How do you calculate overlapping areas? 1

[tuki]

Hello, I have a problem that I have been trying to solve with Visio. Below are the highlights of the problem:

1) I am mapping out the IT floor space used at my workplace.
2) There are "service areas" which need to be accounted for. Service areas can not be filled with other equipment, but can overlap other service areas (this is very common).
3) I need to calculate the total free space left.

So, a simple "free space = total area - service area" will not work. I need to have a little logic behind the calculation of total free space (or something to total “unique service area”).

I was thinking that I could include the service space in the drawing for each device, and let Visio determine how much is (or is not) overlapping.

I have found the property report and it does not appear to have this function built in. Are there any other options within Visio that could calculate this for me? I'm also open to other software solutions, but I cannot go out and purchase $30,000 worth of software for this one function.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, even if it is a "just check this other forum".

Thank you,

Tuki

 

[VisioMVP]

You can check if two shapes are near by using Hittest.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/archive/d...en-us/dnarvisio/html/hittestfunctionality.asp

There are other functions that will let you know what shapes are nieghbours to a given shape.

John... Visio MVP

 

[VisioMVP]

They are actually properties not functions. The names to look for are SpatialNeighbours, SpatialRelation and SpatialSearch.

You should be able to walk around your floorplan and find what shapes are within a certain area. If there are none, then the space is empty and you can go on to the next. If there are, you could refine your search area or check how far the nearest point of the objects are from the current location.

John... Visio MVP

 

[tuki]

Thanks John!

I just finished the diagram (its pretty large) and now have time to work on the spatial search.

Thanks again for the help!