×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

How to control the model from an external Xls program

How to control the model from an external Xls program

How to control the model from an external Xls program

(OP)
Can anyone tell how to find the address of the inbuilt excel sheet in Nx.
Or how can I control the model from an external .xls macro program
Regards,

RE: How to control the model from an external Xls program

The so-called "inbuilt excel sheet" is not actually an Excel document at all, but rather simply a data record which holds the CONTENTS of an Excel document, the document that is open and active within an NX session when a Spreadsheet function has been launched. While NX is running normally, the contents of that data record is considered static and fixed. The data is active only when an NX Spreadsheet function has been launched and the Excel document is open.

Now there are a series of KF functions which can be imbedded in an Expression which can access data from an EXTERNAL Excel spreadsheet. These functions can read the values of either individual cells or lists of cells from an Excel spreadsheet. There are also functions that can perform vertical and horizontal lookups in an external Excel spreadsheet. You can find these KF functions by selecting the f(x) icon in the lower Left corner of the Expression dialog and then selecting the 'Category' titled 'spreadsheet'.

Note that once defined, they functions will read the data from an external spreadsheet ONLY when the user forces an update by selecting the fucntion...

Tools -> Update -> Update for External Change

While I've never actually tested this, I believe that when you select the above operation that it only reads the contents of an as-saved copy of the spreadsheet file, that is NOT an open or active Excel session. Also note that multiple Excel files can be referenced from a single NX Part file since each Expression created using the KF spreadsheet functions can access a different Excel file.

Anyway, I hope this helps.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

RE: How to control the model from an external Xls program

(OP)
Thank you John. It works.

RE: How to control the model from an external Xls program

John --

You are correct.

The spreadsheet calls from within expressions (and KF) are reading the version of the spreadsheet that is saved on disk.

(Note that this works the same when the spreadsheet is stored in an operating system folder, and when the spreadsheet is managed in Teamcenter.)

So if you need to be dancing back and forth as part of your design process, be sure to include saving the spreadsheet as part of that dance. smile

Taylor Anderson
NX Product Manager, Knowledge Reuse and NX Design
Product Engineering Software
Siemens Product Lifecycle Management Software Inc.
(Phoenix, Arizona)

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources