BIM Schedule and element listing

[danreb]

Hi,
I am trying to get an inventory of the various elements in my project (house with wood framing skeleton). To know for example how many beams are used and what is their total length.

[CONTEXT]
Since, I use wood framing, there are repetitive elements (like wall wood columns) that I model in Freecad like so:

1. make a structure
2. make an array out of it (e.g. repetition of x times along the x axis)
3. make a Mother Structure object (called "MS") based on this array, to be able to subtract the roof out of these designed beams
4. eventually select the roof to the subtracted objects in this last "MS" structure object (to cut the beams at the right length)

[PROBLEM]
I try to use the BIM schedule to extract data from my model but I have no success in getting :

1. the right length of a structure when there is subtraction to it (e.g. a simple Structure from 4500 mm Height where I subtract a roof at about 2600 mm)
2. get the count and total length of my "MS" elementary structure elements

Does someone have any advice on how to solve this? Is the Schedule tool the recommended way? Do I need to make a special macro to cover this purpose?

Many thanks for comments.

Cheers

OS: Linux Mint 18.3 Sylvia
Word size of OS: 64-bit
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.18.14790 (Git)
Build type: Release
Branch: master
Hash: 3c048904ffa2372c4670344a33664764fce33fc8
Python version: 2.7.12
Qt version: 4.8.7
Coin version: 4.0.0a
OCC version: 7.3.0
Locale: English/UnitedStates (en_US)

[yorik]

Indeed if you have beams where an end has been subtracted, the Length property will still reflect the original length.

You can get the actual length by measuring an edge that has the correct length. Hover on an edge, and you'll see its number in the status bar, ex. Edge4

Then in the Arch schedule, you can take, for example, object.Shape.Edge4.Length

You can also do that manually, directly in a spreadsheet I think...

[danreb]

Hi Thanks Yorik,

any chance aggregative functions could be used inside schedule-way of computing stuff ?

e.g.
max(edge.Length for edge in object.Shape.Edges)
?

[yorik]

that requires some work, but it's a good idea. Adding to my todo list. Feel free to create a feature request on the tracker so it doesn't get lost in oblivion...

[danreb]

Ok regarding the aggregative expression I 've just added a feature request
https://www.freecadweb.org/tracker/view.php?id=3802