04. Materials and Templates - DavidVeld/CarboLifeCalc GitHub Wiki

This chapter will explain in detail how Carbo Life handles materials, the material database, and how users can edit and update their material data. This can be done one material at the time, or as a batch edit through Excel.

Libraries

When you export a Revit model into Carbo Life Calculator , or when you start a new project, the program requires the user to specify a material library where it can find its carbon footprint data. Each exported element will be assessed and its material name, and grade will be used to find the most suitable material in the Carbo Life Database: img1

Location Location

When you launch the program for the very first time, a warning message will pop up telling you that the template file has been set. The initial & default location is:
_ [installation path]\db\UserMaterials.cxml _ To change the location for your template file, navigate in the app to Help -> Settings and specify a new path for the material library files. Moving your template file out of the root installation path prevents you from losing any customized materials when you update the software.

Updating your template.

One of the key strengths of Carbo Life Calculator is the ability to fully customize, add & optimize the material database. As a user, you are in control of these, as many materials can be set up by your company or can vary between projects. To update your template you have two possibilities.

  1. You can open the template directly, edit it and save the materials.
  2. Move or synchronize materials from a project to your template. After you have saved these to the template, all new calculations will henceforward use the updated material library.

Directly updating the template.

The easiest way to update your template is to launch the stand-alone version by double-clicking the CarboLifeCalc.exe in your install dir.
Select “Edit Material Template”
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The program now opens the material editor.
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  1. Section 1 shows all the material present in this template file
  2. Shows generic material properties, including the name and grade which are used to map imported elements to their carbolife material.
  3. In this section the carbon footprint data is shown. The user can edit any data, and are saved after pressing "Apply Values" Once the user is happy with the changes, press "Accept" and the template is saved for use in import.

img1 The user can add, remove or duplicate materials. The "To Template" button will push a material to another library file.

img1 Advanced features such as "Sync..." allows the user to move multiple material across templates. "CSV..." Allows the user to export and import the database to a csv file and edit batch import multiple materials.

Export your data to CSV img1

Import your data back to carbo life (Make sure your file is set to UTF-8, when using special symbols) img1

New materials will be added, or matching IDs will be updated, Or not-present materials can be deleted (when "Delete Materials Not in List" is checked")
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