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Feature Request: Item Types Expression that will allow to calculate distance between point A and B

Jacek Soroko
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I am working as Electrical Engineer on Railway Infrastructure Projects. One of the latest client's requirement is to provide a carbon assessment for the proposed design. As a part of design we need to consider carbon contribution during manufacturing process, transportation from manufacturer to site, maintenance and installation. I thought that for the calculation of carbon contribution associated with transportation of equipment from manufacturer to construction site,  it would be very useful if there is an expression for item types where:

  • First argument takes coordinates of point A
  • Second argument takes coordinates of point B,
  • Third argument takes type of transportation(car, train, flight

and the returned value is a distance between point A and B (I guess it could use Google Maps or Bing Maps API).

I could then create a cell library with item type attached into each of the cell with the following properties: 

  • Company Name
  • Address,
  • Coordinates,
  • Transport Type,
  • Fuel Consumption, 
  • Distance (calculated by expression, where first argument is Item Type Property "Coordinates", second argument takes the coordinates from the placement point of cell and the third one takes takes Item Type Property "Transport Type"

I guess that if MicroStation already allows to synchronise view with Google Earth and Bing Maps, implementing such expression would not be difficult and would be very useful. 

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  • 0

    Hi Jacek,

    Not sure if you are aware, but the ICE already has a database for embodied carbon. I note that you are based in UK.

    I think that there is an input for the distance between site and factory for concrete. Not sure, but I think the other materials have this input as well. The tool is supposed to capture the transport carbon costs between the material extract point and the factory as well.. which in many cases will be longer/more relevant.

    Bentley has also collaborated with OneClick LCA for carbon accounting using iTwins. iTwins is based on Typescript etc which is more likely to allow you to copy and paste code from other GIS etc apps.

    In any case, as mentioned, Item Types do not have relationships built in to associate between Items attached to separate dgn elements. Apparently Items does support relationships... so should be possible in future.

    You could do this outside Items in Excel... if you attach Item Types to define the material or product to each element. You could export (will will include each lements x,y,z coords) this out and assign a 'factory' attribute based on the material or product and sum up the distances to the factory's x,y.z ?

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  • 0

    Hi Jacek,

    Not sure if you are aware, but the ICE already has a database for embodied carbon. I note that you are based in UK.

    I think that there is an input for the distance between site and factory for concrete. Not sure, but I think the other materials have this input as well. The tool is supposed to capture the transport carbon costs between the material extract point and the factory as well.. which in many cases will be longer/more relevant.

    Bentley has also collaborated with OneClick LCA for carbon accounting using iTwins. iTwins is based on Typescript etc which is more likely to allow you to copy and paste code from other GIS etc apps.

    In any case, as mentioned, Item Types do not have relationships built in to associate between Items attached to separate dgn elements. Apparently Items does support relationships... so should be possible in future.

    You could do this outside Items in Excel... if you attach Item Types to define the material or product to each element. You could export (will will include each lements x,y,z coords) this out and assign a 'factory' attribute based on the material or product and sum up the distances to the factory's x,y.z ?

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