desc” worksheet copied to “Secondary worksheet”:

right portion
Upper region for direct measurement
 
Further processing of the Primary Qty is done in the lower region.

Primary Qty here = sum (Primary Qty of same QS Desc in Primary worksheet)

No sorting or grouping required

Formula =SUMIF(Primary!$J$5:$J$181;$C14;Primary!$K$5:$K$181)

If QS Desc in Primary worksheet matches QS Desc in Secondary worksheet, then add in corresponding Row Qty in
Primary worksheet

Code = code of Estimate or BQ items

Row Qty = product of all Dims and Times of same row, using “=Product()” function

They are also called Secondary Qty

Times Used in BQ, BQ Unit, BQ Descriptions are making reference to Estimate or BQ worksheet for error checking

Floor columns for analysis of quantities by floors

ESTIMATE OR BQ WORKSHEET

Estimate or BQ worksheet

Qty here = total of Secondary Qty of same Code in Secondary worksheet

Formula = ROUND(SUMIF(Secondary!$J$6:$J$176;$C41;Secondary!$L$6:$L$176);0)

If Code in Secondary worksheet matches Code in Estimate or BQ worksheet, then add in corresponding Row Qty in
Secondary worksheet

Floor columns for internal references only

Formulae to be changed to values and other internal reference data to be removed when formally issued

PROJECT UNITS

Units against numerical values by default

 not convenient for further calculations

Solution
 2 decimal places for Area
 3 decimal places for Volume
 units hidden
 self-explanatory

Define project units

 click Manage > Project Unit icon
PROJECT PARAMETERS

Select Manage > Settings > Project Parameters

 
SHARED PARAMETERS

Select Manage > Settings > Shared Parameters

DEFINING SCHEDULE COLUMNS
 
 
LEVEL AND MARK

Generally available with elements

TYPE
To represent both the information of Family and Type

QS TAG

QS Tag to supplement the information of “Type”

QS QTY AND QS UNIT

QS Qty
 a calculated field
 its units being a mixture of Nr, m, m2, m3
 mixture not permitted by Revit
 tricks
  
 

 
QS Unit
 a calculated field
 specially used to tell the real unit of QS Qty

WALL SCHEDULES

Wall Area schedule

QS Qty = wall areas
 for generation of concrete volume and formwork area
 
Wall Length schedule
QS Qty = wall lengths
 for the processing of quantities at junctions with slabs

Level = base constraint renamed in schedule heading

 not absolutely necessary for billing purposes
  

QS Tag for entering information like

 slab thickness
 whether the wall is at slab edge
 to facilitate adjustment for slab and wall junctions
Length, Width (i.e. thickness), Area and Volume are system parameters

Area not always equal to the elevation areas along the centre line

Wall height not available probably because the height can vary for a wall

Lengths at wall ends not available

Lengths around openings not available

QS Mean Area = Volume / Width

Mean Area / Length = QS Mean Area / Length

REPRESENTATION OF WALL LENGTH, AREA AND VOLUME

Wall length given Area given Volume given

Straight wall Centre line of wall Elevation area on one face Area along centre line x
e.g. = 12 m = 12 x 4 m wall thickness
12 m long x = 48 m2 = 12 x 4 x 0.3 m
4 m high x = 14.4 m3
300 mm thick
Wall L-shaped on plan with Centre line of wall with the Elevation area based on the Area along centre line with
mitre joint corner shared between the extreme length of each the corner shared x wall
e.g. two wings wing thickness
8 m x 400 mm wall + 5 m x = 7.85 + 4.80 m =8x4+5x4m = 7.85 x 4 x 0.4 + 4.80 x 4
300 mm wall = 12.65 m = 32 + 20 m2 x 0.3
both x 4 m high = 52 m2 = 12.56 + 5.76 m3
 Wall length given Area given Volume given
= 18.32 m3
Wall L-shaped on plan with Same as above Elevation area based on the Area based on self length x
butt joint self length of each wing wall thickness
e.g. = 8 x 4 + 4.6 x 4 m = 8 x 4 x 0.4 + 4.6 x 4 x 0.3
8 m x 400 mm wall + 4.6 m = 32 + 18.4 m2 = 32 x 0.4 + 18.4 x 0.3
x 300 mm wall = 50.4 m2 = 12.80 + 5.52 m3
both x 4 m high = 18.32 m3
Wall L-shaped on plan with Same as above Elevation area based on the Area based on self length x
butt joint self length of each wing wall thickness
e.g. 7.7 m x 400 mm wall + = 7.7 x 4 + 5 x 4 m = 7.7 x 4 x 0.4 + 5 x 4 x 0.3
5 m x 300 mm wall, both x = 30.8 + 20 m2 = 30.8 x 0.4 + 20 x 0.3
4 m high = 50.8 m2 = 12.32 + 6 m3
= 18.32 m3
Wall T-off from another Centre line of T-off wall Elevation area based on the Area based on self length x
wall measured to centre line of self length of T-off wall wall thickness
e.g. main wall = 4.6 x 4 m = 4.6 x 4 x 0.3
4.6 x 300 mm wall T-off = 4.6 + 0.2 = 4.8 m = 18.4 m2 = 5.52 m3
from 400 mm wall

Area and Volume do not make deduction at junction with floor slab

Whether L-shaped wall is mitre or butt jointed

 not make any difference to Volume
 but Areas are different for the three cases

Area of formwork to sides of wall

  should be = elevation area along the centre line x height x 2
 = (7.85 + 4.8) x 4 x 2 = 50.6 m2 x 2
 Areas given by Revit for the three cases of L-shaped wall are useless for this purpose

Wall junctions on plan:

 preferred to use mitre joints at corner junction of walls

To change type of wall junctions on plan

 select a wall > Wall Joins

 select Butt to give a butt joint

 select Previous or Next to change direction of joint

  select Miter for a mitre joint

Volume
 a more reliable value to use than Area
QS Qty using Wall Area for Estimate and BQ purposes
 = value of Volume / Width, i.e. the QS Mean Area

QS Qty using Wall Length

 to be used for adjustments for the wall and slab junction
 not accurate enough but close enough
 tolerated for the time being

ARCHITECTURAL WALLS

Up to beam or ceiling soffit only and not floor level

No feature in Revit to let architectural walls automatically go up and stop there

To be modelled one by one to ensure correct height

a time consuming process
prone to errors

FLOOR SLAB AND STRUCTURAL WALL JUNCTIONS

When modelling, after selecting a floor slab > > > Yes
The following dialogue will appear
will only appear if there are structural walls underneath the slab:
If “Yes” selected
 volume of structural walls below measured to underside of slab
 as shown for the wall on the left below

If “No” is selected
 volume of structural walls below measured to top of slab
 as shown for the wall on the right below
 but the reported volume of slab will not be reduced

Reported height of structural walls when defined to be to the top of the slab
  will not be chan ged in both cases

In theory, when a structural wall is attached to the bottom of a floor slab

 wall top will move when floor slab is moved up or down
 furthermore, the Modify Wall menu also has the following choices

 However, the behaviour after attaching or detaching walls using the above slab or wall commands
 not quite definite every time

Since slab and wall junctions

 need to be adjusted in any case
 when encountering the above dialogue when editing slab boundary
 better to answer “No” to retain the default treatment

STRUCTURAL COLUMN SCHEDULES

Structural Column Length schedule

QS Qty = column lengths
 for generation of concrete volume and formwork area
 
Structural Column Number schedule
QS Qty = column count
 for processing of quantities at junctions with slabs

Column Location Mark

 a system parameter which gives the grid line references
 used here instead of the usual Mark

QS Tag for entering information like

 slab thickness
 whether the column is an edge or corner column
 to facilitate adjustment for slab and column junctions

For a column defined to be of floor to floor height

 Volume is a system parameter which gives
 volume of concrete below slab
  Length is a system parameter which gives
 floor to floor height

Since floor to floor height is needed

 QS Qty takes the value of Length for Column Length schedule

Built-in column width (b) and depth (h)

 not available to properties window and schedules
 therefore, two shared parameters QS Width and QS Depth
 added to the Family Type parameters
 make them available to schedules to facilitate error checking
QS App Slab Tk
 = Length - Volume / (QS Width * QS Depth)
 useful for indicating the approximate slab thickness
 for counter-checking any errors in positioning the columns

Vol / (Wi x Dp)

 = Volume / (QS Width * QS Depth)
 gives the length of column below slab

STRUCTURAL FRAMING LENGTH SCHEDULE

Structural Framing Length schedule
 basically a beam length schedule

Beams
Length
 Cut Length - length between supporting columns or walls

QS Qty for Beam Length

 = Cut Length

Beam width (b) and depth (h)

 not available to the properties window and schedules
 therefore, two shared parameters QS Width and QS Depth
 added to the Family Type parameters
 to make them available to schedules to facilitate error checking
FLOOR SLAB AREA SCHEDULE

Floor Slab Area schedule

 
QS Tag for the entry of information about
 strutting height

QS Qty = Area

DOOR AND WINDOW SCHEDULES

Door Number schedule

 

Window Number schedule

QS Tag
 for entry of information about
 walls housing doors and windows
 to facilitate future measurement of formwork to jambs and soffit, boxing and lintels
ROOM SCHEDULES

Default room schedules provided by Revit

 can give Floor Area and Perimeter
 but not Nett Ceiling and Beam surface areas
 nor wall and column surface areas

 
If
 Upper Limit = floor level above a room
 Limit Offset = slab thickness in negative value
then
 Unbounded Height = floor to ceiling height
 good for generating the wall and column surface areas

Adjustment required for

 beam surfaces and end junctions
 window and door openings
  may be taken care of when processing window and door quantities

To provide QS Qty for floor, wall, ceiling and skirting

 4 separate schedules adapted from the Room Schedule

Room Floor Finishes Area schedule

 

 
 
Room Ceiling Finishes Area schedule 
 

 
Room Wall Finishes Area schedule 
 skirting area to be deducted from wall area 
 

 
 
Room Perimeter Length schedule 
 for skirting 

 
Room elements do not have a Type parameter 
 a calculated field created for Type 
 which takes the names of the finishes as its values 
 
EXPORTING SCHEDULES TO EXCEL

To install, select: Manage ribbon > Macros - Macro Manager > Create - Module > enter KCTCL at Module name >
OK > Edit to open the SharpDevelop coding screen

Copy the codes to the SharpDevelop coding screen and overwrite the existing codes generated by

Select SharpDevelop’s Project > Add Reference. Search for Microsoft Office Interop Excel. Click Select > OK to
confirm
  
 
Select Build > Build Solution
 
Go back to Revit’s macro manager menu
 select the newly created macro
 select Run

Bug
 [Link] file = new [Link](folder_name
 + "\\" + filename_no_ext + ".txt");
 [Link](folder_name + "\\" + filename_no_ext + ".txt");
  [Link](folder_name + "\\" + filename_no_ext,
 [Link],
 default_value, default_value, default_value, default_value,
 [Link],
 default_value, default_value, default_value, default_value, default_value);

CLOSING

Revit schedules and corresponding Excel worksheets set up once

 can be re-used as a set of templates for other Revit models

Number of chains of QS Desc -> secondary calculations -> Codes

 can be expanded
 as and when they are encountered
 retained in templates to serve future use
 to reduce burden of re-defining every time

Get into modelling

 easy and powerful
 as soon as possible

Understand it

Identify the limitations

Suggest solutions to make it really productive

Increase our user base and join force
 push the software vendors to meet our need

End