This article explains what Information Takeoff (ITO) is in Solibri and what the tools related to the feature are. The Information Takeoff layout is available in all Solibri products, but you can extract and report information from the model only in Solibri Site and Solibri Office. In Solibri Anywhere, you can view ITO results saved in the .smc file, but editing and reporting are not possible.
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During a construction project, there are several occasions when you need to extract and report information, such as quantities, from a model. You may need the information for, for example, one or more of the following:
Gross area analysis at the start of a project: Architectural design has conditions and limitations for used areas (m2)/ floor and requirements for different types of usage. Most typical numbers evaluated at the start of the project are gross area against plot or contract requirements, net area to evaluate effective space usage and space program requirements to meet the services reqired within the building.
Providing list of spaces or supplies: Spaces and supplies are widely used before tendering, especially in interior design and finishing of spaces. Material quantities are essential in measuring and evaluating the amount of goods and costs.
Quantity surveying for contract packages or tendering design: Quantity estimation for tendering and distinguished contract packages has a direct effect on contractor and material prices. Detailed lists for bidding the costs for construction are required. This type of listing also serves the contractor's logistics, material deliveries and installations on site.
Verifying the content of the BIM model: The simplest way to verify the data content of a model is with ITO. Listing the necessary components per row, along with the required properties, will show the missing information as an empty cell on the list.
Coordinating quantities and masses on site: When construction is ongoing on site, it's important to coordinate the constant material and installation flow. On some sites, there's no space for heavy traffic, storage or lifting areas, which makes a scheduled delivery process vital. This can be supported with ITO reports.
Information Takeoff can be used for all the above. It allows you to see components in the 3D view and analyse quantities, properties and locations at the same time. In ITO, you can use templates created by Solibri to report the extracted information in a spreadsheet. For more information, see the article on ITO reports.
Solibri includes a number of pre-defined ITO definitions, but you can also create new ones based on your individual requirements. You can save ITO definitions externally and use them in other projects or machines. Each ITO definition can have one or several different Excel reporting templates to create the reports formatted the way you require. With small tweaking and saving with a new name, an existing ITO can be easily set as project-specific ITO for your next project.
The Information Takeoff view is located in the Information Takeoff layout. The view includes a table of data and tools for ITO handling.
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The columns of the ITO table are defined by the active ITO definition. You can re-organize the data by dragging the column heading into new location. Note that the returned data is related to the content on the left side of the column. If you click a row in the ITO table, the components are visualised in the 3D view:
The color of the component is defined by the Color column in the ITO. If this column is not present, default component colors are used. You can also set the color with a certain column value.
The Information Takeoff view toolbar has the following tools:
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ITO table update options:
Takeoff All: Updates the current Information Takeoff table with all components of the model which pass the definition filter.
Takeoff Selected: Updates the Information Takeoff table with components from the Selection Basket. You need to first add the components to the Selection Basket, for example by selecting the components from the table.
Takeoff All ITOs: Updates all Information Takeoff tables included in the model with all the components in the model.
ITO definition selector: Use the drop-down menu to select the active ITO definition
ITO definition handling tools (Create, Open, Save, Save As, and Close): You can create a new ITO definition, save changes to the ITO definition, save the modified ITO definition with a new name and close the active ITO definition.
Edit ITO definition (
): Edit the attributes of the active ITO definitionReport: Create spreadsheet reports from ITO definitions
Selection Basket tools: You can pick components from the table and set them to the Selection Basket.
Tip
To search similar components or find the same value, right click in the Information Takeoff view and select Show Equal from the context menu.