Macro data from defaults

[crdsplans]

Is there a way to plug a Macro into a default cross section so that it would pull information such as wall heights, footing sizes roof pitches, etc from the default settings. 

 

Thanks

David J

[para-CAD]

Sounds like a great feature that should be included in the s/w so custom macros don't have to be the "work around".

[Joe_Carrick]

Most of that information can be accessed via the Room Attributes using a custom macro.  The macro would be included in the default Room Labels.  It doesn't work in cross sections, only in plan views.  The information can be stored in a "Global Hash or Array" and retrieved by other macros for output.

 

It's interesting that many users consider this sort of thing to be "work arounds".  In reality it's simply customization.

 

If you don't want to customize then use either the existing built-in object macros or the Materials List.  The difference is just the limits of what you can do with the data.

[Alaskan_Son]

2 hours ago, Joe_Carrick said:

It's interesting that many users consider this sort of thing to be "work arounds".  In reality it's simply customization.

 

My thoughts exactly.  There's nothing new or unusual about this at all.  Its super common in all sorts of software too. 

[crdsplans]

Thanks for the comments.

Still trying to get the hang of macros and all the ins and outs of the program

[ACADuser]

On 5/31/2019 at 1:12 PM, Joe_Carrick said:

Most of that information can be accessed via the Room Attributes using a custom macro.  The macro would be included in the default Room Labels.  It doesn't work in cross sections, only in plan views.  The information can be stored in a "Global Hash or Array" and retrieved by other macros for output.

 

It's interesting that many users consider this sort of thing to be "work arounds".  In reality it's simply customization.

 

If you don't want to customize then use either the existing built-in object macros or the Materials List.  The difference is just the limits of what you can do with the data.

Joe,

I would love to label the foundation wall with the foundation size  [24x12]

But I do not see that information in the wall object data.

 

[Alaskan_Son]

6 minutes ago, ACADuser said:

Joe,

I would love to label the foundation wall with the foundation size  [24x12]

But I do not see that information in the wall object data.

 

 

It has to be extrapolated using values in the footing_layers Collection.

[ACADuser]

Michael

You're talking Greek to me or is it Ruby?

 

Obviously, there are 3 or 4 footing sizes in the plan.

Is that info available?

 

 

 

[Joe_Carrick]

5 hours ago, ACADuser said:

Obviously, there are 3 or 4 footing sizes in the plan.

Is that info available?

Only the footing width is available - for which Chief uses the name "thickness" of foundation wall.  The actual thickness of the footing isn't available for labeling.

[Joe_Carrick]

I thought I would try to use the foundation wall's concrete volume, length and width to calculate the thickness.  Unfortunately it didn't work.  My 18" thick footing calculated to be only 12" thick - which means that CA miscalculates the volume.  Evidently a case of inaccurate data reported in one of the attributes.  In this case the volume was only 2/3 of what it should have been.

[Chopsaw]

I knew there was a reason that the unequal symbol is not part of Chief Blueprint Font.  Chief would never want to be responsible for someone ordering too much concrete.  I guess we just go with ± 1/3  because  18" ≠ 12"  just would not look right. 

[Alaskan_Son]

2 hours ago, Joe_Carrick said:

I thought I would try to use the foundation wall's concrete volume, length and width to calculate the thickness.  Unfortunately it didn't work.  My 18" thick footing calculated to be only 12" thick - which means that CA miscalculates the volume.  Evidently a case of inaccurate data reported in one of the attributes.  In this case the volume was only 2/3 of what it should have been. 

 

It works just fine for me Joe.  I wonder if you're possibly using the wrong formula.  It should be:

 

Footing Quantity/Wall Length/Footing Thickness

 

You'll probably want to write some rules as to how things are rounded though and might even want to use the Rebar Length somehow (if you can actually figure out exactly how its calculated) because Chief actually counts the Footing Quantity so accurately that it accounts for the extension beyond the wall ends which would lead to deceptive footing heights without writing some proper rules. 

 

NOTE:  The footing "area" is the cross sectional area of the footing measured lengthwise (footing length x footing height).  The 2 things we don't actually know are the footing length and the footing height.  We really just need to be given the footing height as an attribute.

[para-CAD]

So rather than act like this is the way it's supposed to be and just accept it, why doesn't chief build this level of data retrieval into their program without the need for the customer to do additional work.

 

If some of you can figure this out...then so can CA and they should market this capability...user friendliness.  Totally odd to NOT be more service oriented, in my opinion.

And the macro I bought never worked so I'm a bit jaded by the whole process.

[Alaskan_Son]

Just FYI for whoever cares, if you set your rebar overlap to zero, you can simply divide the rebar length by your rebar count and get the actual footing length...from which you can calculate a perfect footing height.  I haven't quite figured out how to calculate with a different overlap value, but I never use the overlap so I guess I don't care.

[Joe_Carrick]

Michael,

 

My Footing is 32" wide x 18" high.  This is a Slab Footing with a -12" offset.

Chief reports the foundation wall length as 440", footing thickness as 32", quantity of concrete in footing as 267264.0 cu.in.

• 267264 / 32 / 440  = 18.98

This still isn't correct - possibly because the footing itself is actually 24" longer than the stem wall.  That would make the footing thickness calculate to 18.08" - close enough.

 

Using the footing rebar length really doesn't work since it's the total - depending on the number of bars which is also not reported.  In my case I have 2 #4 bars and the reported length is 936"

 

btw, I tried setting the rebar overlap to 0 and then my rebar length was reported as 872" - which gives a length of 436".

 

The bottom line is that the data available isn't really sufficient to accurately get the height of the footing.

[Alaskan_Son]

2 hours ago, Joe_Carrick said:

The bottom line is that the data available isn't really sufficient to accurately get the height of the footing.

 

You are correct.  It seems you can use rebar length if you set the overlap to zero, but you also have to know if the wall is connected to another wall or not...

 

Not Connected:  Rebar Length/2

Connected on one end:  (Rebar length/2)+Footing Width

Connected on both ends:  (Rebar length/2)+(Footing Width/2)

 

As you know, we really just need the footing height as an attribute and we wouldn't need to jump through any of the hoops.  I also think the "thickness" attribute should be renamed width.  I'm starting to suspect that the "thickness: attribute was actually always intended to report the footing height and that it was just programmed to report the width by mistake, because we can get the width in other ways but that's not true for the height.

[ACADuser]

Wonder why Chief rations out the attributes.

[Alaskan_Son]

5 minutes ago, ACADuser said:

Wonder why Chief rations out the attributes.

 

Not totally sure, but they really are pretty good about getting us the ones we need when we request them.