Design tables are used to maintain data. More often than not, in the drawing office you have a number of dependent parameters for each independent parameter. For example, if the bolt dia is 16, the thickness of nut, dia of the bolt head, thickness of washer etc are all automatically fixed. Hence only the dia can be specified and the rest of the data can be maintained in the design tables and “looked up” during geometry creation. For more information, refer to the function “mxlookup” in function reference.
You can also have a library of components based on each row of design table selected during run time base on parameters. For more information, please refer the topic “Design Table based components”
FormulaCAD provides an easy and flexible method of maintaining such data. You can define you own columns and edit the table structure as you go along.
Create
Click on Home -> New -> Parametric -> Design Table. Design Table form will appear.
Code needs to be unique identification of the table. This will be used to refer to the design table in formulas.
Table Name is the name of the table which will be displayed along with the code in the list of tables.
You can select whether you prefer to enter data in an “inverted format” with column headings on the left instead of top.
For each column, you define:
ColumnName is the name of the column – Needs to be unique and is used to refer to the column in formulas
Description – you can enter the description – will be displayed during data entry for easy hints
DataType – you can have number, string and yes/no – same description as in global parameters.
Req – Whether the column is required – Table data entry won’t allow saving without entry into a column which is marked as required.
Remark – you can enter a remark for your notes.
You can move the columns up or down. Doing so would affect the order in which columns are displayed during table data entry.
List
Click on Parametric -> Design Tables. Design Tables list will appear.
Edit Design Table Structure
Click on Parametric -> Design Table -> Right Click -> Edit Design Table Structure option. form will appear.
Edit Design Table Data
Click on Parametric -> Design Table -> Right Click -> Edit Design Table Data option. form will appear.
In the data entry screen you can add or deletes rows. For each column, data type as selected during structure definition will be enforced.
You can move the rows up or down using “move up” and “move down” buttons. You can insert in between by positioning on a row and pressing “insert”.
To copy from a row, select a row or a set of rows and press copy. Select a destination row and press “Paste Rows” to paste complete rows or “Paste cells” to paste only the selected column. Please note that FormulaCAD uses an internal clipboard to support this functionality and the Windows clipboard is not affected.
