How to generate a Materials List with buy / cut info like Structural Member Reporting?

[RRSSeattle]

Hi All and Happy Friday!

 

How can I make a materials list (buy / cut / lf) that provides the same type of information found in the Structural Member Reporting? In this example from the materials list, while the LF info is nice, what I really want to know is how many 8' or 16' pieces of trim I need to purchase. We seem to be able to do that with Structural Member Reporting, but not anything else.

 

I imagine there is a solution(s) out there, I haven't found one.

 

Thanks!!

Shawn

[GeneDavis]

Write up a suggestion and take care to itemize each element you want included.

 

Examples:  window casings, door casings, base moldings, roof fascia.  There are others.

[Chrisb222]

On 11/17/2023 at 8:21 PM, RRSSeattle said:

How can I make a materials list (buy / cut / lf) that provides the same type of information found in the Structural Member Reporting?

 

You can't, exactly, but you can modify the material list to get what you want.

 

In the Material List, double-click the cell for Count and change "=length" to "=(length/16)" to convert the total lineal feet into the number of 16' lengths. Change "ft" to something less confusing (I would use the ' mark, see example)

 

78 lineal ft:

 

Change formula for reporting:

 

(5) 16' pieces required (ignore the foot mark after the number):

 

Of course, that math could also be done easily with a calculator, but this way will be dynamic and update as the plan changes.

 

However, you can also set this up in your template plan so the Material List reports this way automatically with each new plan. Create a room, open it and go into the Components panel for the room, and change the count formula for your standard moldings there, then save as a new template. You have to save out your template with the room intact; if you delete the room, the formula won't carry forward. But once you open a new plan from the template, you can delete that room and start over, and the formula will stick:

 

 

On 11/17/2023 at 8:21 PM, RRSSeattle said:

what I really want to know is how many 8' or 16' pieces of trim I need to purchase

 

This will only work for one specific length so obviously, if you want to buy all 8' pieces, divide by 8. Here, we use only 16' lengths.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[GeneDavis]

As a one-time trim carpenter, I recall the door casing thing, which is to order all 14s, not 16s.  Cuts the waste way down when cutting all those jamb-side door casings, of which every single interior door gets four.

 

Which is why I suggested what might work best is a setup for the items I think the OP is focused on, be handled with the same code and logic we now have for framing members.

[glennw]

This may be possible to do in the ML using a custom Unit Conversion.

If someone can tell me how to round up to the next whole number in Ruby (I know zero about Ruby) I will try that and see if it works.

 

 

[glennw]

Thanks Eric but my method really doesn't work as I hoped. 

[Chrisb222]

18 hours ago, GeneDavis said:

door casing thing, which is to order all 14s, not 16s

 

Yeah we do that too. So set up your casing to divide by 14 instead of 16:

You can also edit the default so it reports the piece length in the Size column.

 

 

So for these two doors, you need 5 pieces 14' long. Right?

 

Again, just ignore the ft mark after the 5.

 

 

 

 

[RRSSeattle]

On 11/20/2023 at 6:16 AM, Chrisb222 said:

 

Of course, that math could also be done easily with a calculator, but this way will be dynamic and update as the plan changes.

 

However, you can also set this up in your template plan so the Material List reports this way automatically with each new plan. Create a room, open it and go into the Components panel for the room, and change the count formula for your standard moldings there, then save as a new template. You have to save out your template with the room intact; if you delete the room, the formula won't carry forward. But once you open a new plan from the template, you can delete that room and start over, and the formula will stick:

 

 

 

This will only work for one specific length so obviously, if you want to buy all 8' pieces, divide by 8. Here, we use only 16' lengths.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the response, you are right that the math you shared does "work". The practice in real life is to minimize cuts - meaning we don't want to put multiple pieces together. We want 1 piece at 12' for a wall vs 12 pieces at 1'.

 

One room is easy enough to figure out, but putting a takeoff together for a entire house is when having CA do the math / logic work would be most excellent. There are plenty of tools out there that do this type of calculation - including CA with structural member reporting, so it seems like this is simply a missing feature in CA at this time.

 

 

[RRSSeattle]

On 11/18/2023 at 5:35 PM, GeneDavis said:

Write up a suggestion and take care to itemize each element you want included.

 

Examples:  window casings, door casings, base moldings, roof fascia.  There are others.

Thanks, Gene. Would you know if I should post that itemization somewhere for CA team to see or send it in somewhere?

[glennw]

7 hours ago, Chrisb222 said:

Again, just ignore the ft mark after the 5.

 

You can display any text you want by creating a custom Unit Conversion.

See my picture above.

The "x 4m LENGTHS" part is a custom Unit Conversion.