Find And Report: an extension for easy quantity surveying

[Andy85]

Hi Oliver, there was one other thought I had. It would be great to maintain a selection in the find and report as an alternative to report on selected entities. Similar to your only export data with custom attributes. That way you could simply activate the tool and continue to work on your components with custom attributes without selecting in the model. I do hope this is not just helping me and that it is developing things for you and a potentially a great extension. Appreciate your work

[Wisext]

@Andy85

That way you could simply activate the tool and continue to work on your components with custom attributes without selecting in the model.

Hi Andrew,
Let me try to understand your request better.
If I take the following diagram,

you’d like to temporarily disable selection synchronization between the “Find And Report” window and the model.
What advantages do you gain in your work? When you’re working in the F&R window, does it interfere with your work to have the elements selected? And conversely, when you select elements from the model, what’s the problem if they’re displayed in the F&R window?

Note that you already have an unsynchronized space: the Excel table. After export, you can modify attributes and other properties such as material and tag without any interaction with the model and then decide to apply the changes in SketchUp by pressing the “Update from file” button
.
I’m not saying that there could never be a button for desynchronizing selection, but I would like to understand the advantages. Because such a button could also create confusion for users who select elements they no longer see displayed in the F&R window, and conversely, make a search leading to elements not selected in the model.

[Andy85]

Hi Oliver it is difficult to explain. At the moment I am using the dynamic component interface and setting up the labelling template

I just use Name, Summary, Description and Item Code from the dynamic attributes. I have attached a screen-shot of sketchup and layout. The 3 different foundation piles are dynamic components nested in a group called Foundation Piles. I can just enter that group and model and change the foundation in a new project with the all the labelling still there and able to be edited in SketchUp and updated in layout. You can see the 4 label choices are available in layout.

I guess what I am thinking that you could have a filter that selected everything in the model that had these pre-labels to edit in excel and sync back to SketchUp. This would have 2 advantages in that it is only working with the labelled components and the excel file has all the labels in the model to be edited and synced back to sketchup in a single action. I would do this after completing the model. It would still be good to edit individual components when needed.

It would be a massive time saver for me to be able to edit all the labels together in an excel file rather than using the dynamic interface.

(attachments)

[Andy85]

I have not tried any of the other dynamic component attributes, but I think they all will show up in layout. I use name for short description, summary for medium and description for long description. The Item Code is reserved for schedules W.01, D.01 etc and I can use a transparent label leader for these. That is all I need, the 4 options.

[Wisext]

@Andy85

Hi Oliver it is difficult to explain. At the moment I am using the dynamic component interface and setting up the labelling template (…)

I guess what I am thinking that you could have a filter that selected everything in the model that had these pre-labels to edit in excel and sync back to SketchUp.

“Find And Report” allows you to select component instances by tagging them with F&R attributes. If you tag them with the identifier “Foundation Piles”, for example, you can type this name into the search field and they will be found and selected. The following example shows that typing “window”, a value of the custom Element attribute, immediately selects all windows at all levels of the drawing.

Alternatively, they can be found in Find And Report by instance name.

In its current version, “Find And Report” does not manipulate dynamic component data. You can’t search this data or export it to Excel. This is a feature I may be working on in 2025 if there’s enough interest. Those who are interested can either report it in this forum, or do so in the development priorities survey.
However, I must point out that updating dynamic component properties via Excel may not be implemented. My past attempts on this subject have proved unstable. It’s worth noting that dynamic components are unfortunately not the subject of official APIs and documentation, which is a major obstacle to developers handling them.

[Andy85]

Thanks Oliver, apologies as I had not looked at your last file, I am fine with using the std components and I can see your custom attributes are showing in layout now so I can just use a filter for my parent component library to include all the labelled component and maintain the full selection and excel file for edit Thanks this will work well for me, and I hope other users will consider using SketchUp components for annotation in layout.

[Andy85]

Hi Oliver, here is an example using your report tool using an XT prefix in the definition to select the components I. I have attached the sketchup, Wisext and excel screenshots. Let me know if there is an easier way of doing this, but this is good.

[Wisext]

Hi Andrew,
Adding a prefix is one solution.
Another solution is to add an attribute column marking their common selection. For example, this column could simply be named “Selection” and the components concerned would have the value “XT”.
You could also launch a search by typing an expression like Roof|Wall|Floor|Foundation|Strapping in the search field, for the Definition name field. The | sign means “or”. As I don’t know your model, it might show other elements. For the record, the search field is not Case Sensitive.

[Andy85]

Yes this is great for me. I realize that these tools are mainly for QS takeoffs with the unique identifier for every component… maybe a separate layout labelling tool could be in the pipeline. The excel link is excellent for this. I will probably move the XT prefix up a level and change my group categories to components then copy components in those categories. That way I can remove component duplicates from the list and add more attribute columns if needed. I will fine tune where I use the prefix XT, and the selection column is a good idea. I am hoping to save a database page in the Excel Sheet and link cells so having it open with the complete list of notes has an advantage for me

[Andy85]

Hi Oliver, it would also help me if I knew the best way to name components to organize them in your columns i.e. Definition or Selection Name XT.Upper.Roof_Rafters.#1 with upper walls below and upper floors above if A-Z

[Wisext]

Hi, it’s difficult to give the best way to classify the components of your model because I don’t know the organization of your project or your export objectives. I have the impression that you could create several attribute columns to better identify your components. For example, a first column indicates the position of your component: upper, lower, foundation. A second column specifies whether it’s a roof, wall, floor, etc.
Regarding the sorting order of components in the table, if alphabetical sorting doesn’t give you what you want, you’ll need to create a third column giving your components an order number.

[Wisext]

Version 0.702.4 of Wisext Tools, with its flagship tool ‘Find And Report’, has been released.

‘Find And Report’ has three new features.

1. Undo/Redo operations can now be performed via the ‘Find And Report’ window, and are reflected there directly without having to press refresh.

2. You no longer have to press Enter to set attribute values (forcing you to press Enter remains an option).

3. The values of custom attributes applied to components can be seen in Layout labels.

The last two features are the result of a discussion on the this forum. Don’t hesitate to post your suggestions!

[LinearGraphs]

Have you tested the compatibility with medeeks extensions? Just curious. They are extremely valuable to my workflow, and using this extension to do a takeoff would be a pretty exiting prospect.

[Wisext]

Before answering, I’d like to inform @medeek that we’re talking about his extensions here. As a developer, I think I’d also like to be informed of posts about my extensions.

Find And Report is a general search and export tool for any element drawn in SketchUp. It is basically “compatible” with all extensions that create entities in SketchUp.

You can also use F&R attributes to identify elements. But it should be pointed out that when you modify elements (a wall, for example) using the Medeek tools, the existing entities making up the wall will be erased and redrawn, thus removing the F&R attributes on these entities. And “Find And Report” does not manipulate or export parameters linked to Medeek extensions: these are attributes specific to these tools. However, this does not prevent you from extracting a wide range of information from your model.

Let’s take a concrete example of finding and exporting data. I’ve drawn a wall with the trial version of Medeek Wall. If you select all entities with F&R (* in the search field), you get a global view of everything in the model.

If you only want to select the cladding panel, type Cladding in the search field for group or component names: this is how the Medeek extension identifies this panel.

By exporting all the data to Excel , you can find the individual elements. If you want to see the faces that make up the cladding panel, you can filter the “Path” column by typing “Cladding” and filter the “Type” column by typing “Face”: all the faces in the group named Cladding will be found, with information on their dimensions.

Is this the type of tool you’re looking for to complement Medeek’s?

[LinearGraphs]

This info is invaluable to me. Thank you! There is a reporting tool built in to the project module of his plugins and it honestly pulls a whole lot, but it isn’t dynamic (updating live with your model) and it exports as a CSV that takes a fair amount of excel kungfu to extract the necessary values from its output. Thank you for taking the time to explain all this—even going through the effort of installing his extensions for your explanation. Cudos!!

[mon0423]

Hi @Wisext

I would like to ask if I can add new columns in the linked excel and update the Find and Report table accordingly?

For example, I added a new column “Verification” in the excel, how can I update the Find and Report table with the “Verification” column?

[Wisext]

Hi,

With the current version of the tool, attribute columns can only be created in the Find And Report interface. There are two ways of creating a new attribute column:

1. by clicking on the title of a column and selecting ‘add a column’;
   
   
2. by clicking on the ‘add an attribute column’ icon.
   
   

Thanks for your question and I’ll save the suggestion of creating a new attribute column via Excel for a future version.

[mon0423]

Thank you @Wisext

One more question…
After exporting the report to Excel and reopening the Find and Report Window, I sometimes cannot search or display the attributes of the entities again, just like the screenshot below. Do you have any ideas on how to resolve this issue?

[Wisext]

I had identified this bug if you open another file while keeping the Find And Report window open. But here it seems different. Does it persist if you close the window again and then reopen it? And do you confirm that you are working withWindows and not Mac?

[mon0423]

The issue still exists when I close and reopen the Find And Report window, and even I reopen the whole SketchUp application.

I am working with Windows 10.