15_Fill the Gaps in Your Scope Boxes: Drawing a Scope Box Manually in AECinspire (3:56)

Overview

The automatic scope box tool often misses corridors because of their odd shapes, and you fill those areas in by hand. This video shows how to check which scope boxes already exist on a sheet, create a scope box manually with the polygon tool, adjust it after the fact, and confirm that the devices inside it picked up the scope box. It is for anyone scope boxing or kitting a sheet who needs to cover areas the auto tool did not grab.

What you'll learn

• Show or hide existing scope boxes from the bottom toolbar
• Start a manual scope box from Create New
• Name a scope box and check that the name is unique on the sheet
• Choose Simple Rectangle or Polygon to draw the area
• Close the shape with Enter, then finish, redraw, or edit it
• Confirm a device's scope box in Properties

 

Before You Begin

Open a floor plan sheet in your project. If you have already run the automatic scope box tool, show the existing scope boxes to identify areas it missed, such as corridors.

 

Part 1 — Show the Existing Scope Boxes on the Sheet

1. Go to the center bottom toolbar.
2. Click Show/Hide.
3. Toggle on Show Scope Boxes, the third option down.
4. Review the sheet for areas that have no scope box, such as corridors.
5. Click the scope box tool in the upper left corner. It opens on the Existing tab, which lists the scope boxes already created.
6. Click the Create New tab.
7. Click Create Scope Box Manually.
8. Type a name for the scope box, for example Corridor E2-1.
9. Click Check to confirm no other scope box on the sheet uses that name.
10. Choose the color for the scope box on the drawing.
11. Click Save.
12. Choose a creation method. Use Simple Rectangle for a basic rectangular room, or Polygon for an irregular shape such as a corridor. The tracing steps below describe Polygon.
13. Click the green Start button.
14. Click at the edge of the area to place the first dot.
15. Continue clicking around the perimeter of the area you want to capture, for example up to a door frame.
16. Press Enter on your keyboard to close the shape. Enter connects the last dot to the first, and the scope box fills in. You do not need to click the first dot again.
17. Click Finish if the shape looks right, or Redraw to start over.
18. Click Edit Area to display the dots again.
19. Drag the dots to adjust the edges.
20. Click Save when you are done.
21. Click a device inside the new scope box.
22. Open Properties.
23. Scroll to the Scope Box field.
24. Confirm it shows the scope box you created.

Note: If the sheet has no scope boxes, you cannot toggle Show Scope Boxes on.

 

Part 2 — Start a Manual Scope Box

Note: Manual creation is one-to-one: you name each scope box before you draw it.

 

Part 3 — Draw the Scope Box

Creation method	Use it for
Simple Rectangle	A basic rectangular room
Polygon	Odd shapes, such as corridors, that you trace dot by dot

 

Part 4 — Adjust and Save

After you click Finish, adjust the shape if needed, then save it.

Note: Use Edit Area to revise the shape after finishing the trace.

 

Part 5 — Confirm Devices Picked Up the Scope Box

Saving the scope box fills in the scope box information on the assemblies inside it.

Best practice: Use manual scope boxes to customize your packages or capture rooms the automatic tool missed.

 

Quick Reference

What you need	Where to find it
Show existing scope boxes	Center bottom toolbar → Show/Hide → Show Scope Boxes (third option)
Scope box tool	Upper left corner
List of existing scope boxes	Scope box tool → Existing tab
Start a manual scope box	Scope box tool → Create New → Create Scope Box Manually
Check a name is not in use	Check button next to the name
Draw a basic room	Simple Rectangle
Trace an odd shape	Polygon
Begin drawing	Green Start button
Close the shape	Press Enter
Start the shape over	Redraw
Reshape after finishing	Edit Area, then Save
Confirm a device's scope box	Click the device → Properties → Scope Box field

 

Troubleshooting

Issue	Resolution
Show Scope Boxes cannot be toggled on	The sheet has no scope boxes yet. Create one, or run the automatic tool first.
Corridors are missing after running the auto tool	Common, because of their odd shape. Draw them manually with Polygon.
Not sure whether a scope box name is already taken	Click Check after typing the name. It confirms no other scope box on the sheet uses it.
Closing the polygon by clicking the first dot is awkward	Press Enter to connect the last dot to the first.
The traced shape is off	Before finishing, click Redraw. After finishing, click Edit Area, adjust the dots, and Save.
A device does not show the right scope box	Check the Scope Box field in the device's Properties. If the device is outside the intended area, adjust the boundary with Edit Area and click Save, then check the field again.

 

Next Steps

For questions about scope boxing or kitting, reach out to your CSM.

Timestamped Transcript

[00:00:06] In this quick-start training, we're going to look at scope boxes and manual scope box creation. Before we dive in, let's look and see if we have scope boxes created on this sheet. To do that, head down to your center bottom toolbar and click the Show/Hide button. The third option down is Show Scope Boxes. If there are no scope boxes present, you won't be able to toggle this. But since we do have scope boxes, we can toggle this on and see where our scope boxes live.

[00:00:34] When you are running the auto tool, it is pretty common for it to miss the corridors just because of their odd shape. Those are something you may have to fill in manually, and this is how you can do that.

[00:00:44] Let's head up to the scope box tool in the upper left corner. As always, it's going to open the Existing tab, so you're going to see what scope boxes you have created already. But let's head over to Create New. This time we're going to use Create Scope Box Manually.

[00:01:03] We'll click into that, and this is a spot where it's going to let you name it before you create it, because this is one-to-one scope box naming and creation. We're going to name this one Corridor E2-1.

[00:01:19] Hit Check just to double-check that there is no other scope box with that name on there. Now, again, we can choose the color as we want to see it on the drawing. Once you have that color chosen and the check done, hit Save.

[00:01:35] Now it's going to give you two different options for creation. A Simple Rectangle just lets you draw a rectangle for a basic room, but in this case we're going to use the Polygon. After you make that selection, you always want to make sure you hit that green Start button.

[00:01:47] As soon as we head in here, we want to start drawing our scope box. We'll head to the edge of the extents where we're going to draw, and we're going to simply drop our first dot. That first dot is our starting point. Now we can start tracing in the rest of those dots. Click on the floor plan where it's available.

[00:02:06] We're just going to trace the area that we want to capture for this corridor. We'll head right to this door frame and make this a scope box. As you see, it's just clicking around the perimeter of what I want to grab for that particular scope box area.

[00:02:29] For that last line, I don't want to click that first dot. To connect the last dot and the first dot, you can simply hit Enter on your keyboard, and it's going to fill that in. The scope box will fill in to let you know that it is done being completed.

[00:02:44] If everything is looking great, we can hit Finish, or if you want to redo it, you can always hit Redraw. As soon as we hit Finish, we're also going to have two more options in case we want to go back. We can edit that area again to bring up your dots so you can align them. If you're a little bit messy your first time around, you can always edit those, so don't think you're locked into what you first did. We can make slight modifications to hone that in if you really need to be super particular.

[00:03:15] If we're done with those modifications, we just hit Save. Now that scope box is locked in, and all the information is filled in on those assemblies. Let's take a quick look at that: we click the device that's in the corridor, open up our Properties, head down to the Scope Box field, and we see that it knows it lives in Corridor C2-1.

[00:03:38] This is a great way if you really want to customize your packages, or grab those rooms that the automatic scope box tool did not grab. If you ever have questions on this, or on kitting, or ideas for kitting, definitely reach out to your CSM. They'll be more than happy to help you out and walk you through this. We'll see you in the next one.