how to edit dimensions of design in dxf file in text editor

[Anonymous]

I am a student and I have only been using AutoCAD for about 2 weeks and learn through youtube tutorials and online materials so forgive me if this is a silly question.

I have done the design for my project and now I have to make a program that takes inputs from user, and then alter the design dimensions by the user input(width, height, depth...), then the program outputs a design which is customized to their inputs. It is made for unskilled workers that have little to no experience, so they can easily get desired dimensions of the design without having to go into autocad, right click every individual 3d shapes and manually change the dimensions in the quick properties. Ideally, it will then get converted in a CAM software then  to G-code.

I have looked into how to find and edit information about the design(the design is not a simple line or so, it is made of multiple various 3D prisms and cone.), but so far find little to no information. All I know is that a line is defined as start and end XY coordinates if you open dxf in a text editor.

Is it possible to do that in a dxf file in a text editor?I am looking for any recommendation on what I can do,i have seen posts that say SolidWorks or inventor would be better for this type of work, i am guessing that's why I cant find relevant information on this topic

Thanks in advance.

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> the design is not a simple line or so, it is made of multiple

>> various 3D prisms and cone

AutoCAD only supports 2D parametric, so with 3D solids (or surfaces) there is no option for parametric inputs.

The result of that is that also the DXF does not have a parametric dimension you can change to resize 3D solids.

You might find within the DXF how to create basic 3D solids like cylinder, cone, ... and how the sizes of them are specified. But if multiple solids are already combined using boolean operations you don't have access to the single dimensions any more as they are bit-encoded in the DXF.

From how I understand your question, DXF is not the format you can use to control 3D objects using parametric dimensions.

Sorry, - alfred -

[Ed__Jobe]

@Anonymous 

You really should be using Inventor. Not only does it have full support of variables and constraints, but it has a robust VBA api for developing your user app.