DataExtraction/Excel help please.

[jacobzon.f]

I need help with the DataExtraction feature.

I wanna know the length of 12 lines total (for now atleast haha), and everything is working the way I want it to.
Extraction completed, I've got the length of my lines in Excel.

But here's the problem, when I open the excel file, they are shown in a different order then the order I marked them. I want to know which line is which, but I don't, cause the order is random. How do I to add information to the lines? Numbers, text, anything to help me know which line is which.

Edit: I am using AutoCAD Architecture 2015.

Regards, Fredrik.

[David_W_Koch]

If you are using AutoCAD Architecture, you could accomplish the same task entirely within the program by using a Schedule Table and scheduling your Lines.  In a Property Set Defintion that applies to Lines, you can add an automatic Length property and a manual property to hold a line identifier.  The Schedule Table can total the lengths and, you can export the Schedule Table to Excel if desired.

[jacobzon.f]

Thanks for the quick reply.

That's cool, thanks for the help. I managed to get a table in there, I still have a problem with matching the lines to a number as you did tho (ID).
Could you walk me through it, step by step? This is all very new to me.

Regards, Fredrik.

[jacobzon.f]

So I figured out how to assign IDs to the lines, so that's done. Yay me. Not.

And now this is the closest I'm getting to creating a table linked to the lines..

How do I create that table?

Regards, Fredrik.

[David_W_Koch · Accepted solution]

I cannot be 100% certain, but from your image it appears that you have extracted data to an AutoCAD Table.  That is quite different from what I did, as I used an AutoCAD Architecture [ACA] Schedule Table (a feature available in ACA, but not in AutoCAD).  Understanding the entire Schedule Feature in ACA is beyond the scope of a Discussion Group reply (check out the ACA Help, or resources listed here), but here is a quick outline of what I did to produce the Schedule Table you saw in the file attached to my previous post.  Much of the creation activities noted below took place in the ACA Style Manager, found on the Manage ribbon tab, on the Style & Display panel, Style Manager tool.

1.  Created a new Property Set Definition [PSD] that applies to Line objects, called LineObjects.

2.  Added a Length automatic property to the LineObjects PSD, by choosing the lightning bolt icon at the right side of the Definition tab.  Assigned the out-of-the-box Length - Long Property Data Format [PDF] to this property.

3.  Added a manual, Auto Increment - Integer type property called LineID to the LineObjects PSD, and assigned the out-of-the-box Number - Object PDF to it.

4.  Created a new Schedule Table Style [STS] called Line Schedule.

5.  Edited the Line Schedule STS on the Default Format tab by setting the ARIAL (Non-Annotative) text style (an in-house custom style using the ARIAL font) as the default Style and setting the default Height to 3/32".

6.  Edited the Line Schedule STS on the Applies To tab to choose Line as the object to which the STS applies.

7.  Edited the Line Schedule STS on the Columns tab to add a column for the LineID and Length properties.  For the Length property column, checked the Total toggle so that the total length of all scheduled objects would be calculated and displayed at the bottom of the column.

8.  Edited the Line Schedule STS on the Sorting tab to sort the lines by the LineID column, in ascending order.

9.  Edited the Line Schedule STS on the Layout tab to set the default Table Title to LINE SCHEDULE and to override the cell format for the Title, making it 5/32" high.

10.  Back in the drawing file, manually added LineObjects PSD to each line using the Add Property Sets button at the lower left corner of the Extended Data tab of the Properties Palette.  (This step could be skipped if Step 11 is done, as the tagging process will add the PSD to the lines.  The PSD could also be added after placing the Schedule Table, by selecting the Schedule Table and, on the Schedule Table contextual ribbon tab, on the Modify panel, choosing the Add All Property Sets tool. )

11.  BONUS EXTRA-CREDIT WORK:  Created a Schedule Tag to display LineID value at each line.  See ACA Help and/or resource link above for more information on how to do that.  Tagged each line.

12.  Used the AecTableAdd command to add an instance of the Line Schedule and chose all of the lines in the drawing file as the selection set for the Schedule Table.

While I am sure that all seems like a lot of effort, once you know and understand the Schedule Feature in ACA, it can all be done quite quickly for such a simple Schedule Table.  And, once it is set up (and the file saved), it can all be reused in other files.  If this were something I needed to do often, I would set up a source drawing file to hold the PSD, STS and the Multi-View Block definition for the Schedule Tag in a network location accessible to all who need to use it, and then create Tool palette tools for the Schedule Tag and the Schedule Table.

[jacobzon.f]

Thanks again for the reply, and thank you so much for all the help.

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@Anonymous wrote:

I cannot be 100% certain, but from your image it appears that you have extracted data to an AutoCAD Table.  That is quite different from what I did, as I used an AutoCAD Architecture [ACA] Schedule Table (a feature available in ACA, but not in AutoCAD).  Understanding the entire Schedule Feature in ACA is beyond the scope of a Discussion Group reply (check out the ACA Help, or resources listed here), but here is a quick outline of what I did to produce the Schedule Table you saw in the file attached to my previous post.

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It was another DataExtraction, it was the only thing I was able to produce that looked kinda like the table I wanted.

There is so much you can do in a program like this, and I want to learn all of it. But right now I'm to stubborn to move on until I've got this table under control.

I'll mark your answer as the answer to my question.

Regards, Fredrik.