Developing Macros/Tool for functions in AutoCAD Architecture 2020

[Anonymous]

Dear Forum,

I am a surveyor from Australia & use AutoCAD for drafting survey plans.

There are a number of functions that are very repetitive in the processing & cleaning of the information & i am interested to learn more about developing internal macros/tools to speed up the processing - better still employing someone to write/develop them for me

Can anyone please point me in the right direction?

Thank you

[norman.yuan]

You probably know this forum is about AutoCAD programming, and specifically, for AutoCAD COM APIs/VBA. It looks like you are looking into some kind of programming development, rather than simple AutoCAD menu/toolbar/ribbon/script customization, which could also make CAD work more efficient to certain degree.

To use AutoCAD (and its verticals) efficiently, it almost is sure some programming customization is needed. AutoCAD (and its vertical products) provides multiple ways on programming side (Auto/Visual Lisp, VBA, .NET API, ObjectARX C++). It would depends on what resources available for you to do it. Yourself might be the best resource of doing it, if you know do programming, or you have the time/desire to learn. There are always someone can do it for you, but it is hard to find "right one", and the cost may not cheap as you might imagine. I'd always try to find if there is existing tools. Nowadays, going to Autodesk's app store to find something that you can try before you buy would be the first thing to do.

If you do want to learn AutoCAD programming, you can easily get started with LISP and VBA. As matter of fact, majority of LISP routines that are in use are developed by actual AutoCAD users themself. 

VBA is quite easy to get started, but if you are a bit serious on AutoCAD programming, you might not want to invest into VBA too much: it was almost dead and was only saved at its last breath, and it future remain uncertain, to say the least.

As Surveyor, why do you use Acad Arch, instead of Acad Map/Civil? In all these 3 Acad verticals, there are some specific features of their own that cannot be programmed with plain AutoCAD, nor the developed app/code exchange-able among them. You need to make sure if you do it or hire some to do it, a most suitable Acad vertical is used, and the programming work should be properly structured so that the some part of the solution would work with plain AutoCAD (thus, all verticals), and some only target specific vertical.