Calculate the Building Area

You can calculate the floor areas and the total floor area for each floor of a building. The program calculates the areas based on the exterior walls. The area does not include areas where the room height determined by the intermediate floor and the ceiling is less than 1600 mm.

As a result of the calculation, the program creates space objects from the floor and total floor areas and adds hatches to their own layers in the floor plan. You can add a table of areas to the floor plan by using the function Building Area Schedule.

The areas are also added to the building data card if the data card has the following PROREG database fields:
  • SQM - Floor area
  • TOTALSQM - Total floor area

Calculate the building areas as follows:

  1. Select Output | Zone | Building area.
  2. Select the drawing-model pairs from which the surfaces are calculated.
  3. If the building has both log and framed exterior walls, select the walls by clicking them one by one, and select the Confirm function.

Space objects

Based on the calculated areas, the program automatically creates its own space objects for the floor area and the total floor area.

The object type of the space is Space, which has subtypes:
  • VXTYPE_S_FLOOR_AREA - Floor area
  • VXTYPE_S_TOTAL_FLOOR_AREA - Total floor area

These are collected in the components.xml file, which makes it possible to create an Excel report from them.

The same editing functions are available for space objects for areas as for other spaces. Read more in the instructions Define a Space. When you select a space in the model or floor plan, you can edit the space object from the grip points, and select editing functions from the Space tab.

The space objects will be displayed in the object tree:

By default, the program selects the space objects to be created from the system’s space library, which contains the following space objects:
  • FLOOR_AREA
  • TOTAL_FLOOR_AREA

You can also add a space object from another space library using a separate function. Read more in the instructions Define a Space.

Space objects in the floor plan

By default, only a 2D representation is set for the space objects of the areas, which is a hatch in the floor plan. Hatches for different areas are added to their own layers. In the software provider's default layer scheme, the layers are:

  • Floor area hatch on layer 57.
  • Total floor area hatch on layer 58.
  • In addition, in Finland, "Total floor area 250" is calculated if the thickness of the external walls is more than 250 mm. The hatch for floor area 250 is added to layer 129.

You can check the area by selecting visible layers using the Select layers from list function on the tool strip.

In addition, the program adds the border line and label of the space to the floor plan on their own layers. In the software provider's default layer scheme, the layers are:
  • Border line on layer 119.
  • Label on layer 120.

Read more: Space Label and Edit the Drawing Properties of a Space.

If you move the walls of the building, you can update the changes in the areas either by moving the hatch points or by reselecting the area calculation function.

Space objects in the model

You can also enable 3D representation, in which case the space object is displayed as a volume in the model. In the 3D model, the height of the space is set to the room height (the building parameter ROOM_HEIGHT).
  1. Select the space object in the floor plan or in the object tree.
  2. Right-click and select Presentation > 2D and 3D.

Calculation rules and precision

Area calculation rules are defined in the system settings in the BDSXX keyword group with the following keywords:
  • area_calc_sets - Defines the area sets to be calculated. The standard delivery of the program includes three groups
    • AREA1 - Floor area
    • AREA2 - Total floor area 250 mm
    • AREA3 - Total floor area
  • area_calc_param - Defines the calculation rules for each set.
By default, the area is presented with a half square meter (half square feet in imperial dimensioning system) precision. You can change the precision by changing the value of the keyword calc_build_area_precision in the BDSX keyword group. The keyword can have the following values:
  • 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 - Defines the number of decimals. For example, calc_build_area_precision= 2 sets the precision to two decimals.
  • 0.5 - Defines 0.5 square meter (half square feet in imperial dimensioning system) precision.
  • 1.5 - Defines the precision as follows: areas less than 100 m² are displayed with 0.5 square meter precision, other areas with one square meter precision as a whole number.

Define the space object to be created in the system settings

By default, the program selects the space objects to be created from the system’s space library, which contains the following space objects:
  • FLOOR_AREA
  • TOTAL_FLOOR_AREA

In the system settings, you can set any space from the space library to be used for a specific area set. Define the space with the area_calc_param keyword of the area_calc_set area set and its parameter SPACEREFERENCE:

area_calc_param= [area_calc_set] SPACEREFERENCE [space code]@[space library]

For example:

area_calc_param= AREA2 SPACEREFERENCE TOTAL_FLOOR_AREA_250@space_area_volume

Note:
  • You can leave a room area out of the total floor area by editing the room's data.
  • Space objects created based on calculated areas are included since version 2026 (32.0). The old functionality in previous versions is available by adding the keyword set.buildareas.old= 1 to the user/SETUP file.