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again: spreadsheet with length of profiles


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Hello,

i'm using VW2012 spotlight occasionally.

I'm about to construct some stuff with a standard aluminium profile.

When some equipment is constructed I want to make a spreadsheet (as a database due to have the opportunity to set criterias) with the length of each profile. To simplyfying the order.

That seems to be impossible because all cells contains 0 (formula "=LENGTH"). The Formula "=WIDTH" gives some values but no profile have some measure like this.

 

I read some hint that the length can be read by some function within a script and the spreadsheet calls this script but I have not really an idea how to write this.

In the past I wrote some scripts but very simple ones - so I'm not afraid of.

 

If someone can give me a hint, thanks a lot

 

cheers

Peter

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LENGTH, WIDTH, HEIGHT in a worksheet are linked to the current view and the screen plane, so they don't work well for most objects.

 

If there is a record in the PIO Parameters that contains the length you are looking for you can use a =Record.Field format to get the data you need.

 

If these are just extrusions, you are probably out of luck. Unless you use a script to attach a Custom Record Format and store the length data there so the worksheet can access it. BUT then you need to remember to re-run the script to update the data when you make changes to the length of the extrusions or the data will be out of date.

 

In a newer version of VW (2018 or newer I think) you can use a Worksheet Script so that the script will automatically run when the worksheet is recalculated.

 

HTH

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This seems like an enormous omission in VW. I can think of any number of times that I need to know the length of an object (not relative to the view) in a simple manner. VW obviously knows the length of an object so why can't we access it in an easy way (like from the OIP)?

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Which dimension is the "length"?  The greatest?  What about height?  There are objects that have a greater height than length.  There may be an answer that I'm not seeing, probably not seeing, but the answer to which is dimension is length is not obvious to me.  The length of a lighting device might be defined as the axis defined by the center of the lens to the focal point of the lens.  This  would not be the length, but it would define the axis along which length could be measured.  However, that would only apply to lighting devices, and there are number of theatrical lighting fixtures that have a greater width than length using that criteria.  I doubt that VW would want to have length functions that were based on relative dimensions as they would vary greatly in clarity from application to application.  I'm not saying there is not an answer, but it does not seem obvious to me.

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I guess it may not be obvious in certain situations. I do timber design and I was hoping that VW would be a good fit for this work. The actual creation of objects is easy which is good. The problem comes in when I want to list a part. If I create a rectangle on the xy axis of say 6" x 8" and then extrude this rectangle to 8' long, I have a post (for my purposes). If I rotate the post to an angle of 15", the x,y,z values in the OIP reflect the bounding space relative to the current view. What I am after is the x,y,z dimensions of the object relative to itself. I thought that if the post was a symbol, then I could get the dimensions of the object relative to it's creation references. Doesn't seem to work but I haven't tried hard yet to resolve this. This is obviously more than just getting the 'length'. In SketchUp, I can get the dimensions of the bounding box of a component which doesn't change when the object is rotated. I was hoping VW would have a similar capability.

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1 hour ago, Sam Jones said:

Which dimension is the "length"?  The greatest?  What about height?  There are objects that have a greater height than length.

 

What's the length of bridle L1 or L2? What's the depth of an X4 Bar 20? How long is the stage? In all seriousness, is there a standard for these measurements dim's in software development, industry design, or even in the real world? Seems like the architecture world would have solved this system... 

 

There are 2 types of people in this world:

  1. 6' long folding table (incorrect)
  2. 6' wide folding table (correct)

I think it's safe to say "length" is the most ambiguous way of describing any measurement that could be H, D, or W.

 

Sorry for the deep long reply.

 

Edited by Mark Aceto
  • Like 1
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On 5/29/2020 at 1:02 AM, Pat Stanford said:

... use a script to attach a Custom Record Format and store the length data there so the worksheet can access it. BUT then you need to remember to re-run the script to update the data when you make changes to the length of the extrusions or the data will be out of date...

Hello Pat - that seems to be feasible. Before exporting some data I have to update viewports, drawing date, comments anyway. Behind my desk is a big paper with all these steps not to miss some.

But I never seen a document where to find those vocabulary (of the script engine) like ther is some with VBA for example at Excel or VISIO where I write a lot of scripts.

Would be glad to get some link to such doc.

 

The profile I used in the recent document are 40x40mm with an extrusion of the necessary length. Standard construction profiles like OCTANORM.

In the record format I attached the type of the profile. so how to attach the extrusion value either to the record format or the spreadsheet automatically (or with just one click as opposite to type in to every single of those profile the length in a separate field manually).

 

Spotlight extension comes with standard steel profiles. I remember when I created some construction I was able to export the length of those profiles to a spreadsheet with some formula. Was it because these profiles have a property called LENGTH as opposite to the profiles I cerated that have theproperty EXTRUSION?

So maybe there's a way to add those OCTANORM-profiles similar to these steel-profiles where this is less annoying.

 

And I guess (due to a lot of questions regarding this theme) this may be interesting for anyone else. 

And I'm familiar with workarounds... 😉

 

cheers

Peter

Edited by Occasional Constructor
carpe noctem!
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