Add a Path of Travel line to a plan view of the model. The Path of Travel generates a line indicating the shortest path of travel between the 2 selected points.
This video demonstrates the following:
Use the Path of Travel tool to calculate the distance and time of travel between 2 points in your model.
You must be in a plan view to analyze the model and generate a path of travel. On the Analyze tab click Path of Travel. Now select the beginning point of the path as the first point and then select a 2 nd point as the end of the path of travel. In this case we are analyzing the distance from the far corner of this dining room to the exit door.
The path of travel is generated and displayed. Notice the path is considering the tables in the dining room as obstacles in the path of travel and the path is calculated around them.
Change elements considered obstacles during the analysis in the route settings dialog. On the Analyze tab, click the dialog launcher arrow on the route Analysis panel. In the route analysis dialog you can see hidden elements, demolished elements, and underlay elements are never considered obstacles, in this example we want to do a second path of travel analysis without the tables. One way to do this would be to hide the tables in the view, but in this case we will add the furniture category to the list of elements not considered obstacles.
Enable the additional categories and then select the furniture category. The route analysis setting dialog also allows you to change the analysis zone of the path of travel. The default top and bottom settings typically establish a reasonable analysis zone to achieve a good result. Click ok to exit the dialog with the additional furniture setting enabled.
Place another path of travel selecting similar points. You can see the second path ignores the tables in the dining room.
If a model changes geometry it may be necessary to recalculate a path of travel. In this example a wall is added to the dining room, the path of travel needs to be altered to accommodate this change. Select the path of travel and click update on the contextual tab. The path of travel is recalculated and regenerated using the original starting and ending points. Note the current route analysis setting are used so to update the path with furniture as obstacles, this need to be changed prior to updating.
Select a path of travel and in the properties palette you can see the total length and the time of travel. Path of travel lines can be tagged and scheduled like other elements in your model. You can also use the parameters of the path of travel lines to apply visibility and graphics overrides. In this example an override has bee applied to path of travel lines greater than an allowed exiting distance.
Use path of travel lines to help inform your decisions about your design and make changes to optimize the layout of a design.