Revit Tutorial - Show the Area of a Filled Region in a Tag (Using Dynamo)

Dynamo in the Real World...

Tack this one up as a "real-world" use for Dynamo.  A very good friend emailed me and asked if I knew how to send the area of a Filled Region into a tag.  For example, he had some filled regions on elevations for a planning and zoning submission... Those filled regions needed to show the area.  Obviously, you can click the region, look at its area in square foot (or meters squared) and then type it into a text note/tag.  Well, that would be pretty painful if there were hundreds of them!

Other than actually modeling the signage as a 3D box family that can report the area I decided this sounded like a job for Dynamo.  Repetition, reporting parameters... I mean, come on now!

Continue reading to learn how to create your own Dynamo script that will report a detail items parameters....

After I struggled for a bit in the beginning I eventually got something to work.  Then, when I Googled the issue (which I should have done in the fist place) I found this GREAT video by Cesar:

The image at the top of this post is my Dynamo script as it stands.  As you can see it is basically the same as Cesar's but I used design script for the strings (Marcello should be proud).

The script simply pulls the area out of the filled region and sends it to a shared parameter called "Reported Area".  That shared parameter is what I used in the tag and viola!  

Dynamo for the win.