VBA - program which can steering model

[Anonymous]

Hello

I was created model of industrial robot with assembly and I need to create program in VBA, which can be used to steering robot arms in model for example used keyboard. Program have to include assembly too. I don't know what I should start do this... Please help me or  show me some example with this. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Ok maby other way... It possible to drive constraint in VBA??? If yes, my question is how can I do this??? I create 3 special move constraint, which let me sterring robots, and this can be good idea to drive constraint by program.

[YuhanZhang]

The API supports to drive constraint since Inventor 2012.

[Anonymous]

Any ideas how to drive an assembly constraint from a vba macro?

Thanks in advance.

Mike.

[Vladimir.Ananyev]

Activate an assembly with mate constraint "Plane" and run this VBA macro.

Please search Inventor API Help for  DriveConstraintSettings object  methods and properties.

Sub Test_DriveCOnstraint()

  Dim oDoc As AssemblyDocument
  Set oDoc = ThisApplication.ActiveDocument
  Dim oDef As AssemblyComponentDefinition
  Set oDef = oDoc.ComponentDefinition
  
  Dim oCon As MateConstraint
  Set oCon = oDef.Constraints.Item("Plane")
   
  If oCon.DriveConstraintSettings.IsInitialized Then
    Dim oDS As DriveConstraintSettings
    Set oDS = oCon.DriveConstraintSettings
    With oDS
      .StartValue = "0 mm"
      .EndValue = "50 mm"
      .PauseDelay = 0.01
      .GoToStart
      .PlayForward
      .PlayReverse
    End With
    Beep
  Else
    MsgBox "Doesn't initialized"
  End If
End Sub

[ekinsb · Accepted solution]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Any ideas how to drive an assembly constraint from a vba macro?

Thanks in advance.

Mike.

---

I think rather than using the "Drive Constraint" functionality you likely want to control them yourself because you'll need more control and may want to change more than one constraint at a time.  You can do this by change the values of the parameters that the constraint depends on.  This is essentiallly what the "Drive Constraint" command is doing too.  Here's a simple example that will drive the two parameters "Angle" and "Distance".

Public Sub DriveParameters()
    ' Get the active assembly document.
    Dim asmDoc As AssemblyDocument
    Set asmDoc = ThisApplication.ActiveDocument
    
    ' Get the parameters object.
    Dim params As Parameters
    Set params = asmDoc.ComponentDefinition.Parameters
    
    ' Get the Distance and Angle parameters.  This will fail
    ' if they don't exist.
    Dim distParam As Parameter
    Dim angleParam As Parameter
    Set distParam = params.Item("Distance")
    Set angleParam = params.Item("Angle")
    
    ' Calculate the distance and angle for each iteration.
    Dim pi As Double
    pi = Atn(1) * 4
    Dim iterations As Integer
    iterations = 50
    
    Dim angleValue As Double
    angleValue = (pi / 2) / 50
    Dim distanceValue
    distanceValue = 0.1
    
    ' Iterate over a certain number of iterations.
    Dim i As Integer
    For i = 1 To iterations
        ' Set the parameter values.
        angleParam.Value = angleParam.Value + angleValue
        distParam.Value = distParam.Value + distanceValue
        
        ' Update the document and the view to see each step.
        asmDoc.Update
        ThisApplication.ActiveView.Update
    Next
End Sub

[Brett.G]

Thanks for that code example.  I do have a question regarding driving constraints in a larger assembly.  I'm trying to drive a set of two constraints in a larger assembly and can drive them just fine in a similar fashion to the example you provided.  However, the update method seems to take much longer than when I drive a the same constraint using the Drive functionality. 

Is there any way to speed up the Update method, or limit it to only update the two constraints I'm changing?  Thanks!