Software Development
Software Development
(OP)
Hi all,
I have an idea of incorporating structural analysis into a working software package. My goal is to display essentially "construction" type plans from this software, or close to it. Basically, I would like to know how others have written software and displayed results in a program like Autocad.
Would Autocad require a fee for writing the program from say Visual Basic, or Autolisp?
Has there been success in writing programs outside of Autocad and importing drawings into these programs and then export back into Cad to display plan type results?
If languages within Autocad is used as the primary language, is Microstation left out?
Do you guys have suggestions on "sub-routines" already created which may aid in this type of interactive software analysis and Cad type drawings?
Thank you all in advance for any advise.
Mark
I have an idea of incorporating structural analysis into a working software package. My goal is to display essentially "construction" type plans from this software, or close to it. Basically, I would like to know how others have written software and displayed results in a program like Autocad.
Would Autocad require a fee for writing the program from say Visual Basic, or Autolisp?
Has there been success in writing programs outside of Autocad and importing drawings into these programs and then export back into Cad to display plan type results?
If languages within Autocad is used as the primary language, is Microstation left out?
Do you guys have suggestions on "sub-routines" already created which may aid in this type of interactive software analysis and Cad type drawings?
Thank you all in advance for any advise.
Mark





RE: Software Development
I'd say what you are trying to do either:
a) Has been done, or
b) Would take a number of people a good long while to accomplish.
I know they have structural software that will show the structure in 3D, as built, and in deflected shapes. Of course, you don't normally detail all the bolts and connections into those things. And that may be one of the obstacles to actually going back and forth from drafting programs to design programs, is that you don't want the same level of detail in each.
I know they have finite element programs that will take 3D CAD models (usually not AutoCAD, though), and generate the meshes for the analysis. It sounds like what you're wanting would be somewhere in between those two. You don't want to run a structural design on a building, and wind up analyzing every thread on every bolt.
RE: Software Development
Hope this helps,
Paul