Cumulative Areas In Text Fields

Hello Everyone.

I've just been doing an area schedule and required gross areas. Now to do this I was hoping that I could place a piece of text with a field (area selected) in it and select multiple shapes, that would give me a cumulative area of the shapes. However, fields only work, from what I know, on one object. Is there an intelligent way to make the field link to several objects and give a total area of the objects?

I know of the cheating way to do this where one joins all the shapes via very small linkages that don't affect the overall area, but this is unclean and time consuming. There must be a better way!

Ben

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  • Another workaround could be to group the shapes by the "Group Hole" command and then use fields to report the cummulative area. You can still edit the shapes by dragging its points (you cannot add or delete vertext unless you drop the grouped hole).
  • Unknown said:
    ...(you cannot add or delete vertext unless you drop the grouped hole).

    Since CE (2015) that you can insert and delete vertex from group holes (only deeper control for arc is still missing).

    Regards

    José

  • another  quick way is to create a regular polygon like a square to  enclose all the shapes ., measure this by element  or you know already as you drew it, copy answer  to excel or paper, 

    Then use the  measure area tool by  flood with locate internal shapes and remeasure this now  gives the area less the  internal shapes, the difference of this value and the earlier value is the total of the internal shapes...,  I prefer selection sets  measure area of selection , even by level names.. but this was a quick way  when you have  hundreds of little pieces or lots of shapes in a big design  like  cadastral property  shapes...

    Lorys

    Started msnt work 1990 - Retired  Nov 2022 ( oh boy am I old )

    But was long time user V8iss10 (8.11.09.919) dabbler CE  update 16 (10.16.00.80) 

    MicroStation user since 1990 Melbourne Australia.
    click link to PM me 

  • What I always do is to have a level on my dgnlib only for areas and put this elements on construction class. With named groups and a click I get pretty quickly with what I need. If needed I place text with field to these elements and they are always linked. But only element by element, not more than one.

    Regards

    José

  • I prefer to use  level names for area types  for shapes then use the measure area on a selection by level name.. very quick smart way to work ... and it adds them all up...

    But you must make sure you use the clean up tools first  no overlaps,  also check true islands and toroids or donut shapes, no duplicates, loop backs are bad too...then your file is available to use measure by element or level or colour.. I use to work in mapping and gis  and this kind of thing was extremely important  work flow as you will not get true area calculations... I like the  text field method for  presentation because its dynamic update but  unfortunately as already discussed doesn't do aritmetic operations...

    Lorys

    Started msnt work 1990 - Retired  Nov 2022 ( oh boy am I old )

    But was long time user V8iss10 (8.11.09.919) dabbler CE  update 16 (10.16.00.80) 

    MicroStation user since 1990 Melbourne Australia.
    click link to PM me 

  • Unknown said:
    This has never really worked. Even in CE you cannot add the areas of multiple shapes. However, in CE you can run a report on the individual areas and exportthen to Excel and use Excel to total the areas.

    Even in CE , whats needed is the ability to use a text field on a graphic group(ing)  ie two or more shapes put into a graphic group then add the text field on group properties  not element  properties, this is not yet available but its on my wish list....

    Lorys

    Started msnt work 1990 - Retired  Nov 2022 ( oh boy am I old )

    But was long time user V8iss10 (8.11.09.919) dabbler CE  update 16 (10.16.00.80) 

    MicroStation user since 1990 Melbourne Australia.
    click link to PM me 

Reply
  • Unknown said:
    This has never really worked. Even in CE you cannot add the areas of multiple shapes. However, in CE you can run a report on the individual areas and exportthen to Excel and use Excel to total the areas.

    Even in CE , whats needed is the ability to use a text field on a graphic group(ing)  ie two or more shapes put into a graphic group then add the text field on group properties  not element  properties, this is not yet available but its on my wish list....

    Lorys

    Started msnt work 1990 - Retired  Nov 2022 ( oh boy am I old )

    But was long time user V8iss10 (8.11.09.919) dabbler CE  update 16 (10.16.00.80) 

    MicroStation user since 1990 Melbourne Australia.
    click link to PM me 

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