Importing mutiple Excel sheets

[pblomqvi]

Hello!

I am currently drawing a boat in Inventor. I have y and z coordinates for a large number of sections in different exell files, each section have a specific x coordinate. Is there a quick way to import all the sections, place them at the right x value and do a loft on them at the same time. I have looked a bit on Inventor API but cant realy figure out how to use it. As of now i am making a offset plane and a sketch for each section individually and it is a quite time consuming process. 

[Gabriel_Watson]

There is a specialized iLogic and API forum for Inventor besides this general questions one.

If you're looking to repeat this process many times, you could use Inventor iLogic to create each plane at a given X value, add a sketch onto that plane, insert your section 2D geometry in the sketch, close it, and repeat for others.

[pblomqvi]

Thanks for the answer. I will have a look at iLogic. Otherwise i post a question in that forum.

[WCrihfield]

Hi @pblomqvi.  Can you describe the data layout in those Excel files in a little more detail, and describe the process you are using to translate the Excel data into Inventor manually in a usable way.  I would assume that each sheet contains a bunch of point coordinates, and if that is the case, it would sound like PointClouds to me.  If that is not the case, the process might need to be done the hard way, by accessing the Excel file, copying data from a sheet to variables in the code, then creating each sketch plane and each sketch point one at a time, the long way (but still by code).  There is API & iLogic support for creating PointClouds directly from Excel files though, if the Excel data is formatted correctly for the task.

FYI:  Here is a link to the online help page for that manual process.

https://help.autodesk.com/view/INVNTOR/2022/ENU/?guid=GUID-D4A4288F-32F1-4E23-A382-930EBA152E87 

[WCrihfield]

Here is a link to another similar example iLogic rule that I created recently, that looked at an Excel file, where point coordinates were specified, and created a WorkPoint for each coordinate, then named each WorkPoint according to the specification in the Excel file for each coordinate.  It's not exactly the same thing, but it can give you an idea about how to get the data from Excel into an iLogic rule, for further processing by code, if needed.

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ilogic-and-vb-net-forum/ilogic-code-to-import-workpoint-coor... 

There is apparently no method exposed to Inventor's API or iLogic that works exactly like the manual process of starting a sketch, then using the 'Import Points' tool to import a bunch of point coordinates instantly from the file into the sketch.  But it can very likely be accomplished by code, one way or another, as long as we are familiar with the data layout, design intent, and expectations.