Working in & out of architectural offices, offering Rhino-cources, 2D/3D training and tech-hotline for architects & designers, this is two of the most-often asked questions:
How do we create a simple table of rooms/areas/perimeters (architects) or a BOM with names & quantities of blocks inserted in the current file/assembly (designers)?
How do we manage X-refs/blocks which are all being revised in parallel (by others) to the editing of the masterdrawing/assembly we are currently working on our self?
Rhino provides us with “text fields”=“dynamic text” and the possibility to count blocks and display areas (in units other than the drawing units), but not (yet) recursively in an assembly which reference other drawings/assemblies via block-manager/worksession.
Block-manager is only a rudimentory replacement for a real X-ref-manager. We lack the ability to see who (if any) is currently editing external files - and get notifications when they are “released” and/or need to be updated. We also need to reference DGN-files which reference other DGN-files similar to what is currently possible with DWG-files.
It would also be nice to access the information (filenames and network-locations) of any referenced files (recursively) and embed it as a text-field/dynamic attribute text ideally via merging it with the Notes, (which can be previewed prior to opening files).
Finally we need to extract information such as areas and block quantities from X-refs in a semi-automated or fully-automated way. A good starting point seems to be the plugin: https://www.food4rhino.com/en/app/tabl - Similar to Voidoid’s old Rhino 3 plug-in “Lino”, which was needed back in the day when Rhino natively had fewer 2D layout options.
Currently it is possible to automate the calculation, rounding and display of areas using Grasshopper and export those to Excel or CSV using LunchBox or Bumblebee (plug-ins for Grasshopper). It would be nice to just specify (“Meters”,2, C) in Rhino 7/8 to display areas in squareMeters with 2 decimals and a “Ceiling” rounding. Like dividing the area in squaremillimeters with 1.mio. and performing the rounding in Grasshopper (Ceiling, Floor, Normal).
Hi Scott. Thankyou for the link to VisualARQ. I work for the danish reseller of VisualARQ, and I am well aware of its fantastic features. What I experience in the architectural offices is a very large group of construction-architects working primarily (90%) in Revit (and sometimes also Rhino.Inside.Revit). It would be nice to have just the core 10-15% of Revit’s 21’century 2D-documentation-features in Rhino 7/8 (vanilla) - without plug-ins
I’d like to second this request. Even (for starters) the simplest ability to insert/link to excel spreadsheets to show as Schedules would be a huge help.
Now that devs seem to have developed some expertise in running Rhino inside things, what about the possibly of running Excel and Word inside Rhino? What could and probably couldn’t be done with this concept?
That is already possible with the existing scripting tools, to the point that I would be shocked if there wasn’t already a script that did that somewhere on this forum.
It’s not a native table/schedule tool, but I’ve had a lot of success using PancakeSpreadsheet and some Grasshopper to create tables. The nicest part for me is that you don’t need to have Excel installed on your machine (I use LibreOffice at home).
