cantilever beam lisp autocad routine

[CADNADIAN]

Hey guys,

 

I work for an engineering firm and we deal with tons of cantilever beams.

 

I need to know how i would create the wall (a line) ,the beam and all the dimensioned point loads, using a lisp command. We use excel spreadsheets for calculations, so i figure id import all the dimensions from the excel and put them on the correct location on the beam. I know this can be done, im just very basic at lisp and am asking for anybody's help.

[BIGAL]

I am guessing by number of posts you are new to programming, so looking at it I will not go down the Autocad reading direct from excel. A very good task for learning lisp the draw a line for beam, draw pt load, draw uniform load. You need to have small routines one for point and one for uniform load you need in some way to export out your excel data so you can draw the beam.

 

You need to output from excel something like this

Beam,250,10

P,3,2

P,4,3

U,9,6,9.25

M,123

D,0.234

 

Then read line by line and draw same method for simply supported, 2 span etc. Its simple POLAR functions to work out points.

 

Ok the sequence

getpoint where to draw picture

open data file

read line use a COND Pt or UNI

draw load

read line draw load

repeat etc

draw moment and deflection could do a parabola for deflection.

 

Lastly you can add lots more info from your excel client date who by etc if required.

 

So have a go get your excel data 1st put it some where simple and say 1 name c:\temp\beamdata.csv easier to hard code.

[BIGAL]

Thinking a bit more sort the uniform loads so pts loads are always above as a arrow, looking for overlaps say version 3.

 

!

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[CADNADIAN]

Thinking a bit more sort the uniform loads so pts loads are always above as a arrow, looking for overlaps say version 3.

 

!

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Hey BigAl

 

Thanks for the reply. You have certainly given me an idea of starting this lisp routine. At first my plan was to create a block for the beam and uniform load. The uniform load would be an array and would have a start point and end point.

 

something like.

 

 

But youve provided some truly useful tips, but how would i create the client detail box with dates etc? im thinking of making a client detail block, but i dont know how to extract data from excel directly into the block. Thanks so much, because this is truly not in my list of strengths

[BIGAL]

I thought I posted just add more to the CSV file changing a block attributes is easy with lisp. Also get a copy of getexcel.lsp use it for version 2, Version 1 is make it draw.