The ability to automate and accelerate repetitive tasks is a game-changer for any organization, especially for tasks performed frequently. For Aptitude’s VDC team, one such task is 3D modeling the clearance needed between a cable tray and obstacles around it – ductwork, light fixtures, sprinklers, security cameras, etc. Industry best practice typically calls for a one-foot clearance above and alongside cable trays to allow space for ongoing access. Why care about one-foot access? Low-voltage and electrical contractors, as well as building operations staff, will attest that when they can’t physically get to the tray to add cable for new technology systems, logistical (and costly) obstacles abound.
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen abandoned cable trays in buildings,” said Chris Andrews, Director of Technology & Innovation. “Even though you usually have to get into the cable tray every couple of years, it’s so often rendered useless because it wasn’t installed in a place where anyone can get to it.”
According to Andrews, most low-voltage contractors don’t bother to model cable clearance because it’s tedious work. However cumbersome or time-consuming, Aptitude takes pride in anticipating and preparing for how our clients will live and work in their smart buildings long past construction, so our team was manually modeling cable tray clearance on projects day in, and day out.
“Since there is no out-of-the-box Revit tool specifically for clearance, we had to get savvy and create elements to mimic the necessary space. There wasn’t anything to help do it in an automated way, so every time you needed to modify the tray you would have to maneuver and rebuild the clearance as well,” said Reese Moore, VDC Manager for Aptitude.
Emory Burch, Senior VDC Manager, and his staff recognized a need to find a tool that would help them perform this task more quickly. He knew if they could automate cable tray clearance space allocation, it would save his designers hundreds of hours that were becoming harder to sustain, and it would allow them to charge clients less for the same high-quality 3D modeling. After scouring the marketplace and realizing such a tool did not exist, Burch decided to create it himself.
“The Revit tools we previously used made this part of design very tedious. We recognized there was a smarter way to calculate cable tray clearance and saw an opportunity to help ourselves out while also filling a hole in the market,” said Burch.
Burch reached out to software developer Matt Dale to help bring his idea to fruition. He had worked with Dale, who is an experienced Autodesk and AEC plug-in developer, previously and knew he had the skillset to convert his vision into a user-friendly application. Dale says he could immediately see the value in building this tool when Burch presented the concept, so he was excited to be a part of it. The result of Burch and Dale’s teamwork is an effective Revit program that easily calculates and auto-generates 3D clearance, making what was once manual, time-consuming geometry significantly more efficient. Aptitude has named its new tool TrayZone Pro.
“Emory had a clear idea from the start as to what this application should accomplish, however we didn’t want to lock the users into modeling a certain way, so the most challenging part was making the program smart enough to operate on any variety of cable tray elements, and flexible enough to accommodate the various modeling techniques a user might need to employ in their projects,” said Dale.
Burch estimates this new tool is saving his VDC staff 20 or more hours per week they can now use for other work. Moore calls the tool a “game changer.”
“Before this tool it was a meticulous piece-by-piece process doing multiple measurements repeatedly making each piece of tray a process to add clearance and eating up a lot of time. With this tool, it’s as simple as point and click,” said Mitch Purvis, also a VDC Manager for Aptitude.
Andrews and Burch agreed TrayZone Pro is worth sharing outside of Aptitude, so they are working with Autodesk to list the tool on its app store for a nominal price. He anticipates it will be well-received by others, such as electrical contractors and other technology integrators who create smart building designs because it can save so much time. This proprietary tool is just one of a toolbox of digital design tools, such as our Camera Planner, Aptitude has created for smart building design.
Once TrayZone Pro is available on the Autodesk App Store, we’ll update this page with a link to it so others can also use this ingenious tool.