Summarizing a worksheet column causes issues with another column?

[Bruce Kieffer]

Here's what my worksheet looks like without the G column summarized. Note that all of the entries in the E column are 3/4".

 

Then when I summarize the G column the bottom three E column entries change from 3/4" to ---.

 

I understand that the --- entries in the C column (which is =layer) means that those entries reside in different layers. So why do the 3/4" entries in the G column change when obviously all the entries are 3/4"? I've double checked the objects to confirm they are all truly 3/4" thick.

[michaelk]

Is 3/4" a value in a record or a dimension pulled off an object?

 

[Bruce Kieffer]

34 minutes ago, michaelk said:

Is 3/4" a value in a record or a dimension pulled off an object?

 

It's a dimension. Here's my formula: =MIN(HEIGHT, LENGTH, WIDTH)

[michaelk]

Can you send me the file?

 

[Hugues]

1 hour ago, Bruce Kieffer said:

It's a dimension. Here's my formula: =MIN(HEIGHT, LENGTH, WIDTH)

One possibility is that the 3/4" you are seeing is a rounded display value and that the precise values are slightly different. 

[Bruce Kieffer]

9 minutes ago, Hugues said:

One possibility is that the 3/4" you are seeing is a rounded display value and that the precise values are slightly different. 

I have my units set to exact as fraction / non-exact as decimals. I understand that the worksheet might override that, but I have check the objects and they are all 3/4" I have a few more ideas to try before I give up.

 

[Bruce Kieffer]

1 hour ago, michaelk said:

Can you send me the file?

 

Maybe. First I want to try some other things, and then I will need to make a new file to send to you. This drawing is WAY too complex! It's my kitchen remodel.

[michaelk]

I had the same thought as @Hugues    
 

VW works in 14 decimals (? I think that’s right) so it’s very easy to get very close to 3/4”. 

[Pat Stanford]

I was able to force a worksheet to show three different values as 3/4" even though I manually set the values to 0.7501, 0.7500, and 0.7499.   They won't summarize correctly even though they display correctly.

 

If your drawing units are inches, then you should be able to use a formula of =Round(Min(Length,Width,Height)*100)/100.  This should force the values to exactly 2 decimal points and make them all match.

 

To see the possible differences, try setting the Cell Number Format to Decimal and set the number of decimal places to 6 or 8. That should be enough for you to be able to see what is different.

[michaelk]

That's exactly what I suspect is going on.  If at any time you accidentally dragged a handle on an extrude 1/100 of an inch it's no longer 3/4".

[Bruce Kieffer]

Here's a super dumbed down version of my drawing. The problem is caused by the solid subtractions on the stiles. If you deconstruct those objects, then the WS will show the 3/4" thickness correctly when the length column is summarized. I've experienced similar issues with subtractions in the past where Vectorworks changes the dimension of the object slightly. Here I cannot see any indication that the 3/4" thick stile is any dimension other than 3/4".

Bad Worksheet.vwx

[Pat Stanford]

The difference is in the 13th decimal place.  😞

 

 

Adding a Truncate function to your MIN() formula (as shown in the formula bar locks the values to two decimal places which is what you need for 3/4=0.75000.

 

Not certain this would work if the actual value was 0.7499999999999999999. It would probably give the wrong answer and in that case the =Round(Min(Height, Length, Width)*100)/100 would probably be the better solution.

[Bruce Kieffer]

Oh that pesky 13th decimal! I'm going to try rebuilding the stiles just to see what happens. Thanks for the round formula @Pat Stanford. That works nicely.

[michaelk]

You're going to rebuild them?  

 

But 13 decimal places is way smaller than 1/64 (6 decimals)!

[Bruce Kieffer]

11 minutes ago, michaelk said:

You're going to rebuild them?  

 

But 13 decimal places is way smaller than 1/64 (6 decimals)!

I know. I'm just doing them in the test file to see if somehow I built them wrong. I'll only spend a few minutes. And yes, 1/64 is way too small to worry about for woodworking.