reGenerate Design Posted December 28, 2018 Share Posted December 28, 2018 Hello, I'm still a bit of a newbie to VW, but does anyone know how to use a worksheet column to report what the dimensions of a symbol or object are, regardless of how it is displayed or oriented in a design layer? I am simply using extruded shapes converted into symbols to represent various pieces of lumber for a project and would like to use a worksheet to function as a parts list where the various lengths of lumber types are reported by the worksheet based on the drawn dimensions of each symbol. I played around with the IF statement to only print the longest dimension, but it seems that the orientation still plays into what is reported. The project is attached. Any help would be hugely appreciated! Rock display table.vwx Quote Link to comment
Pat Stanford Posted December 28, 2018 Share Posted December 28, 2018 As long as you are using Extrudes, you can use a formula of =Length, =Width, =Height to get the dimensions of the bounding box of the extrude. As long as you are using rectangular extrudes you should be OK. If you put the Extrudes inside of Symbols, you will need to edit the worksheet Criteria and check the Include components of Symbols check box. Quote Link to comment
reGenerate Design Posted December 30, 2018 Author Share Posted December 30, 2018 Thanks a lot for your response Pat. I think the main area where I'm having trouble is that when I use Width or Length or Height in a worksheet formula, it seems to give me different and unexpected values returned depending on the orientation the object or symbol is in the design layer. I'm hoping I'm able to use a formula that can return the actual dimension of an object or preferably a symbol regardless of what view is used, such as Plan, Top, Isometric etc. Actually in my document I'm getting rather unpredictable results with length and width. Grateful for any further thoughts on this! 1 Quote Link to comment
Pat Stanford Posted December 31, 2018 Share Posted December 31, 2018 Can you post a simple test file with a few of your symbols and a worksheet that is not giving the correct information? You may need to attach a record and use that to store the values and then use the stored values in the worksheet. A fairly simple script could be used to store the values. Quote Link to comment
reGenerate Design Posted December 31, 2018 Author Share Posted December 31, 2018 Hi Pat, for sure. Here it is attached and I've added in the dimensions that they should be. Hopefully I'm not overlooking something simple here. My motivation for this is generally to create various parts for a project and use VW to track their sizes on the worksheet, such as a lumber cutlist for a woodworking project. Thanks again for looking it over. test.vwx Quote Link to comment
markdd Posted December 31, 2018 Share Posted December 31, 2018 (edited) Another approach is to attach a parts record to each symbol with all the information that you are trying to pull from each symbol already pre-filled. So for instance, you could have a record with the following fields: Part Name: Length: Width: Height: Lumber Type: Then all you will need to do is use the record fields for your worksheet columns. Mark Edited December 31, 2018 by markdd Quote Link to comment
Pat Stanford Posted December 31, 2018 Share Posted December 31, 2018 In VW2019, the worksheet returns the correct width/height/length for extrudes regardless of their rotation and location inside of outside of symbols In VW2015, the worksheet returns the width/height/length for the object bounding box, not the OIP values for the extrude for objects that are not in symbols. For objects that are in symbols, it will return the values based on how the object is drawn inside the symbol definition. Even if the symbol instance is rotated, it will still give you the "orthogonal" values from in the symbol definition. So, you will have to access the extrusions inside the symbol definitions instead of the symbol itself. The following Database Criteria will give the values of all extrusions. You will need to add some other criteria (probably a class would be best) for the extrusions inside the symbols to be able to limit the table to just the objects in the symbols. And if you do it this way, you will not be able to access the symbol names since the criteria is based on the extrudes and not the symbols. If you instead Name the extrudes in the data pane of the OIP, you can access that name with a formula of =N. Let me know if you have more questions. Quote Link to comment
fpaniz Posted January 30, 2019 Share Posted January 30, 2019 Hi @Pat Stanford Pat, I have more or less the same problem. I'm working on a furniture project and I need to get the dimensions and areas on the worksheet to buy the materials. I'm working with generic solids, and I see on the OIP that the basic dimensions are there, but, when I try to place it on the worksheet, the normal formula =lenght, =width, retrieve wrong information... I just want to know if there's a way (or a formula like framing members plug in =('FramingMember'.'width')) to place this information from the generic solid OIP to the worksheet. I think its very simple and very necessary! Thanks! Quote Link to comment
Pat Stanford Posted January 30, 2019 Share Posted January 30, 2019 I just tried this in VW2019. I am getting the correct values for generic solids in different orientations. Are you using VW2019? If so, please post a file showing some of your objects that are not giving the correct values for us to take a look. If you are not using 2019 and this is important to you, you will need to upgrade. I don't know of any reasonable work around for older versions. You could attach a custom record format and write a script that would store the info in the custom record that could them be accessed from the worksheet, but you would have to run the script each time you made changes to objects to make sure the correct information is in the record. Quote Link to comment
Marionette Maven Marissa Farrell Posted January 30, 2019 Marionette Maven Share Posted January 30, 2019 @fpaniz Are these generic solids created in Vectorworks, or were they imported from a different file type? Quote Link to comment
fpaniz Posted January 30, 2019 Share Posted January 30, 2019 Thanks @Marissa Farrell and @Pat Stanford, I'm using VW2017 version, I previously used frames members plugin to model the parts, but that does not make sense if you need to reshape objects in real time. It is faster and better to work with 3D modeling tools such as push and pull, taper face, etc., and automatically this makes these objects became "generic solid" and that's fine. The problem begins when I need the values shown in the OIP to appear correctly on the worksheet. it seems impossible to obtain correct values if the object was not created with a parametric plugin such as walls, slabs, framing members, etc. instead, with generic solids and extrudes it has to be in top plan only. I attach images and the file Thanks again! Prueba DIM.vwx Quote Link to comment
Pat Stanford Posted January 30, 2019 Share Posted January 30, 2019 Works in 2019. But I only checked the first three items. There is some slight difference due to rounding for display. You should be able to control that by the cell format settings in the worksheet. Quote Link to comment
fpaniz Posted January 30, 2019 Share Posted January 30, 2019 14 minutes ago, Pat Stanford said: Works in 2019. But I only checked the first three items. There is some slight difference due to rounding for display. You should be able to control that by the cell format settings in the worksheet. Thanks for the rounding tip. In VW2019 works even when you rotate the model in 3D view and recalculate the worksheet? Quote Link to comment
Pat Stanford Posted January 30, 2019 Share Posted January 30, 2019 Busy day so vey lightly tested, Top/Plan view, Front view, Isometric view. Recalculated in each. Values remained the same. Values for objects that are rotated off of the primary axes also appear to display correctly. Quote Link to comment
fpaniz Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 Mmmm so that’s seems to be a VW2017 bug, strange that nobody has reported it, definitely I’ll need to upgrade! thanks Pat! Quote Link to comment
Pat Stanford Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 Not a strange 2017 bug, just a 2019 improvement. What you are seeing was always the behavior. They finally got around to improving it in 2019. Been a pain for a really long time. Much better now, but I keep forgetting it is fixed and doing things the old ways. 1 Quote Link to comment
Bas Vellekoop Posted February 2, 2019 Share Posted February 2, 2019 On 12/31/2018 at 5:20 PM, Pat Stanford said: In VW2019, the worksheet returns the correct width/height/length for extrudes regardless of their rotation and location inside of outside of symbols I tried this on symbols and it give the width and height for symbols, which is great, but it gives a 0 for the length. Is it possible to get the 'depth' of the symbol in a worksheet? 1 Quote Link to comment
Pat Stanford Posted February 4, 2019 Share Posted February 4, 2019 The three primary "directions" in VW are Width, Height, Length. Have you tried those three? I don't have VW accessible right now, so I can't test, but I think I did all three dimensions in my earlier tests. Quote Link to comment
Bas Vellekoop Posted February 4, 2019 Share Posted February 4, 2019 Just now, Pat Stanford said: The three primary "directions" in VW are Width, Height, Length. Have you tried those three? I don't have VW accessible right now, so I can't test, but I think I did all three dimensions in my earlier tests. Width and Height work perfectly. Length returns 0 if you set the criteria to Symbol unfortunately. VW help says Length is for path based objects, so I thought maybe there is the possibility to use Depth or another formula? Length(criteria): The length of lines, walls, or path-based objects that meet the specified criteria. Examples: ● Database header cell: =Length returns the length for each object in the database ● Spreadsheet cell: =Length(t=line) returns the total length of all line objects in the drawing Quote Link to comment
Pat Stanford Posted February 4, 2019 Share Posted February 4, 2019 Unfortunately, you are correct. I think it is a bug. I don't know a work around. Sorry. Quote Link to comment
SirGreenWizard Posted July 21, 2022 Share Posted July 21, 2022 Pat, I just need a list of dimensions that are on a drawing. I have no symbols or objects associated with the dimensions, (they are overlaid on a PDF) Can these be done in a report, and can the repost give me a running total of all dimensions added? Quote Link to comment
Pat Stanford Posted July 22, 2022 Share Posted July 22, 2022 The sample file and worksheet script I posted in the other file will do what you want better than what we were discussing here. Quote Link to comment
SirGreenWizard Posted July 22, 2022 Share Posted July 22, 2022 That's great Pat, but I need the file back saved to 2021. Quote Link to comment
Pat Stanford Posted July 22, 2022 Share Posted July 22, 2022 Ask and you shall receive. Too much farther back than VW2021 and it probably wouldn't work. Not tested in 2021, so let me know if it works or not. Dimension Length to Worksheet v2021.vwx Quote Link to comment
SirGreenWizard Posted July 22, 2022 Share Posted July 22, 2022 Thank you Pat, greatly appreciated Quote Link to comment
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