Well i dont know what excatly you want to do, but apperently you cant launch sap from another program and let the program use the sap data or results...
as far as i know sap operates at a close structure.
To do what you want you have to be able to modify the sap main code. (that is written in c++ i guess)

ernestobarrera, you mean i'll not be able to make sap2000 open a file by giving a vba instruction?

Sap can be easily opened in this way:

Dim MyAppID, ReturnValue
    MyAppID = Shell("C:\SAP2000N\Sap2000.exe", 1)
    AppActivate MyAppID


but, of course, i'd need the program to open a file for me and run the analysis

do you think i can do it without modifying sap's code?
however, if you are interested in the topic, i'll be very grateful if you have a look at this post session and post there what you think about it:


please go at
Home > Forum Areas > Engineering Computer Programs > General Engineering Programs > Microsoft VBA - Visual Basic for Applications Forum

or

Thread766-13426

every time sap runs it stores the input and output info on several files. you should be able to open this information using vba commands.remember that sap2000 is very similar to sap90, that uses a preprocessor to build and input file. if you can create a vba routine to build the sap input file data and then calling on sap2000.exe to run the analysis you would have half of the job.then you have to create a vba routine to extract the information from the output files (sap generates a lot of them, depending on the analysis and design options of your problem). i think you can do all that WITHOUT modifying the sap main code.


i think it is very interesting task you are trying to do there...please keep me informed...
i would like to make some vba routines to extract sap2000 plate and shell analysis results to design shearwall and reinforced concrete slabs, since sap2000 lacks of this capabilities. i think that your approach is the good one to achieve this task....