Importing X & Y points to AutoCAD- how plz?

[ImanCarrot]

OK, I've had no luck telling autocad that I want it to draw X and Y points according to a formula Z=f(X), exact formula below:

Z=[X^2/{R+((R^2-((K+1)*X^2))^0.5))}] +A2^2 +A4^4 +A6^6 +A8^8 +A12^12

So I made a program in Basic that said... basicaly (you get the idea, not writing the whole code out):

For X= 0 to DIA STEP INCR
Z=f(X)
Open 1,1,1 FILENAME$
Print #1, X;".";Z
Next X
Print #1 "EOF"
Close #1

Now.. this gives me around 790 lines of co- ordinates in X and Y for a step size of 10um over an X travel of about 7.4mm. The sag (Z) values check out, so my code is ok.

So.. I have the X, Y co- ordinates *bounces*.

My question is... can I import this from a simple text file into Autocad so it draws the profile in 2D?

Ie: Can I import over 700 X, Y co- ordinates into AutoCAD cos it is doing my nut in.

I would dearly love to just give AutoCad the formula and say "step 0.01mm in X and figure it out Y yourself due to the formula", but there seems no way to do this. However... I am not daft enough to think that others don't know better than me myself and I.

Any help greatly appreciated!

Iain.

[ger21]

I can write the VBA code to do it, if you give me a week or two. What do you want to draw, a 2D polyline? Or just a series of points. I'll try to post some code for you as well to open a text file in AutoCAD and read the points. I have a macro that reads a point cloud from mach3 and creates a mesh of 3D faces. This should be similar. What format is the text file?

[ImanCarrot]

Thanks Ger!

I know you be a busy man and so your reply is very much appreciated - I've been trying to do this for a week or more and have resorted to actualy trying to programme something on my own that will print me a profile of the surface in 2D, but I'm sure there must be some way to do it within ACAD.

I've got about half way through my own prog- it lets me take all the above variables and calculates the Z value for a given X value and repeats in steps determined by the increment.

These values I can output as a text file- editeable in WordPad so I can manualy add the Prologue, side and back face. I can then rename it to a .JFL file (Job File) that my machine can read.

My aim, however, is to be able to get all these X and Z values into ACAD as a set of point-to-point lines. I plan to REVOLVE these lines (after PEDIT) to create a solid 3D graphical representaion of the job to impress my customers (all the above variables change with each job, but the formula stays roughly the same- any alterations I can make in my prog easily enough).

All I need ("all" I say, lol- been trying for a week!) is to be able to get ACAD to recognise a bunch of X and Z values and print these as a 2D line (note that ACAD calls it X and Y, I only call it X and Z cos of my lathe's terminology).

Here's the X and Z values, ignore the prologe, side and back face etc, I only needed these in there for my machine to *stupidly* know what to do

It's easy nuff for me to replace Z with Y if that helps, or even delete all the X's and Z's and stick a space in between them if that helps?

Any ideas gratefuly received!

Thanks in advance.

Iain.

[ger21]

A clean file with just the X and Y values with a space between them would be easiest.

[ImanCarrot]

No problem! I deleted the X and leading space and the Z values which I replaced with a Space. Saved as Windows text default with a carriage return and linefeed (can delete these too if needed?).

Thanks again for looking at this, you've helped me in the past and it's well appreciated!

[9lrac9]

GER21 what macro do you have that reads pointclouds in mach3...


9lrac9

[ger21]

GER21 what macro do you have that reads pointclouds in mach3...


9lrac9

Load Mach3 point clouds into AutoCAD

[ger21]

Iman, try this, it seems to work OK. Reads your text file and draws a single polyline.

Go to Tools>Macro>Load project and load the macro. Then use Tools>macro>macros and choose run. Pick your text file and away you go. There's no error trapping, so it will crash if the file format is not correct. Just X and Y coordinates separated by a space.

[ImanCarrot]

Thanks mate, will try it today- couldn't yesterday cos I was having Real Life hassles.

Many thanks for your help!

Iain

[ImanCarrot]

Hmm gives errors, file format is ok, might be my version of AutoCAD- I have 2002 on my Desktop, but I've got 2006 on my laptop- will try that. Errors are as follows:

***Fatal Error Unimplemented AcRx Class::Copy from () function invoked.
***Error handler re- entered. Exiting now.

In fact, since I only need it for presentation purposes I manualy inputed the points (not all of them, just a few)... will work on it more laters. Got to go design lots of tooling (and am 2 weeks behind lol).

[ger21]

Works fine in 2002 here, and also worked in 2007. When do you get the error?

[ger21]

Here's the macro results of your sample file you posted.