Maintaing Lighting Layout With Changing Ceiling Grid

[MEP_Villa]

Hello,

I am trying to find a solution to our lighting fixtures being moved over when Arch are frequently updating their model. Communication between the Architect firm and our MEP team is too slow where the MEP team is not getting the latest ceiling grid fast enough. Essentially, I am trying to find a way where the lighting fixtures shift to the next available grid while still keeping the lighting layout/design.

I been looking at Dynamo as a possible solution since I could potentially create a python script but want to know if anyone has found a solution to the following problem? I never used Dynamo and have some experience with programing, however, I don’t want to reinvent the wheel if there’s already a method out there.

If Dynamo is the best solution, are there any recommended articles or examples that I can use to reference for this particular problem? Is there a possibility to connect to the linked ceiling from the linked Revit model obtained by the Architect firm? If so, then I’m assuming I would be able to get the information on the grid layout. From there I guess I can select the lighting fixture family and ensure that it is within the grid, if not shift over while maintaining the same layout, assuming the Architects didn’t add new walls that would conflict the design.

The following are forums that I found that could help but not sure if the either the Sparrow or Genius Loci package would be the solution. Very new to Dynamo so I would need to do further research.

1. Ceiling Grid and Linked Light Fixture
2. Material surface patterns in Dynamo?

Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated!

[m.owens]

I’m not sure what your typical workflow looks like…I know RCP-Planning can be painful.

It may depend on how you are laying-out your lighting according to the panels or grids. This should be theoretically possible with Dynamo, but it is will probably have complexities and issues with keeping the elements hosted / syncrhonised with the architectural model elements.

Can you post a screenshot of a typical situation (initial layout) and typical change-type. Or do your best to describe this?

[MEP_Villa]

Hi, thank you for your response it’s been a busy couple of weeks but I found some time to do some more digging around.

I found an interesting video that has pretty much has the same goal that I’m looking for but running into issues. The following is the video, Align & Center Fixtures on Ceiling Grids w Dynamo.

The issue that I am finding is the part where I am trying to import the ceiling grid pattern. I am getting some kind of null value form the Topology.Faces node, which then cascades everything downstream as null.

[MEP_Villa]

This is the tail end of the section for selecting the ceiling & fixtures before passing it through the section to import the ceiling grid pattern. I believe that this is correct but not 100% sure.

Before running the script I exported the RCP plan to a autoCAD dwg file, then exploded the hatch pattern for the ceiling grid, then re-uploaded it as a CADLink.

Any help or advice would be appreciated!