CAD file to materials list

[cidley69]

Does anyone have software that can use dwg file to create a material estimate for lumber, joist, truss, sheeting, etc?

Is this something Chief Architect does?

[ThePenIsMightier]

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Does anyone have software that can use dwg file to create a material estimate for lumber, joist, truss, sheeting, etc?

Is this something Chief Architect does?

I think this it's a missing link in much of the available software. I know people who wrote code to get these programs to more efficiently generate MTO's.
If you can generate individual drawings, there could be a Bill Of Materials in the side of each drawing... I'm not sure.

[cidley69]

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I think this it's a missing link in much of the available software. I know people who wrote code to get these programs to more efficiently generate MTO's.
If you can generate individual drawings, there could be a Bill Of Materials in the side of each drawing... I'm not sure.

It doesn't seem like it would be hard math for a computer.

[npham]

Do you have 2D or 3D .DWG's? You'll need 3D at a minimum. Can you post a couple of screens shots of what the files look like? I doubt any of the oil and gas software that a bunch of us are familiar with is going to be very helpful here. I suspect the software that generated the drawings is capable of generating the MTO's (but I'm assuming you don't want to pay for it?), so you'll need to do it by hand to get your quantities. Not hard math for a computer to do, but software vendors like to lock this functionality up in their ecosystem as a reason to buy their software.

[ercchry]

Inventor does this, but the trick is you need to add the data for each part when it’s created initially

[JfuckinC]

Pretty well Every software does this, but in its own way… so it’s not as easy as opening a dwg and exporting an MTO.. has to have some sort of database or properties to export, and then has to have compatibility to export them.

Even in Vanilla AutoCAD if the blocks have any attributes or individual names/layers/properties there is ways you could probably do it, but it would be super rudimentary and there would Be manual inputs and organization involved.

But npham is right, realistically needs to be a 3D model. If it’s 2D and has blocks you could still do it but you’re setting yourself up for errors.. may as well just count by hand on a notepad haha

[killramos]

I used to be able to do this in inventor.

But the whole model needed to be built from the start using inventor’s parts catalogue.

So if your drawing already exists you would need to start over.

[DonJuan]

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If it’s 2D and has blocks you could still do it but you’re setting yourself up for errors.. may as well just count by hand on a notepad haha

I could see this being done with a COUNT if each truss was a block reference for example. As in counting each block reference. But errors could include exploded blocks etc.

Edit:
Civil3D has a method of counting XREF instances. So if your drawing has each countable material as the same XREF then maybe???? Again, the potential for errors would abound.

BCOUNT is the block reference count.

[gretz]

Hmmmm…. Most cad softwares can do this with models… Since dwgs are just vectors, I’m not sure you can differentiate one from another. One way to do it would be to give each component a different colour. Then, filter / count line objects by filtered Colours and divide by the number of sides of said features. If I’m making any sense lol

[JfuckinC]

Bunch of nerdy drafters wanna help and the guys ghosts us

[cidley69]

Lots of different angles on it being mentioned. I'm hearing that it's not difficult for the software to do this, but this feature is locked behind a pay wall and most users have no need to pay the extra to access the feature. If with this feature enabled the cad has to be drawn correctly in first place to generate an accurate extract. Which my file likely was not.

There are some work arounds but these may be more work than just doing it without the software.

If cad file could put linear feet of interior and exterior walls, and sq ft of floor/roof, could use this info to make estimates of materials quantity.

[cet]

With a basic .dwg AutoCAD can extract line lengths and hatch areas. You could then export those to an excel file. It'll still take a bit of work to set everything up though.