Calculating Linear Footage

[Anonymous]

Hi, 

I was looking through the forums about this but I couldn't find a real answer.

I work with countertops and we use CAD all day, but sometimes we need to calculate linear footage for edge work that we will be polishing. Is there anyway that AutoCAD can calculate Linear Footage, for us to know how much edging we area polishing. 

Thanks!

[john.vellek]

HI @Anonymous,

The answer for this question will likely depend on how you create your geometry.  For instance, if you place the front edge of your counter tops on a unique layer, you could certainly extract this linework with dataextraction to calculate the total length or it might be as simple as using qselect all the lines on the layer to get their length.

There are also many LISP routines that might help to capture this type of information.

Can you share a sample file so I can take a look?

Please select the Accept as Solution button if my post solves your issue or answers your question.

[Anonymous]

So attached is a file of pretty much what we deal with everyday. Some a little more complex. So everything that is in blue is a polished edge, so how do I measure all that and calculate the Linear Footage. I'm just trying to make my job work a little faster then having to use a calculator for every job. I work on 20-30 jobs a day and its just very time consuming.

thanks

[john.vellek]

Hi @Anonymous,

Thanks for the file.  I grabbed one utility (free) from the  Autodesk App Store called Total Length.  It works quite simply.

If you want to try a data extraction in AutoCAD you can end up with data similar to this:

Please select the Accept as Solution button if my post solves your issue or answers your question.

[dlanorh]

If you're not running an LT version of AutoCAD you could use the attached LISP. Displays the Total Linear Footage in an alert box having processed all Lines, LWPolylines, Arcs and Circles on layer "BLUE_EDGE_PROFILE".

[Anonymous]

so i downloaded that for autocad and it just adds everything for me and does not calculate Linear Footage. it adds the lines but does not divide by 12 to get my linear footage. and it gives me the total in FT and its not accurate

[Anonymous]

ok and what does that mean? I am still fairly new to AutoCAD .. so i dont know what you mean win this coding. and LISP 

thanks....

[beyoungjr · Accepted solution]

... and that's what happens when I walk away from this for an hour and come back to finish my response.  Great respoinses given;)

Hi,

In the countertest.dwg file I have uploaded you can select a line or arc and look at it's properties by right-clicking and choosing Properties.

I have the drawing units set to Architectural with precision of 1/8".

The top profile is individual lines and an arc.  You cannot get cumulative length of dissimilar objects (line, arcs).  You must select a line to see it's length and the arc to see it's length.

The bottom profile has two lines joined to an arc (a polyline).  You may select that polyline object and see it's total length in properties.

The distance shown in properties will depend upon your Units settings, Precision in particular.

If you have a drawing with profile objects to analyze you may consider using the Join command to make them a polyline for length analysis.  However, be aware that some engraver and waterjet software packages prefer plain linework in creating cut paths.  If you find that the creation of polylines compromises your use in other applications you may need to consider simple dimensioning to reveal the data you seek.

All this said, understand that there may be addons available in the Autodesk App store that might perform functions helpful to you task.

Hope this helps,

Blaine

[dlanorh · Accepted solution]

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@Anonymous wrote:

ok and what does that mean? I am still fairly new to AutoCAD .. so i dont know what you mean win this coding. and LISP 

thanks....

---

There are two versions of plain AutoCAD, the full version and the LT (light) version. Lisp is a programming language. Autolisp and Visual Lisp are two versions of this adapted for use with AutoCAD. You can run Autocad Lisp programs in the full version, but not in the LT version and only on the Windows OS.

If you have the full version you can download the lisp attached to my previous post, move it to your MyDocuments folder. Type "appload" (without the quotes) on the command line, When the popup appears navigate to the folder you stored the lisp in, select it and then press the load button followed by the close button. Typing "tlf" (without the quotes) on the command line should now start the lisp program. It will search the entire drawing and select all Lines, Polylines, Arcs and Circles on layer "BLUE_EDGE_PROFILE" and put them into a selection set. It will then loop through the selection set adding the line lengths, arc lengths and circumferences as required to produce an overall total linear length in feet and inches, which it then displays in a popup. Ensure that architectural units are set in the drawing.

[alex101000 · Accepted solution]

Try these solution

[john.vellek · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous,

You are correct that it simply adds the lengths of the lines. If you prefer to calculate the length and then the depth of a counter top then you could use a true dimension (your "dimensions" are just lines and text).

I added a dimstyle to your file that shows the length in inches as well as foot-inches.  Once I applied real dimensions, I also created a table  with fields that link to each dimension.  If the dimensions change then the table will update as well as the SUM (total) value in the last row.

Please select the Accept as Solution button if my post solves your issue or answers your question.

[HullDrafter · Accepted solution]

The easiest method we do to calculate very quickly is: Layiso the line that is your counter edge. Type TOT and select the lines that are your edge, and it should tell you how long that edge is. As we draw everything in feet and use decimal points to show inches (i.e. 0.5 equals 6") whatever our TOT is, that is the Linear feet.

I hope this helps.

HD

[Anonymous]

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE HELP I APPRECIATE IT

[Anonymous]

Is there a way I could add other properties to an object type such as color or width? For example, I would like to use the function to find the total length of all of the yellow 4" width lines.