Name: FrameCalc+
Overview: The purpose of this tool is to allow building designers, architects, and engineers to quickly and easily generate simple structural building frames in Revit along with estimates for the total weight, cost, and embodied carbon associated with the generated building frame. By changing inputs for the building dimensions, framing parameters, and building material, this tool can help highlight important tradeoffs in the cost and embodied carbon of a structural building frame.
The following screenshot shows an example of a structural building frame generated using this tool, with the screenshots below showing the associated inputs and outputs on the Dynamo Player interface.
Inputs:
- Building dimensions - height, length, width, floor to floor height (number sliders)
- Framing edge offset distance - distance between building footprint and inset building frame footprint (number slider)
- Lowest level to associate elements with (Levels)
- Number of beams in beam system (number slider)
- Rotate beam system (boolean t/f)
- Steel structure - true for steel, false for reinforced concrete (boolean t/f)
- Structural framing types - beam direction 1, beam direction 2, beam systems, columns (element types)
- U/V divisions for beams and columns (number slider)
Outputs:
- Total cost of materials
- Embodied carbon of structural frame
- Total weight of structural frame
Video demo: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IZlPMexl0H1GByent7lYHErlCd-Eu5Dx/view?usp=sharing