Extract and count specific values from array

My course work has asked me to allow the user to define the amount of rooms/spaces, ask for dimensions, type of space and then draw the floor plan for each floor and calculate volumes and cost etc. I'm about half way through but I'm struggling how to count the amounts of each type of room and use that data to create volumes etc. So, how many spaces were 'Educational', and what is the total floor space of that type?

Also, each rectangle must be deleted before the next iteration of the loop for each floor or the new rectangle isn't created.

Any ideas?

clc;
clear;

floors=[];
spaces=[];
X=[];
Y=[];
T=[];
err='Not a high enough value';

floors=input('Please enter the number of floors: ');

while floors<=0;
    disp(err);
        floors=input('Please enter the number of floors: ');
end



for a=1:1:floors
    spaces(a)=input(['Enter number of spaces on floor ',num2str(a),': ']);
        while spaces<=0
            disp(err)
            spaces(a)=input(['Enter number of spaces on floor ',num2str(a),': ']);
        end
       for b=1:1:spaces(a)
           width(a,b)=input(['Please enter width of space ',num2str(b),' on floor ',num2str(a),': ']);
           height(a,b)=input(['Please enter height of space ',num2str(b),' on floor ',num2str(a),': ']);
           depth(a,b)=input(['Please enter depth of space ',num2str(b),' on floor ',num2str(a),': ']);
           type=menu(['Select type of space number ',num2str(b),' on floor',num2str(a),': '],'Education','Office','Residential','Storage','Toilet');
          
               T(a,b)=type;
        
           X(a,b)=input(['Please enter x coordinate of space ',num2str(b),' on floor ',num2str(a),': ']);
           Y(a,b)=input(['Please enter y coordinate of space ',num2str(b),' on floor ',num2str(a),': ']);
           
       end
       for b=1:1:spaces
            rectangle('Position',[X(a,b),Y(a,b),width(a,b),depth(a,b)]);
       end
end

[dpb]

They taught you about categorical variables and tables, yet?

Look up grouping variables in the documentation.

It would seem to be a lot to ask the user to figure out the locations while sitting at the keyboard -- would seem the app should place them for them...

Is it required to specify every room size individually or a size for a type of room and the number of those? Then you have the problem constrained to a tiling of fixed number of same-sized elements of however many types there are.

Otherwise, unless there are something constraints in the problem, it would seem pretty difficult to handle generically for a beginning class...

[Gregory Hind]

Hi, we haven't been taught in great detail about a lot of stuff, just the basics like input, disp, making and changing specific values in arrays. There's a lot of self study required and it's getting a bit complicated, each space must have its own dimensions, location and type, which I have done. Next is extracting that data to calculate the total floor space of each type, the total volume of each space and each floor, and teh total volume of the building.

I just found how to count the number of each type of space and the volume of each space so that's ok.

[Gregory Hind]

I'll check out categorical etc, thanks