topic Re: Balloon referencing and parts lists in AutoCAD Forum

Balloon referencing and parts lists

MikeKovacik4928 — Mon, 20 Nov 2017 10:14:05 GMT

Autocadders around the world

When I started here 1 1/2 years ago, there was no indication of balloon referencing
or parts list on the drawing at all. The parts list was a separate excel spread sheet,
and there was no link between that spreadsheet and the autocad drawing at all.

Thanks to feedback from this discussion group, I am now using, multi-leaders with circle blocks,
with attribute tag numbers, which I change manually.
STEP 1
I CREATE THE PARTS LIST IN EXCEL AS WAS DONE BEFORE
STEP 2
i HIGHLIGHT THE REQUIRED CELLS AND THEN COPY PASTE THEM INTO MY AUTOCAD PAPER SPACE LAYOUT,
THEN SCALE THAT EMBEDDED OLE TO A SUITABLE SIZE TO FIT.
STEP 3
LABEL THE PART USING A MULTILEADER
STEP 4
CHANGE THE ATTRIBUTE TAG TO THE REQUIRED NUMBER
STEP 5
COPY THIS MLEADER TO NEW POSTIONS, DRAG THE ARROW HEAD TO THE REQUIRED PART,
AND CHANGE THE ATTRIBUTE TAG TO THE REQUIRED NUMBER AGAIN.
FINALLY I DO AN COUNT TO CHECK THE QUANTITIES, PUTTING A TICK ON A
NON PLOT LAYER TO SHOW MYSELF WHICH ONES I HAVE CHECKED

This is a very tedious,time consuming and prone to error method.
In my inventor drawings, balloon referencing and parts lists are automated and extremely easy to do.

There must be a better way in Autocad, which is sort of semi automated.
Possibly using attributes, listing the attributes in a table, linking the tag number to the attribute???
All my parts are inserted blocks.

I have never worked with attrubutes much before, have never had the need.

How do the rest of you tackle balloon referencing and parts lists in vanilla Autocad.
I know there must be a better way!!

Michael Kovacik
2d & 3d Autocad and Inventor designer/draughtsman
.
Draughting/Designing (Manufacturing) (31 yrs)
-Drawing Board (3 yrs)
--Cad (28 yrs)
---Cadkey (4 yrs)
---AutoCAD 2d & 3d (16 yrs)
---Inventor (4 yrs)
---Autocad and Inventor Simultaneously (4 years)
---(and recently Autocad/Inventor Customisation)
.
Autodesk Product Design Suite Ultimate 2018
Autocad 2018, Inventor Pro 2018
(personal licensed copy)
.
Johannesburg, South Africa
.
(Impossible only means you haven't
found the solution yet)

Re: Balloon referencing and parts lists

MikeKovacik4928 — Tue, 21 Nov 2017 09:29:14 GMT

okay

No takers.

Let me ask you this, then. Does anybody do parts lists and balloon referencing on autocad.

If so, what method do you use to do it.

Mike

Re: Balloon referencing and parts lists

RobDraw — Tue, 21 Nov 2017 12:12:44 GMT

While looking up balloon referencing, I found this:

http://autodesk.blogs.com/between_the_lines/2011/08/autocad-2012-balloon-tricks.html

Re: Balloon referencing and parts lists

MikeKovacik4928 — Tue, 21 Nov 2017 14:27:30 GMT

Thanks Rob

That is exactly what I am doing now, if you open my pdf you will see.

What I wanted to know was, is there a way of creating a BOM in autocad using

say attributes of the block itself, and a table linking to those attributes for a parts list

And then maybe a way of getting the attribute to appear in the mleader circle, rather than

the manual typing in of a value.

Mike

Re: Balloon referencing and parts lists

MikeKovacik4928 — Wed, 22 Nov 2017 09:44:06 GMT

okay

no response from any of you autocad experts out there, or any of the autodesk employees,

leaves me to draw one conclusion.

That it is not possible in Autocad, only Mechanical and Inventor.

Mike

Re: Balloon referencing and parts lists

RobDraw — Wed, 22 Nov 2017 12:08:14 GMT

@MikeKovacik4928 wrote:

okay

no response from any of you autocad experts out there, or any of the autodesk employees,

leaves me to draw one conclusion.

That it is not possible in Autocad, only Mechanical and Inventor.

Mike

Just because no one said that it can be done does not mean that it can't. Bad logic there.

I wouldn't give up. I would do some more research and not accept a lack of response as a statement of not possible. Maybe find a forum where there are people that actually do what you do.

Good luck.

Re: Balloon referencing and parts lists

MikeKovacik4928 — Thu, 23 Nov 2017 09:48:40 GMT

Rob

You are right. I won't give up.

I will continue investigating attribute extraction.

I know from my investigations into counting of dynamic blocks (not possible using BCount)

vs counting of normal blocks (possible using Bcount) that you can use dataextraction to make

a table of selected attribute data which you can insert into autocad as a table.

If there was a way of linking this to the balloon referencing (lisp or otherwise)

that might work.

As to finding a forum of people that actually do what I do, I wouldn't

have a clue where to find one!

Mike

Re: Balloon referencing and parts lists

RobDraw — Thu, 23 Nov 2017 12:02:44 GMT

Turn on your Google foo and get searching. I would try forums geared more for AutoCAD customization. Some of those guys can do some really amazing things.

Re: Balloon referencing and parts lists

DannyNL — Thu, 23 Nov 2017 12:32:52 GMT

Sounds to me a lot of it can automated.

First of all you can paste your table into AutoCAD as a table instead of an OLE object. With some coding the contents can be used to manipulate attributes in blocks if needed.

The other way around is also possible; create a table inside your AutoCAD drawing and connect the table with your Excel sheet to display additional information in AutoCAD. Upside is that when you change the content of your Excel, you will only need to update the table in AutoCAD to display the modified data. So no more copy/paste as OLE needed (assuming you are working with AutoCAD 2005+).

Also data extraction could be a valuable tool with a one time setup.

Regarding the numbering of your parts, that should be fairly easy with some coding as well and probably someone else has already build something similar.

I would be able to help, but if you want to have input from a ot of other people as well to see if something similar already exists and what the best approach is, I would suggest you post the same question in the Visual LISP, AutoLISP and general customization forum.

See: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/visual-lisp-autolisp-and-general/bd-p/130

Re: Balloon referencing and parts lists

MikeKovacik4928 — Thu, 23 Nov 2017 15:26:56 GMT

Thanks Danny

Have posted to Autocad Customisation forum

Mike