EarthMover wrote:Al, I've been trying to download the demo, but the page containing the .zip file is down.

I'm curious, since I do a lot landscape design, would I be able to assign monetary values to my faceme plant components and have the program issue a report with the total cost and quantities of all the plants in my model? Also, can I add a square footage cost for surface area assigned with certain materials? Will it remember the values across sessions?


Try the download again. Click reload on the downloads page if it does not show version JH18

Costs

You can add a cost attribute to each plant, and then re-save the plants into a new library. *By placing all your plants in model as components, setting an attribute for each plant, and then exporting the components into a library, the attributes will be saved in the library. If you have any trouble doing this, let us know.

Area Calculations


These are not working yet, but you will be able to use them adter I create a new version, and a tutorial on how to do this next week.

The "trick" will be that you add a new attribute called "area", and add a "substitution" string to the attribute. Using "%a-wd%" as the substitution string, will cause the width times depth to be used to calculate the area attribute. %a-wd% will be replaced by the width and depth of the component - even if the user has stretched it - to calculate the area.

Then add another attribute, e.g. "cost_per_sq_foot", and enter the values.

Finally, add a third attribute - "extended_area_cost", and set its "calculation' string to "%area% x %cost_per_sq_foot% / 144" this will use the values of 'area' and 'cost_per_sq_foot' to calculate the variable "extended_area_cost".

This is a lot of work, but might create a great report for you. Wait until I create the sample and new version next week. If you have any problems, we will help you out.

Other Substitution codes

* %w% is replaced by the width of the component,
* %d% is replaced by the depth of the component,
* %h% is replaced by the height of the component
* %l% is replaced by the longest of width, depth and height. (Useful for long components - like pipe.)
* %z% is replaced by the minimum z-height of the component
* %v% is replace by the product of width, depth and height (volume)
* a-wd - area - width * depth
* a-wh - area - width * height
* a-dh - area - depth * height
* %name% is replaced by the name of the instance or component

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