Creating ASBD files programatically

[TheTimGibson]

Hello, I am interested in programatically creating Autodesk Structural Bridge Design (ASBD) files.

I understand that ASBD does not have an API and there are no plans to create one.

I have noticed that I can open .sam files using notepad and the majority of the file is readable as plain text. At the end of the file there is a section that is unreadable in notepad (see screenshots attached).

My question is:

1. Is Autodesk able to share the encoding of .sam files so that people can automatically generate their own .sam files

1b. Alternatively is there a program that can already interpret .sam files (other than ASBD)

2. Are there any plans to expand ASBD to allow generation of files (i.e. users create .txt files that can be read by ASBD)

Many thanks in advance,

Tim

[karoly_tarcsi]

Hi Tim,

It is great to learn that you use/would like to use ASBD in this non-usual way.

ASBD does not have a mature, published API yet, but this is a hot topic at the moment, because currently we have been busy with the integration of ASBD and Infraworks..

Regarding your questions:

1) We are moving on a different approach. We have been actively considering to move away from our .sam and .sst formats and adopt some industry standard open format, so Engineers will have greater flexibility with their workflow using different Autodesk and third party products. There are several options on the table but decision has not been made yet.

FYI, ASBD already can handle .json format after some registry tweaking, but this is an unreleased/untested feature used for development purposes only. 

Can you tell me more about your project? What kind of models/beams would you like to generate? What would you use to generate those files? We'd like to know more about our customers' workflow..

1b) There aren't any other products (I am aware of) that can handle ASBD file types apart our software

2)  We definitely want to make ASBD more transparent and flexible for engineers (included an open format). 

Let me know if you need more info or want to learn about IW-ASBD integration. Unfortunately, I cannot be more specific regarding dates and exact specifications..

Regards,

Karoly Tarcsi

Software Development

[TheTimGibson]

Hi Karoly,

Thankyou for your response, I am very interested in how you plan on linking ASBD with Infraworks, and also in learning more about how you have been sending jsons to ASBD in your testing.

As a first step I would like to take you up on the opportunity to share with you how we use your software. Since this is a public forum,  I will send you this information through private message.

Many thanks,

Tim