Understanding Information Takeoff (ITO)

The following article provides an introduction to the Information Takeoff (ITO) View. This view allows the user to analyze component information within a model both visually in the 3D View, as well as in the form of a spreadsheet in the ITO View, which can be exported to a customized Microsoft Excel Worksheet. This information includes identifiers and classifications, locations, quantities that can be totaled by grouping components together, as well as any property values that are within a property set.

This article uses the SMC Building.smc sample model that is included with SMC. You can find this file in the Models folder listed in the Recent Model Places list, by clicking File >Recent within SMC.

This file is also available here: SMC Building.smc

The steps that follow will walk you through the creation of an ITO definition that reports room and door information. This ITO provides door counts based on their operation and total area of the rooms those doors are associated with, based on their floor and space usage.

This ITO from the article is available here: Rooms and Doors.ito

INFORMATION TAKEOFF DEFINITION DIALOG

The Information Takeoff Definition dialog is the starting point when creating your ITO definition, and appears first when you click the New Information Takeoff Definition button. Its purpose is to limit the components you wish to include in the ITO. Prior to version 9.5, this dialog was limited to a component type and discipline list. In SMC v9.5, these have been replaced with a Components Filter Parameter table that allows a more detailed filter to specify the components used in the Information Takeoff. In this section, the ITO definition created in the steps that follow limit the components to rooms from an Architectural model.

1. Open the SMC Building.smc file.
2. Select the Information Takeoff Layout tab at the top of the SMC window.
3. In the Information Takeoff View, click the New Information Takeoff Definition button.
4. In the Information Takeoff Definition dialog, enter Rooms and Doors in the Name text box.
5. In the existing row of the Components Filter Parameters table, click the cell in the Components column and click the Browse button. The Select Component Type dialog will open.
6. In the Select Component Type dialog, hit the ‘S’ key on the keyboard twice to quickly select Space and click OK.
   
7. In the Components Filter Parameters table, click the cell in the Property column and click the Browse button.
8. In the Select Property dialog, select the Identification Property Group and select Discipline from the Property drop-down box. Click OK.
   The Components Filter Parameters table should appear as the image above. The filter is now only reporting spaces from Architectural models.
   
9. Click the cell in the Operator column and select One Of.|
   Double-click the cell in the Value column, select Architectural, and click OK.
   
   The Components Filter Parameters table should appear as the image above. The filter is now only reporting spaces from Architectural models.
10. In the Components Filter Parameters Table, click the Add a New Filter button.
11. In the second row, click the cell in the State column and select Exclude.
12. Set the component cell of the second row to Space.
13. Click the cell in the Property column and click the Browse button.
14. In the Select Property dialog, select the Classification Property Group and select the Space Grouping classification in the Classification drop down. Click OK.
15. Click the cell in the Operator column and select Is Defined.
    
    The Components Filter Parameters table should appear as the image above. The second row excludes spaces classified as Space Groups (e.g. gross or rentable areas from an area plan, which are not rooms). This ITO should now only report rooms from an architectural model. NOTE: The Enable Grouping option was set to allow rooms to be grouped together on a single row in the ITO report. When grouped, multiple components will reside on a single row based on a property (e.g. grouped by type). Setting the option to One Component per Row, allows rows to report only a single component.
16. Click OK to create the ITO definition.
17. Click the Takeoff All button.
    In the Information Takeoff View, components are listed and grouped by their Component type (wall, door, space, etc.) and Type property. The count column provides the total number of components in the row. For example, there are 17 spaces within this model that are of the “2 Office” type. Selecting rows in the Information Takeoff View isolates those components in the 3D View. If you double-click a row in the Information Takeoff View, the camera zooms to those components in the 3D view.

SORTING COMPONENTS THROUGH COLUMN ORDER

Sorting the information in an ITO is simple, as the leftmost columns are sorted first. In this section, we’ll add room name and room number property columns to our ITO and show by moving the columns left or right, the values are sorted based on values of those properties.

1. Right-click in the Component column header to open the pop-up commands and select Edit Column.
   
   NOTE: Double-clicking the column header also edits the column.
2. Select the Identification Column Type and select Name in the Identification drop-down box. Leave the Grouping check box enabled and the Sorting Order set to A -> Z. Click OK.
   
3. Double-click the Type column header to edit the column.
4. Select the Identification Column Type and select Number in the Identification drop-down box:
5. Click the Takeoff All button.
   
   Notice the rows in the Information Takeoff View are sorted first by the Name and then by the Number in ascending order. Note: You can quickly change the order to descending by right-clicking a column and selecting Z->A in the pop-up commands.
6. Drag the Number column header left to place it before the Name column. Note: You can also move a column by right-clicking a column and selecting Move Column Left and Move Column Right.
7. Click the Takeoff All button.
   
   Notice now the rooms are sorted first by their number, and then by their name.

GROUPING

The concept of grouping components on a single row based on a property value reported in an ITO column may seem confusing at first glance; however, when understood, this feature becomes quite powerful. When an ITO column has grouping enabled, all components that have that a unique value for that property reside on an individual row within the ITO view. When an ITO column does not have grouping enabled, components are grouped on the row based on whatever other columns have grouping enabled. For that row, if the value of the non-grouped column is text, all the different property values are listed in a single cell. However, if the property value is a quantity, those values can have one of 4 functions performed on the values to create a single value in the cell:

• Sum: The values for the property are added together and reported.
• Maximum: The largest value of the property is reported.
• Minimum: The smallest value of the property is reported.
• Average: The average of all values of the property is reported.

In this section, we’ll show how the rows in the ITO view group rooms together based on whether grouping is enabled for the Space Usage classification, Number property, and Name property columns. The end result will be an ITO with rooms grouped together on individual rows only based on their Space Usage classification in order to report the sum of the Area of rooms based on their space usage.

1. Right-click the Number column header and select New Column.
2. Select Classification as the Column Type and select the Space Usage classification in the Classification drop-down box. Leave the Grouping checkbox marked as this is the column we wish to group by.
   
3. Click the Takeoff All button.
   
   Notice that even though grouping was enabled in the Space Usage column, since grouping is enabled in the Number column and each room has a unique number, each row reports a single space.
4. Edit the Number column to turn grouping off and click the Takeoff All button.
   Notice now that spaces are grouped by both Space Usage and Name, since grouping is still enabled in the Name column.
5. Edit the Name column to turn grouping off and click the Takeoff All button.
   Notice that each Space Usage of a space is grouped on a row and multiple numbers and names of spaces are reported on those rows.
6. Right-click the Count column header and select New Column.
7. Select the Quantity Column Type and select Area in the Quantity drop-down box. Leave the Grouping check box unmarked and notice that the Function drop-down box is enabled and set to Sum.
   
8. Click the Takeoff All button.
   
   In the Area column, the total area of each space is reported based on their Space Usage classification. For example, the 18 Circulation Spaces in the model have a total area of 2404.12 sq ft.
9. Edit the Area column to turn grouping on. Notice that the Function drop-down is now disabled as each area value will grouped and reported on a single row.
10. Click the Takeoff All button.
    
    Notice that there are 3 Circulation spaces named stair that each have the same area 142.08 sq ft. This is not a sum of the area of the three spaces. If you select one of these spaces such as Stair[111] and check the Area in the Quantities tab of the Info View, you’ll see it has the value 142.08 sq ft.
11. Edit the Area column to turn grouping off so that the sum of the area of each Space Usage is reported again.

VALUE BY COLUMN

Some of the properties of components that can be reported in an ITO are components themselves. For example, Location properties include Building, Floor, Group, Site, Zone, and System that contain the components reported in the ITO. Properties of these “container” components can also be reported through the Value By Column column attribute, by setting this drop-down box to the column that contains the components with the properties you wish to report. In this section, we’ll add a column to report the floor that rooms reside on, and we’ll add a column to report the area of those floors by setting the Value by Column attribute to the column that reports the floor.

1. Right-click the Space Usage column and select New Column.
2. Select the Location Column Type and select Floor in the Location drop-down box.
   
3. Right-click the Space Usage column and select New Column.
4. Select the Quantity Column Type and select Area in the Quantity drop-down box.
5. Importantly, select Floor in the Value by Column.
   
   If the Value by Column was left empty as by default, the column would report the sum of the area of each Space Usage on each floor. By setting the Value by Column drop-down to Floor, the column reports the Area property of the floor container component reported in the Floor column. This is an important concept as container components are not listed in the Select Component Type dialog of the Components Filter Parameter table of Information Takeoff Definition when creating your initial ITO. The same method works to report properties of the building, floors group, site, systems, and zone that contain the components reported in the -ITO definition.
6. Click the Takeoff All button.
   

COLOR COLUMN TYPE

You are able to visualize components in the 3D View with different colors based on the values of properties reporting in ITO. Furthermore, you are able to use the colors specified in the classification settings of a classification by setting the Color column to that classification.

In this section, we’ll demonstrate coloring rooms in the model based on the floor they reside on as well as by their space usage.

1. Double-click the Color column header to edit the column.
2. Select the Floor column in the Value by Column drop-down box.
   
3. Click the Takeoff All button.
   
   You can see space components have a random color based on the Floor they reside on.
4. Select the Space Usage column in the Value by Column drop-down box.
   
5. Click the Takeoff All button.
   
   You can see now that the space components have a specific color that is 50% transparent based on their Space Usage. If you edit the classification settings of the Space Usage classification, and select the Settings tab, the colors set in the Default Classification Names table correspond to those colors in the Color column of the ITO definition.
   

RELATION COLUMN TYPE

Components have relation properties to other components that can be reported in an ITO. In the following section, we’ll add a column that uses the Nearest Spaces relation to report door components that are inside or touching rooms. We’ll then add a column to report the door operation by setting Value by Column attribute to the door column.

1. Select any of the spaces, in the 3D View or Information Takeoff View.
2. In the Info View, select the Relations tab, and expand the Nearest Space relation.
   
   Any components that are inside or touching the space are listed under Nearest Space. Also notice the arrow icons are pointing backward as this is a backward relation. Components have a forward nearest space relation to their nearest space. Spaces have a backward nearest space relation to components that are near them.
3. Right-click the Color column header and select New Column.
4. Select the Relation Column Type.
5. Select Nearest Spaces in the Relation drop-down box.
6. Select Door in the Component Type drop-down box.
7. Select Backward in the Direction drop-down box.
8. Mark the Grouping check box.
   
9. Click the Takeoff All button.
   
   Notice that under each row that corresponds to a grouping of spaces based on Space Usage there is a row that corresponds to the doors contained within or enter/exit those spaces.
10. Right-click the Color column header and select New Column.
11. Select Identification Column Type, select Door in the Value by Column drop-down box, select Operation in the Identification drop-down box, and mark the Grouping check box.
    
12. Click the Takeoff All button.
    
13. Right-click the Color column header and select New Column.
14. Select Component Count for the Column Type, and enter Door Count in the Name box.
15. Click the Takeoff All button.
    The Information Takeoff is now reporting counts of the different door operations for each space usage on each floor.
16. Since there is no classification for doors in the Space Usage classification, the doors have a yellow default color that isn’t prominent in the view. In the Color column, double-click one of these yellow cells that correspond to a group of doors and set the color to Red in the Color Chooser dialog. Now when you multi-select rows in the ITO for spaces and doors, the doors will stand out from the spaces in the 3D View.

TAKEOFF SELECTED

The Takeoff Selected button, updates the ITO View with only the components that are currently part of the selection basket. This is useful to quickly limit what is reported without requiring the Components Filter Parameters table to be updated within the ITO definition. In the following section, we’ll set the selection basket to only report the spaces and doors that reside on 1. First floor to produce a Microsoft Excel Worksheet.

1. In the Information Takeoff View, select all rows (including rows for doors) that are contained on the floor:1. First floor.
2. Click the Set to Selection Basket button.
   The components reported on those rows in the Information Takeoff View are now set to the selection basket. You can see them reported in the Selection Basket View.
3. Click the Alternate Items button next to the Takeoff All button and click the Takeoff Selected button.
   The Information Takeoff View is now only reporting the spaces and doors on the floor: 1. First floor.
4. Click the Report Information Takeoff button. With the Plain Excel Report Report Option marked, save the report to an .xlsx file.
   The same information from the Information Takeoff View is reported.