Introduction

BIMSearch was originally created as a tool to help site engineers with their day-to-day tasks. Currently, calculating quantities to check invoices, arrange deliveries and so on is a time-consuming and thankless task, but BIMSearch makes it easy. This use case will show how you can calculate quantities of concrete to prepare for ordering concrete.

Load search template - Walls

The easiest way to get started with BIMSearch is to use a pre-defined search template. In this case, we will use the Walls template. Simply click on “Load Search Template”, select the “Default” folder and then load the Walls template. 

To learn more about searching your model, start with our post “Search your model“

Refine the search

This search template will present all the walls in the model, so to get the quantities for concrete, we will search within the model for CON – which is the agreed wall type codification for concrete in this model – and the search will be refined to only present the concrete walls.

Get results!

Since this table report is grouped by both base constraint and type, the different types of wall are grouped together. In this case, they are identified by thickness (CON200 means 20cm concrete wall, for example). This means that as well as seeing the volume of concrete needed to cast these walls, you can also see different sizes of required formwork.

Highlight the elements for the base constraint GL – Ground Level – and you will instantly see that there are 4 different types of concrete walls on the ground floor requiring 4 different sizes of formwork, with a total of 29 walls at 92.77m3.

Watch the video

This search for quantities is demonstrated in our video “Calculate quantities in just 3 clicks!“