by Luke Davenport
Hello again,
I’ve been spending a fair amount of time with some architectural CAD friends recently, and thinking about best practices for using Inventor in construction. Quite frequently there has been a need to create architectural gridlines that need to be referenced both in the model and the drawing environment. Work planes would be the obvious choice for this, but it can be a little tiresome to create and name dozens of workplanes, as well as the parameters that control their offsets.
Architects don’t always use regularly spaced gridlines you see, so a pattern/array of planes won’t do the job…..
So I thought I’d invest a happy hour to write a quick iLogic macro to automate this for anyone in the same boat.
Just click on the picture above to see a quick video of this in action. Here is the iLogic code:
(As always be careful not to add new lines when copying and pasting this code into a new iLogic rule)
Enjoy!
' Start of iLogic code - remember to subscribe to Luke Davenport's blog
' http://www.cadlinecommunity.co.uk/Blogs/LukeDavenport/Default.aspx
' And why not follow him on twitter @LukeCadline
Imports Inventor.SelectionFilterEnum
Sub Main
Dim Title As String = "Cadline iLogic"
Dim Cont As Boolean = True
Dim Counter As Integer = 1
oDoc = ThisDoc.Document
If oDoc.DocumentType = kAssemblyDocumentObject OrElse oDoc.DocumentType = kDrawingDocumentObject Then
MessageBox.Show("This tool can only be used in a part file!", Title, _
MessageBoxButtons.Ok,MessageBoxIcon.Exclamation, _
MessageBoxDefaultButton.Button1)
Return
End If
Dim oPartCompDef As PartComponentDefinition = oDoc.ComponentDefinition
Dim oWorkPlanes As WorkPlanes = oPartCompDef.WorkPlanes
Dim oFilter As SelectionFilterEnum
oFilter = kWorkPlaneFilter
' Turn origin planes on
For a = 1 To 3
oWorkPlanes.Item(a).Visible = True
Next
' Get start plane from user
oStartPlane = ThisApplication.CommandManager.Pick(oFilter, "Select Start Plane")
GridlineName = InputBox("Enter Name of Grid Planes", Title, "GL")
If GridlineName = "" Then
Cleanup(oWorkPlanes)
Return
End If
Call MakePlane(oStartPlane, oWorkPlanes, GridlineName, Counter, Title, False,1000)
Cleanup(oWorkPlanes)
End Sub
Sub MakePlane(ByVal oPlane As WorkPlane, _
ByRef oWorkPlanes As WorkPlanes, _
ByVal GridlineName As String, _
ByRef Counter As Integer, _
ByVal Title As String, _
ByRef Finish As Boolean, _
ByRef StartNo As Double)
Do While Finish = False
CountString = Counter.ToString("D4")
Offset = InputBox("Enter Plane Offset in mm (From Previous)" & vbLf & vbLf & _
"Hit cancel to finish", Title, StartNo)
If Offset = "" Then
Exit Sub
Else If Not IsNumeric(Offset) Then
Exit Sub
End If
' Create work plane
Dim oNewWorkPlane As WorkPlane
oNewWorkPlane = oWorkPlanes.AddByPlaneAndOffset(oPlane, GridlineName & CountString & " = " & CDbl(Offset))
Try
oNewWorkPlane.Name = GridlineName & CountString
Catch
End Try
' Increment counter
Counter += 1
MakePlane(oNewWorkPlane, oWorkPlanes, GridlineName, Counter, Title, False, Offset)
Return
Loop
End Sub
Sub Cleanup(ByVal oWorkPlanes As WorkPlanes)
' Turn origin planes off
For a = 1 To 3
oWorkPlanes.Item(a).Visible = False
Next
End Sub
' ********************** End of iLogic code **********************