It is often the case that the team that is responsible for creating a building model in Revit is not in the same office or even in the same company as the team who will be taking advantage of the model-based quantity takeoff capabilities of BIM. The consequence of the missing communication between "producing" party and "consuming" party is that the naming of model content may not be optimal for use in construction quantity takeoff, cost planning and model-based schedule planning.
Vico Office provides 3 property options that can be used for the creation of Takeoff Items (groups of similar elements for which quantities are aggregated) from Revit models: "Family", "Family Type" and "Mark".
Family and Family Type are often used to define and organize a company's Revit element library and may or may not be a good way to name elements in the model so that Takeoff Items can be created for optimal use in cost and schedule planning.
The third option - "Mark" - is very suitable as a solution to prepare the Revit model for use in Vico Office without having to change any of the Family or Family Type names. The steps below explain a quick and straightforward way to do this, using Revit's "Schedule" functionality.
To begin, select the "Schedule/Quantities" function from the "View" ribbon.
Define a new schedule that contains the information that you need to assign a "Mark" description - the future name of your Takeoff Item in Vico Office.
Next, on the "Sorting/Grouping" tab in the "Schedule Properties" dialog, group the model content by the properties that should determine how they are going to be quantified in Vico Office. Make sure to uncheck the "Itemize every instance" option.
After clicking "OK", a table appears that shows the content of your model, grouped by the criteria selected in the "Sorting/Grouping" tab. A "Mark" description can now be assigned quickly and easily by just typing it into the "Mark" column.
When selecting an element in the model, the entered information will be visible in the "Properties" palette.
Items that do not have a "Mark" value will be activated and visible in Vico Office, but will not be assigned to any Takeoff Item. (They can be found by using a view filter, using the "Show Only Unassigned" option.)
After publishing to Vico Office, activate the model with only the "Mark" option selected.
Your quantity takeoff is now ready for use in Cost Components and Schedule Tasks.
Please let me know if this has been useful and what other approaches you have come up with to make sure that the quantity takeoff potential of BIM can be used in your firm!
This and many more tips can be found in the Vico Office Cost Planner video training series.
And don't forget to read my colleague's blog on the broader topic, What Can Be Done to Improve Model Fidelity.