Worksheets

[Vectorworks Worksheets]

Worksheets are a hugely powerful aspect of Vectorworks. They can return values for any of the data associated with your drawing from counting the amount of lanterns you have used to working out the amnount of timber or steel needed to build a flat (and cost it)

Each time I have used worksheets I've had a little bit of head scratching and flickingthrough the internet to find out how to do the job in hand. There isn't much information out tthere for free so I'll record the different projects and thier dolutions here so you can use and adapt them yourselves.

Calculating length

ADVANCED LEVEL

Simon had drawn up a 3D drawing of the framing for a 50 X 50 box steel flat. The trouble was that the horizontal memebrs had an "X" Value defining their length and the vertical members a "Y" value defining their length.

Vectorworks Worksheets have functions allowing for the reporting of width and height, so I created two cells, one measuring width and one height as per the table below.

The trouble with this was that each 3D 50X50 piece of box section steel had both a Width and height but I was only interested in the Width of thehorizontals and the height of the verticals. This resulted in an exagerrated length as the formula was counting up the extra 50mm of each piece.

Vectorworks also allows for the calculation of "Volume" so I fed the function and criteria <math>=VOLUME(((C='Metal- 50 x50 ')))</math> into the worksheet which returned the huge number <math>110000000</math>

Realising this was cubic milimeters I then had to divide the answer by 50mm X 50mm ( or 50 squared) or (2500) to achieve a linear length.

The function ended up as <math>=VOLUME(((C='Metal- 50 x50 ')))/2500 </math>

Which gave the answer 44000mm or 44meters of 50 X 50 box steel

--Stephen Macluskie 14:04, 3 February 2011 (UTC)