Space Creation Tool

I do some facility management work and have a question about making a utility.

I am given floor plans that have 2d line work for walls. I would like to be able to pick the interior walls, set a distance and have the walls offset to the distance set, then extend and trim as needed, then join ala Pedit. Maybe in plain English. I would basically like to calculate the area of a space to the center lines of all walls. Doing this one office at a time.

Any help even getting started would be awesome. I have some experience in LISP and VBA, so please be gentle.

 

If the rooms are rectangular - pseudo code
Save current settings (osnap,etc)
Input wall width
Set osnap to end,mid,inter
Pick corner of room
Pick opposite corner of room
calculate horizontal & vertical distance between points
add wall width to horz. & vert. values
multiply horz. times vert. amount to get area
reset settings (osnap, etc)

 

What if the rooms are not rectangular?

Since I am really new at this part, how do I begin setting up something so complex?

 

What about using the bpoly command to create a boundary of an irregular
shape then offset that shape by half the wall thickness?

rgds

gd

 

if the room is not rectangular -
Save current settings (osnap,etc)
Input wall width
Set osnap to end,mid,inter
Ask user to pick each corner of room (saving coordinates in list)
draw polyline
Ask user to pick point outside room (or calculate center and then a point
outside room)
offset polyline to outside
erase 1st polyline
reset settings (osnap, etc)

complex?

 

The Boundary approach can be complicated by various things, such as door
openings (with the boundary following the door and its swing arc, depending
on how you draw them), windows (if you have sills projecting inboard of the
wall lines), etc. If you have a layer for the headers/lintels (such as you
might use in a reflected ceiling plan), and can turn off the layers with
doors and window sills, those are easily overcome. If you use Arch.
Desktop, you probably have such functionality built in, or have other
options (we just got it, and I haven't got all of that figured out yet).

Alan's suggestion sounds like the kind of tedium the OP is hoping to avoid,
and is also more complicated than Boundary if there are curves involved
(especially if any of them are splines or ellipses).

Another general complication in any Offset-a-Polyline approach is that the
walls may not be the same thickness on all sides of a room (particularly
exterior sides, but also where interior partitions are of different types,
like plumbing chase walls, etc.).

[In other words, I suspect a really simple solution will be really hard to
come by....]