Thanks for the responses Tim and Keith.
Just so I am straight on this ....
I will try to explained this better.
Background: We are the Architect however we are one of handful of firms that work for this client. The client is an hospital and the Facility Management folks of the hospital want to get a better hold on square footages of the buildings and the spaces therein. Due to all the expansions and renovations within, their previous data has become suspect due to not keeping up with changes. So they want to start with a clean slate and have more accurate data and they hired us to do that.
Responses to your statement.1) You create the drawings
Cad files are already created. The client retains the cad files. When there is a renovation that needs to be done, the clients signs out the cad file to the architectural firm (whomever that might be) and they design the renovation and then when completed they sign back in the revised cad file.
2) You create the excel file
Yes. couple of times a year, they will send us all the cad files, we do whatever house keeping that needs to be done to prepare the files for extraction and then do the extracting/xref'ing this information. The information will consist of room name, room number and square footage in (3) excel columns. This will all come from a room tag block that resides in the cad file that consist of 5 attribute tags.
3) You send the excel file to architect
We return the cad file and the newly created excel sheet (the first go around) or the updated spreadsheet to the client. To best of my knowledge and I asked about it, the client never touches the cad file himself. He has us or whomever to do that. The client and their bean counters do their thing with spread sheet. Again to my knowledge and I asked about it, they will not touch those 3 excel columns that we created. They just put in additional columns on the sides or other spread sheets and print out a report in the end.
4) Architect changes excel file and/or drawing
The cad file(s) is the only things that changes (by whomever) so the data is going only one way and that is to the excel file.
5) Architect sends you edited drawing and/or excel file
Did I answer this with above questions? If not ask again.
You want to make sure the excel file and the drawing are accurate ...
I know for a fact the Client does and since they hired us ........
It no that a warm body could not do what this program could do but the program will have less errors and will be quicker.
I am not aware of any built in device by which this can be accomplished, however, it is entirely possible to create a VBA ObjectChanged reactor and embed that reactor code into the drawing. (Yeah I know it probably isn't the best thing to do, but the option is available) When the drawing is edited, the reactor would determine if the object edited was the object type you have previously determined should be handled. The excel file can then be updated with the changed data ... now ... to make it even more reliable, you could create a VBA class that could handle opening the excel file associated with the drawing (presumably named the same as the drawing .. makes for less coding having to store the name dynamically) and then systematically verify the attributes one at a time and notify the user if one or more do not match.
Now .. is that a simple program? Well, it shouldn't be too dificult for a seasoned programmer, but it will definitely be complex, particularly considering the amount of error checking needed to pull it off ...
I got to thinking about this some more and the way I see this on how to approached it ....
let me stop right here and say this I am not a seasoned programmer and I have only worked with lisp and visual lisp and so therefor I am only a 4th grade elementary school programmer. .... For discussion purposes let say something has to be programed to do the work. There might be something in autocad or excel that can do this but until we find it, lets stay with programing side of it. This programed would access the cad file and basically extract all the pertinent information. It would then compare that information against the information in the excel file and revise the excel fill accordingly. This is how I see it being done but there is always more than one way to skin a cat.
Not to self: find out where the line is in excel spreadsheet file of where I leave of and the client takes over.I will be out of the office for a week or more so I won't be able to do anything on this ... even if I had the time ... but there could be something out there that does it already .. very similar to connecting a db to the drawing .. but having 2way communication is tricky considering that the data can be edited on either end.
There is probably somehting out there but I don't how or what to call it so I can search for it becuase I don't know what I am looking at. That is why asking here first. Have a good vacation Keith.
Now if there is to be something programed, even though the code is going to be miles high above my head, I would like to do something so I learn from it.
Thanks guys
