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Worksheet Data Not Showing?


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I'm trying to create a worksheet that is a cut list for door parts in my drawing. The worksheet shows the info for the door stiles fine, and that's because all of them are the same size, but it's missing width and length info for the door rails and door panels. The data for those appears as ---. I realize this is because the rails and panels have more than one size. What do I need to change in my worksheet to get all the parts to show and group them as similar parts.

 

 

250282220_ScreenShot2020-04-19at10_40_01AM.thumb.png.5e6133c58cd1afe36b410ec361696501.png

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Bruce Kieffer
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Got it working now. The thickness, width and length are not labeled correctly for the rails and panels, and I think that's based on how those parts were built or extruded. They are 1/4" thick, but they show in the worksheet as Is there an easy way to correct that? And I see that the two sets of two rails each are different too. They are built differently.

 

Screen Shot 2020-04-19 at 3.05.42 PM.png

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No easy way to fit that. If you make one part by drawing a profile and extruding by 20" and make another part by drawing the front view and extruding to depth, you are going to have a hard time getting a worksheet to handle automatically.

 

The only possibility I can think of right now is to use IF statements.

For example, this might be the formula for the Thickness column. Use your own Record Format name in place of MyRecord.

 

=IF(MyRecord.'Description'='Cabinet-Doors-Rails', Width, IF(MyRecord.'Description'='Cabinet-Doors-Panels', Length, Height))

 

The above says if it is a Rail use the Width value, If it is a Panel use the Length value, otherwise use the height value.

 

But I can see that won't work because you drew the two rails differently so they don't both return the same values.

 

Maybe add an additional Field to your record where you can define how the object was drawn (Maybe a Field called Type with a value of 1, 2, or 3).

 

Then the above becomes:

 

=IF(MyRecord.'Type'='1', Width, IF(MyRecord.'Type'='2', Length, Height))

 

This would let you set any part to any of the three orientations based on how they were drawn. And if you include a column for Type in your worksheet then you can enter and change the values there to have them display in the columns you want.

 

HTH. Ask again if this is not clear enough.

 

 

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I see that I will to be more conscious of the process I use to built my 3D objects to have consistent T x W x L. I could also make separate database entries in the worksheet, but that is more work than it's worth.

 

I wonder if there's some way to define the different dimensions in the OIP. Maybe attach a record?

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The Record idea was basically what I was suggesting. Basically attach a record that will let you specify how a specific component was created and then use the IF statements to put the LxWxH in the right columns. You could add L, W, H to the record, but you would probably want a script to fill the data and would have to remember to re-run the script after you made any changes to the objects.

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OK, so here's what I decided. It's cool to have Vectorworks create a cut list, but getting the database fields to associate correctly to T, W and L is way too hard. So what I will do in the future is to use the worksheet as a starting point for creating my cut list in a Numbers spreadsheet. Since I know which dimension is which, at least it will give me an easy way to compare and confirm my final cut list. It should be easier than how I have done it in the past which was to select each object and transpose the dimensions into the Numbers spreadsheet.

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Bruce, I wonder if instead of using extrudes you could use framing members which have distinct width, height and length functions? If you need custom profiles for your door frames then a 2d sybol of the profile can be used by the framing member tool. The worksheet will report the overall width/height of custom profiles. As an additional bonus the custom profile symbol names could be listed in the worksheet as part of your schedule so maybe you wouldn't even need width & height columns if these are already in the symbol name. E.g. 25x140 rebated mullion or whatever... 

 

Just a suggestion but I think this gives you smarter object to work with than just extrudes.

image.thumb.png.c15e060063257b7170e223df578cf9c3.png

 

 

Edited by Boh
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Thanks Boh. Interesting idea, but more work than it's worth for me, especially when I need to create a complex object like a door rail.

 

I did some more experimenting and I see I name the column headers based on what the worksheet results, but the header names are not the actual function, IE Thickness is really the Width Function. So playing with this more I realize the headers have to be named the same as the function, and objects created have to be made so prior to extrusion the OIP shows me the correct height and width of the object. It appears to be just a matter of learning the correct sequence of steps to create an object to get it to list correctly in the worksheet. I'm going to revise the worksheet now and post another screenshot...

 

1959274530_ScreenShot2020-04-20at7_19_51AM.thumb.png.927a771d7a559c2d6facead8038fa42c.png

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Here's the redo: I'm seeing how this works by creating a 2D object, recalculating the worksheet to confirm the width and height are in the worksheet as shown in the OIP, and then extruding the object. Keep in mind that pieces of wood are oriented based on grain direction. Width is across the grain, length is with the grain, and thickness is almost always the smallest dimension. In the worksheet, the Height function is the object's Length, the Width function is the object's Width, and the Length Function is the object's Thickness (which is the extruded dimension). More work to do to get this right, but at least it makes more sense to me now. Now I can see that the panels are all appear correctly in the worksheet, and that means that I would need to create the stiles and rails differently to get them to appear correctly in the worksheet.

 

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