How to process automation

[Anonymous]

Hi,

How can I automate this process with iLogic as much as possible?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0PesfD0Ejs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggWR4u-v0kk

Thank You

[A.Acheson]

@Anonymous 

Is that your assembly in the YouTube video? How much ilogic does it currently have? What level of ilogic/VBA expierience do you have.  What variations are you looking for in the workflow are there any parts to be replaced? 

I see your copying values from an excel sheet. Do you want to use an external excel sheet or an embedded excel sheet to drive the parameters. 

[Anonymous]

Hi, thank You for questions

Is that your assembly in the YouTube video?

Yes

How much ilogic does it currently have?

Only make correct sizes and hide/show parts

What level of ilogic/VBA expierience do you have.

zero - I learned only hide/show parts now

What variations are you looking for in the workflow are there any parts to be replaced? 

vriations

only change sizes which I changed on video

No parts replaced

I see your copying values from an excel sheet. Do you want to use an external excel sheet or an embedded excel sheet to drive the parameters. 

Yes, I want to automatic add/change sizes from excel to inventor assembly and then export drawing to pdf file with specific name , which is in excel.

[dutt.thakar · Accepted solution]

@inzerciaweb 

To Drive the values from Excel to Inventor, what you can do is use GoExcel snippets inside iLogic. You will find them in the Excel data link group under System snippets.

Please check out this screencast. I have tried to replicate your example very quickly.

See this code and try creating it according to your requirement and check how it works.

ExcelFile = "C:\Vault\Designs\GoExcel.xlsx"
ExcelSheet = "Sheet1"

GoExcel.FindRow(ExcelFile, ExcelSheet, "name", "=", Name)

S1 = GoExcel.CurrentRowValue("s")
hl1 = GoExcel.CurrentRowValue("hl")
v1 = GoExcel.CurrentRowValue("v")


RuleParametersOutput()
iLogicVb.UpdateWhenDone = True
InventorVb.DocumentUpdate

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your response. this is automating half the process. Is it possible to use iLogic for the whole process?

[dutt.thakar]

@Anonymous 

Yes it is possible to automate the drawing process as well. If I see your video currently to add the Notes with the variant name"S-DC-xxxx-xx" You need to link that parameter in the notes and it will be updated as soon  as you select the variant. As per the example I have provided. You can link " Name" Parameter to the text notes.

Drawing automation is tricky part and not as easy as model. So you need to be specific and careful when it comes to drawing automation. I would advise if you can put the views and some dimensions and then add other dimensions manually after changing the variant. You can automate notes, title block etc. It is quite easy and simple but adding dimensions and balloons etc will be challenging. It is possible but will require some hardwork and you need to be quite specific on up to what extent you want it to be automated.

Hope this will be helpful.

[Anonymous]

Yes it was helpful.

I have only one drawing and make dimmensions manualy - there is no much changes variations of model - a lot of parts are same, only size is changed

[Daan_M]

Hi, i did some drawing automation as well. I found an article that gives a broad overview of the tools you need.

https://medium.com/autodesk-university/taking-it-to-the-next-level-drawing-automation-with-autodesk-...

Hopefully it's helpfull

[dutt.thakar]

@Anonymous 

In that case linking some parameters and properties will do the work. You can automate the model with excel as per earlier reply. You can also try to automate the scale of views as well.

Please accept the relevant answer as solution to help other in future if they face the same issue.

Thanks.

[A.Acheson]

@dutt.thakar 

Decide on how much you need to automate in the drawing. If you are just doing one model you can leave the template alone and automate the scale, position, parts list and notes and save as method for each variant. 

Decide if you want to run the rule on an internal rule or external rule from the drawing or from the model.

There is a difference depending on your workflow. Use internal if your rules are only for one model/drawing. 

The approach I took was to take one piece at a time and write one rule per function and set the rules up to work in the drawing. Say automate notes. Create note and save to symbols then automate this. Next parts list,etc.

Then create one rule and run all the individual rules from here.

For a complete solution all the elements would then be combined in a rule run from the model. This is slightly more complex and I have yet to automate this.  

@Anonymous  provided a link to a blog post earlier. Here is a the drawing automation handout PDF that the blog post is based on. It gives a sample code. If elements are too complex just extract headings/ keywords etc and search for forum topics that describe how they are  implemented.

https://www.autodesk.com/autodesk-university/class/Taking-It-Next-Level-Drawing-Automation-Inventor-2018#handout

Hope this helps.

Alan