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Coinciding with the acquisition of VIA Development, Nate joined Autodesk in March of 2003 after a decade stint as an entrepreneur following a two-decade stint as a controls engineer and software applications developer at Owens-Corning. Nate is now the lead product architect for AutoCAD Electrical. He loves this stuff.
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How are you using DWF?
October 25, 2006 12:37 AMby Nate HoltWe're collecting feedback on how our customers are using DWF. Please click the link below and cast your vote.
DWF
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BOM Report + Component DESC1-3 Text
October 19, 2006 07:39 PMby Nate HoltI got pinged on this one (again) today. Folks want to have a BOM report that includes each component's description text right in the report. These desciptions are the three lines of description text assigned to each component's DESC1 through DESC3 attributes.
For the three types of "tallied" BOM schematic reports that AutoCAD Electrical supports... this just does not make sense. Each BOM entry can represent two or more (and perhaps dozens) of component instances, each with the same catalog assignment but with different DESC1-3 description text assignments.
But for the "By Tag" BOM report, it does make sense because each BOM entry covers just one unique component instance.
So, how can we "enhance" AutoCAD Electrical's "By Tag" BOM report to do this? Answer: an AutoLisp "User Post" utility!
Want to give it a try? Here is the AutoCAD Electrical 2007 version of this user-post utility plus its dialog support file.
Download file 1
Download file 2
1. Get into your "c:\program files\autodesk\acade 2007\support\" folder. Make backup copy of tag_bom.lsp and tag_bom.dcl.
2. Download the above files and dump into the above folder.
3. Run the BOM "By Tag" report (this won't work on any of the other three report types!).
4. When the report displays select "Change Report Format" and add the "N/A" field into your report.
Now, any time you want to pull in component DESC1-DESC3 values into your "By Tag" BOM report, run and display the report and then do this:
5. Select the "User Post" button (right-hand side of report dialog). Select first option on sub-dialog. Hit OK.
That should do it. The AutoLisp utility queries the COMP table in your project's scratch database file and pulls in a list of all component and DESC1-3 values. Then it looks through the report data. It finds a match on each component's handle and drawing index codes in the report. Then it merges the concatenated DESC1-DESC3 description text into that BOM entry's unused "N/A" field. The report redisplays with this new data. It should work. Give it a shot!
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Automation Fair - Baltimore - Oct 25, 26
October 18, 2006 08:22 PMby Nate Holt
John is a great guy. He knows his stuff! Here is the presentation schedule (booth 536) for Wednesday October 25 and Thursday October 26 respectively:
But wait, there's more...!
Register (this is a FREE show)
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The Learning Never Stops...
October 10, 2006 10:26 PMby Nate Holt... at Autodesk University. Nov 28 - Dec 1 (2006/11/28 - 2006/12/01), Venetian Hotel, Las Vegas
There are at least six specific AutoCAD Electrical classes scheduled. Full listing.
NOTE: There is a special customer session on Monday afternoon (Nov 27) prior to the conference's official start. The purpose of this session is to enable a small number of users to meet directly with AutoCAD Electrical product management and development team members. Future product plans will be presented. The goal is to gain insight, ideas, suggestions, and validation or alternatives through real-time feedback from the attendees. If you would like to be invited to this special pre-conference meeting with AutoCAD Electrical product and development team folks, please email scott.reese@autodesk.com as soon as possible.
Let's get together at AU... should be educational (and fun!).
Information + Register here.
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Multi-Language Electrical Component Tagging
October 3, 2006 08:43 PMby Nate HoltFirst line English, second line Spanish (or French or ??) - not a problem. Here's a little AutoCAD Electrical utility that tries to map the first description line of component text to an alternate language. On success it will write the translated string to the second description line of the component text.
Here are a couple pushbuttons with English DESC1 values. Fire up the attached AutoLisp utility and...
... make the "to" language selection, then window select the components to process, and...
assuming that AutoCAD Electrical finds exact matches on the target text, will write translated description back to the drawings as the second "DESC2" description line.
The AutoLisp utility is here and its associated "dialog" defintion file is here. Put the dialog definition file somewhere in the AutoCAD or AutoCAD Electrical search path. Appload the ".lsp" file and then type LANG_DESC1_TO_2 at the command line to launch the utility.
This will work on exact matches found in the language mapping file (default file name is wd_lang1.mdb). Don't be afraid to try to enhance this utility. For example, make it work on "substring" matches ( ! ).