This blog post is inspired by some Wood Framing Wall+ users who have sent similar questions this month. All of them met with a similar challenge: sort each wood piece in the houses with a unique tag or an “article number”. Here are some examples of requests:
“The company I work for wants a schedule for the whole building, not one for every wall. Is it possible to get different FM SortMark for different parts? For example, the stud in “YV1” has a coping for bracing but the one in “YV2” don’t. I would like Wall+ to set FM SortMark to S-1 in wall “YV1” and S-2 in wall “YV2”, is it possible?”
or
“The tag isn’t unique for the studs cut length in different walls. It starts from VS-1 in each wall. Instead for each wall to start with VS-1, cut lengths for the entire house should be considered for the FM SortMark.”
In such case I suggest you to use our Revit plugin Sort Mark that is very powerful for numbering elements in customized ways.
In order to know which stud has a cut for bracing and which does not, we can use Volume parameter:
Now let’s come back to Sort Mark: using it you have to follow these steps:
- Open Sort Mark functionality:
- Choose the Element Numbering feature and tick Structural Framing:
- Select parameter where the final value will be written (FM SortMark in our case, but you can choose any other parameter. You can leave FM SortMark for Wall+ standard calculation, and you can use other parameter for your custom calculation results):
Predefine rules, how the frames should be numbered (configuration for numbering frames):
Grouping – nothing
Numbering – Incense: Framing Member Mark, Incense: Framing Member Volume (volume I have used, because the frame with same length can have different internal cuts with bracings for example) and Incense: Framing Member Cut Length
Sub Numbering – nothing
Sorting – nothing
Sort Mark – Incense: Framing Member Mark Prefix “-” and Calculated: Sort Mark Number
Furthermore, you can save these settings for your future project in Configuration section:
After pressing OK, Sort Mark renumbers all frames in your project and you get such results:
So just like that you can create unique tags for timber framed building elements with our Sort Mark app, which is separate Revit add-on, or more powerful BIM solution BIM Tree Manager, which also includes Sort Mark functionality.
The choice of work tools depends on your needs. BIM Tree Manager would be more beneficial for filtering and changing parameter values and then numbering with the Sort Mark feature.
