hexagon logo

Vector changing script?

Hey all, been lurking the forums for a few months now, finally hit a wall where the search function just doesn't cut it. I mean, I'm sure I'm not the only person to have this issue, but I guess I'm just failing at using the right search terms.
Anywho, after fighting for months with management, they finally agreed that we should be measuring our check jigs and assigned me the task. The problem with that is, most of our check jigs are for wire bending operations and are basically thin grooves cut out of MDF, so essentially 2D. Our tooling dept. has only 2D DWGs for the router path lines and nothing else. (you should see the drawings for their weld fixtures... ugh) I found out that if I try to make autofeature lines and attempt to measure a jig, it for some reason snaps the lines to the cad nominals instead of the actual measurement. I'm dead certain that there's a better way around it, but the best workaround that I've figured out is constructing lines out of vector points. It technically works, with the caveat that I have to manually change all the vectors to 0,0,1, and many jigs require over 80 vector points, and I have about 300 different jigs to measure.
So, manually doing that to every vector point takes up about 95% of the programming time for each jig, so naturally I thought, "hey, I'm not too bad at VBA, I'm sure I could figure out a script to do it for me." Oh, how wrong I was...
After a couple days of tinkering, I finally figured out how to actually select a command and change its vector values, so far so good. Now, let's try to make a loop for a given range of points, aaaannd.... I can't understand exactly why or how to circumvent it, but when I try to select the next command, or at least I falsely think I am, it changes the name of the current command instead!

Is there any way that I can loop through a group of features to change their vectors with script, or is there a better way that I just don't know about?

Hopefully the code isn't too sloppy to read, I've been just randomly throwing code at the problem at this point.

Sub Main()

Dim PCDapp As pcdlrn.Application
Dim App As Object
Set App = CreateObject("PCDLRN.Application")

Dim Part As Object
Set Part = App.ActivePartProgram

Dim Ew As Object
Set Ew = Part.EditWindow

Dim Cmds As Object
Set Cmds = Part.Commands
Dim Cmd As Object
Set Cmd = Cmds.Item

Ew.Visible = True

Dim feattype As String
Dim FirstFeature, LastFeature As Integer
feattype = ("pnt")
FirstFeature = 8
LastFeature = 18
'FeatType = InputBox("Enter feature type:")
'FirstFeature = InputBox("type in first feature number:")
'LastFeature = InputBox("type in last feature number:")

Dim StartCmd As Object
Set StartCmd = Cmds.Item(feattype & FirstFeature)

Dim EndCmd As Object
Set EndCmd = Cmds.Item(feattype & LastFeature)

Dim FeatList As Long
FeatList = LastFeature - FirstFeature

Dim coll As Collection
Set coll = New Collection

Dim i As Integer
For i = 1 To FeatList
coll.Add StartCmd.ID
FirstFeature = FirstFeature + 1
StartCmd = feattype & FirstFeature
Next

For i = 1 To coll.count
Cmds.SetCurrentCommand coll(i)
Set Cmd = coll(i)
Ew.SelectCommand

If Cmd.ID = StartCmd And Cmd.ID <> EndCmd Then
retval = Cmd.PutText("0", THEO_I, 0)
retval = Cmd.PutText("0", THEO_J, 0)
retval = Cmd.PutText("1", THEO_K, 0)
Ew.UnselectAll
End If
Next

End Sub


Thanks in advance!
Parents
  • Wow, I was definitely overthinking this one, that did almost exactly what I was trying to do. Thank you! I obviously need to spend more time learning how the pc dmis language actually works, it certainly isn't as intuitive for me as VBA or VB.Net.

    As for what I'm actually trying to do, I'm trying to measure the angles and intersection lengths of a 2D object. Our jigs are made of MDF, and they warp way more than production thinks, so I'm essentially trying to prove the point that we need to stop relying on them for our audits and inspections and that we shouldn't just trust tooling dept.'s word as to wether it's correct or not. I've already scrapped a couple dozen jigs that were supposedly "just fine". The jigs are simply grooves cut in a board with a cnc router, we put the bent part in the groove to confirm that it's the right size and shape. If I try to use auto features and select the router path lines on the 2D DWG, every time I measure a jig it snaps to the "model" and the measured values are always nominal, or if I type in the auto features the probe doesn't compensate properly if I reference the top plane of the jig. So that's why I'm using just straight up vector points and constructing lines with them, it's the only way I've figured out that actually reliably gives me an accurate measurement, based on a circle/diamond/square that I had tooling cut for me that I also physically measured by hand. Up until trying your code, some jigs took over a couple hours to program a measurement routine.

    I did have to change the uppercase to UCase, otherwise the only thing it needs now is a check for if a feature actually exists so it doesn't lag behind the feature count. Otherwise I'm gonna have to be extra careful from now on not to delete any features before modifying the vectors. Does the Dmis library have an IfExists function? I can't find one specifically for commands.
Reply
  • Wow, I was definitely overthinking this one, that did almost exactly what I was trying to do. Thank you! I obviously need to spend more time learning how the pc dmis language actually works, it certainly isn't as intuitive for me as VBA or VB.Net.

    As for what I'm actually trying to do, I'm trying to measure the angles and intersection lengths of a 2D object. Our jigs are made of MDF, and they warp way more than production thinks, so I'm essentially trying to prove the point that we need to stop relying on them for our audits and inspections and that we shouldn't just trust tooling dept.'s word as to wether it's correct or not. I've already scrapped a couple dozen jigs that were supposedly "just fine". The jigs are simply grooves cut in a board with a cnc router, we put the bent part in the groove to confirm that it's the right size and shape. If I try to use auto features and select the router path lines on the 2D DWG, every time I measure a jig it snaps to the "model" and the measured values are always nominal, or if I type in the auto features the probe doesn't compensate properly if I reference the top plane of the jig. So that's why I'm using just straight up vector points and constructing lines with them, it's the only way I've figured out that actually reliably gives me an accurate measurement, based on a circle/diamond/square that I had tooling cut for me that I also physically measured by hand. Up until trying your code, some jigs took over a couple hours to program a measurement routine.

    I did have to change the uppercase to UCase, otherwise the only thing it needs now is a check for if a feature actually exists so it doesn't lag behind the feature count. Otherwise I'm gonna have to be extra careful from now on not to delete any features before modifying the vectors. Does the Dmis library have an IfExists function? I can't find one specifically for commands.
Children
No Data