Dynamo useful for getting wall surfaces

Dear forum members,

I have never used Dynamo and am beginner to decent with Revit.

What we do is extract information from buildings (into an Excel file) to verify whether it meets legal constraints (through a government-imposed software program). We currently do that in Autocad by measuring on floor plans, section views and elevation views. The stuff we measure are mostly windows, boundaries (walls, floors and roofs), volumes and ventilation rooms. If we have Revit plans we try to get stuff out of Revit directly to speed up the process. That more or less works for rooms already.

The two most time-consuming aspects of the measurement are :

  • Windows : because there is most to record
  • Heights to calculate wall surfaces and EPM volumes

(EPM : Energy Performance Management; appartments are typical EPM units)

Property set of a curtain wall

In the above picture, SubID is the wall structure identifier. So the curtain wall is in a wall of structure MO 02c.

Heights are time-consuming to manually measure mostly for cases like this :

Floor plan of first floor with polylines representing walls

The walls of the floor are in yellow. The walls of the floors above and below are in pink, respectively red.

That is time-consuming and error prone because because of the many small sections and the limitation to having to measure something 3D in 2D. Using simplifications (e.g. joining a small wall section to a large one) is difficult because it adds constency requirements.

Figure from a self-written manual to illustrate how should be measured

I think the main requirements are the following :

  • EPM units need to be added/identified (and other areas, like outside and non-heated room), maybe using spaces
  • Identify boundary location : sometimes it is the centerline of the wall, other times the outside of the insulation, and sometimes the outer edge.
  • Distinction between wall structures
  • Verification : seeing how the automated system got its results

Is that something feasible to do with Dynamo ?

Likely, yes.

Here is the first figure that is missing from the OP :

Window%20properties
Property set of a curtain wall

It would have been useful if there were a preview feature.

Here is the second figure :


Floor plan of first floor with polylines representing walls

Here is the third figure :


Figure from a self-written manual to illustrate how should be measured