[Milling a curved slot]

I'm seeing a lot of good ideas coming through here.

 

I started with the sweep but failed. That doesn't mean that I got the setup right though LOL.

 

Just to confirm. The split-pin that is protruding, is press fitted into the bolt. A compression spring is extending from the top of the bolt (not shown).

 

When the bolt is turned 180°+, the split-pin is to slide along the horizontally cut solid subtraction so that the spring is tightened by half a turn.

 

That is why it is so important that the sides of the slot are all horizontal as it goes.

 

Even though I have a solution, I'm going to have a go at some of the ideas above so I can experience the tools and methods.

 

[Milling a curved slot]

Nice one VE

 

I can use this for my next development.

 

However, for this one, when you fillet the top, the center of the circle is not the center of the pipe. If I rotate the development to align the center of the circle to the center of the pipe centerline, the side of the circle is not perpendicular to the pipe center plane.

 

 

If I rotate the development, the left side is not perpendicular to the centerline plane.

 

Therefore, I ended up working from basics.

 

I drew a circle on the centerline in the front view and extruded it. If I subtract solids at this point, I will have a hole in the wall.

 

But before subtracting surfaces, I duplicated it, rotated it, and moved it downward - 200 times in a 180° sweep.

 

Painful if I did this manually, so I made a macro. Not fancy, but cheap.

 

procedure Fetch;

var
i : integer;
pX, pY, D, R : real;
h : handle;

begin
pX := -1228.91; pY := 103.72; { Top view pipe centerline }
R := 0.9; { Rotation angle }
D := -0.0575; { Drop distance }

for i := 1 to 200 do
	begin
	h := LSActLayer;
	Duplicate (0, 0);
	RotatePoint (pX, pY, R);
	h := LSActLayer;
	Move3DObj (h, 0, 0, D);
	end;
end;
run (Fetch);

 

I then added the solids.

 

Duplicating this solid, rotating it 180° and then subtracting the two solids from the tube gave the result I needed.

 

 

Thanks for showing me some new methods of creating objects using tools that I wouldn't have thought of.

 

It was a very challenging model.

[Milling a curved slot]

No problem. Thankyou again.

[Milling a curved slot]

The square edge one is exactly what I would like to do.

 

How did you do it please ?

[Milling a curved slot]

Hi,

 

I need to mill out a curved slot like this. It's a vertical pipe with a hole drill horizontally and the milled horizontally down and around to the far side.

I can make the nurbs curve, but I can't extrude it so that it can be subtracted from the pipe solid.

 

[Get rid of Plane visualize pink box]

Excellent idea Tom.

 

Thanks for the prompt Mark.

[Get rid of Plane visualize pink box]

I like the Working Planes option.

 

Thanks Tom.

[Get rid of Plane visualize pink box]

This pink box sometimes pops up, but not always.

I like to take snaps of things for emails and this topic.

The only way I know of getting rid of it is to choose top plan view and back to this view and render again.

Is there another way ??

 

[Exporting Vectorscipt "extrude along path" to AutoCad]

Ok.

 

Sorry to challenge you all when there was not challenge.

 

The problem was the export settings.

 

I'm still not sure why there is a difference between the VS pipe and the manually built pipe, but AutoCad only opens the drawing properly when the "Use DXF/DWG indexed colours" is picked (with or without the "Map line weights to colours").

 

[Exporting Vectorscipt "extrude along path" to AutoCad]

This code work perfectly in VW, but after exporting the pipe to AutoCad, AutoCad shows this pipe on the left.

The other two pipes, to the right, created manually with VW tools/menu options, work fine.

 

Can anyone suggest what needs to be adjusted in the code to make the left look like the right please?

 

The macro uses a line that is drawn to length and is selected at the time of running the code.

 

GetPolylineVertex (h2, 2, p1X, p1Y, N, PipeR);
    h1 := ConvertToNurbs (h2, false);
    PipeLnth := HLength (h1);
    Oval (-PipeOD/2, PipeOD/2, PipeOD/2, -PipeOD/2);
    h2 := LNewObj;
    Oval (-PipeOD/2 + WallWdth, PipeOD/2 - WallWdth, PipeOD/2 - WallWdth, -PipeOD/2 + WallWdth);
    h3 := LNewObj;
    ClipSurface (h2, h3);
    h4 := PrevObj (h3);
    h5 := CreateCustomObject ('Extrude Along Path', 0, 0, 0);
    DelObject (h2);
    DelObject (h3);

 

I have also tried "h5 := CreateCustomObjectPath ('Extrude Along Path', h1, h4);" which didn't change anything.

 

In AutoCad, the left pipe is a "Block Reference", the right top is a "3D Solid", and the right bottom is a "Block Reference".

[View hidden objects]

Nice one Tom.

 

That workspace V is the only one missing from mine, so your probably right about the 2025 change which didn't happen for me since I have a revised copy of the workspace.

 

Thanks.

[View hidden objects]

I'm seeing that your suggestion works when I switch workspaces.

 

I haven't reset the V button so I'm not sure how it attached itself to the Visibility tool.

 

I will have to make a new workspace using a copy of the default.

 

Thanks. The V does do what I was expecting by hovering over the Unhide button. Interesting.

[View hidden objects]

To use the V key as you suggest, when you have hidden some objects, don't you then have to change your preferences to toggle the "Visible mode" ?

 

Then when you hit the V key, that's when the ghosts appear.

 

If you forget to change your preferences, then you have to select them after hitting the V key.

 

I would still opt for a default hover over the unhide button to temporarily ghosting the hidden objects.

 

 

[View hidden objects]

When objects are hidden, this button appears.

 

It would be nice to hover over this button with the mouse and see a ghost outline of the hidden objects until the mouse is moved of the button.

 

This default will be much easier than using the Visibility Tool and clicking on and off the options to do this.

[Saving a pre-defined filename]

It's been a while since asking this question.

 

I'm guessing that VW can't do this, or no one else has a need to do this.

 

However, if anyone else is hunting for an answer, I have a work around.

 

Since you already know the file name you want to create, use ReWrite (DataFName); and Close (DataFName); to create a blank file or set of files ( I needed 5 exported worksheet PDF files ).

 

Function ChangeLocalFileName (Prefix : string) : string;
var FName : string;
begin
FName := Concat (Copy (GetFPathName, 1, Pos (GetFName, GetFPathName) - 1), Prefix, GetFName);
FName := Concat (Copy (FName, 1, Pos ('.vwx', FName) - 1), '.pdf');
ChangeLocalFileName := FName;
end;

begin
ReWrite (ChangeLocalFileName ('WORKSHEET1 '));
Close (ChangeLocalFileName ('WORKSHEET1 '));
end;

 

Then, when Window's saving convention pops up, just click the appropriate file name created previously to overwrite it.

 

It sure saves time and RSI.

[Changing a viewport layer]

Hi.

 

Can you change a viewports layer ( on/off/greyed ) list with vectorscript ?

[Zoom 3D screen image wrong after rotation]

After a long period of test with the assistance of the techs, the solution was to install VW2025.

[VW2024 SP6 drag and drop]

Just in case someone else has a similar problem, the answer was fixed by the techs who told be to try disabling the default "Open as Administrator".

 

[VW2024 SP6 drag and drop]

Another day. I tried the import and ungrouping. It worked today so not sure what happened after the update.

 

However, I still can drag and drop any files after the SP6 update.

 

This is a problem because I often drop multiple PDF, DWG & IFC files to open/import them.

 

I'm not keen to update my other PC if it's going to be the same. However that is Windows 10 and this one is Windows 11 - which did work in SP5

[VW2024 SP6 drag and drop]

I exported the PDF from my drawing before importing it again.

 

Rasterize PDF was not ticked so it should have been vectorized.

[VW2024 SP6 drag and drop]

I just updated to SP6

 

I've lost my drag and drop.

 

I can't drag vwx, dxf, pdf, dwg, etc. and drop them into my VW2024 SP6

 

Can you ?

 

Additionally, when I Import a .pdf and ungroup it, after deleting the bmp and blackout page, there is no vector drawing left.

 

Note: I am on a Windows 11 PC at the moment.

[Custom Search IFC records]

After all this time, I still can't get a reliable search happening.

 

This code supposes this hierarchy ..

 

IfcMechanicalFastener

    Tekla Bolt

        Bolt Name

 

and it works well.

 

However, I have a client that sent me an IFC file with this hierarchy ..

 

IfcMechanicalFastener

    IfcMechanicalFastener

        Bolt Name

 

and it doesn't work when I try and find the Bolt Name.

 

Can someone suggest a reason please ?

 

 

Procedure SelectByIFCProperty;

{December 13, 2019}
{© 2019 Patrick Stanford pat@coviana.com}
{Licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License}

{Selects all objects that are defined as IFCMechanicalFastener }
{and have an IFCPSet of Tekla Bolt with a non-blank Bolt Name attached.}

{Here be dragons. No Warranty Expressed or Implied. Use at your own risk}

Var
	B1:Boolean;
	S1,S2,S3,S4:String;
	N1:Integer;
	
Procedure Execute(H1:Handle);
		Begin
			B1:=IFC_GetPSetProp(H1,S3,S4,S2,N1);
			If ((B1=True) & (S2<>'')) then SetSelect(H1);
		End;
Begin
	
	S1:='Tekla Bolt.Bolt Name';
	S3:=Substring(S1,'.',1);
	S4:=Substring(S1,'.',2);
	
	DSelectAll;
	ForEachObject(Execute,((IFC_ENTITY='IfcMechanicalFastener')));
End;

Run(SelectByIFCProperty);

 

 

[Summing worksheet lines with result listed in a Database cell.]

I'm formatting a worksheet for a job.

 

In the "Total Items" cell, I want the answer  =sum(B12, B13, etc.)

 

However, this doesn't work.

 

Then I tried summing the answer under the list in cell B17 and tried the formula  =B17  in cell G3. That didn't work either, even though the B17 cell showed the answer.

 

Please scroll down past this worksheet layout.

 

 

Then I tried writing a macro. On it's own ( with WSScript_SetResStr (Num2Str (0, n)); replaced with Message (n)), it returns 32, which is the sum of cells B12 to B16. Nice.

 

However, calling it with  =RUNSCRIPT('Total Items')  in cell G3, it crashes VW.

 

If I put  =RUNSCRIPT('Total Items')  in B17, and =B17 in G3, it makes a mess.

 

Any ideas or reasons would be appreciated.

 

procedure Total_Items;
var
i : integer;
n, V : real;
h : handle;

begin
h := GetObject ('Grating - Fabrication List');
for i := 12 to 16 do
	begin
	GetWSCellValue (h, i, 2, V);
	n := n + V;
	end;
	
WSScript_SetResStr (Num2Str (0, n));
end;
run (Total_Items);

 

[=IMAGE(N='Logo')]

So, finding a work around wasn't that difficult. This is how I solved it for those interested.

 

The reason for making a Database line was to get the Record Value from an object, with a record attached, and list it on the same row as the Logo.

 

The row must be of Spreadsheet type, and then the cell value   =IMAGE(N='Logo')   works.

 

I wrote this macro and the added this formula to a cell to the right of the Logo      =RUNSCRIPT('Name of script')

 

Many of you will recognize the method.

 

procedure Fab_List_Value;

	procedure Get_Value (h : handle);
	var V : string;
	begin
	V := Concat (GetRField (h, 'Value', 'GrWeight'), ' ', GetRField (h, 'Value', 'NtWeight'));
	WSScript_SetResStr (V);
	end;
	
begin
ForEachObject (Get_Value, ((L = 'Objects') & (C = 'Object1')));
end;
run (Fab_List_Value);

 

 

[=IMAGE(N='Logo')]

Thanks Pat,

 

I feared that would be the answer.

 

Thanks