StrucPLUS SPDetailer Material Leaders and Lists

Question

StrucPLUS Material Leaders and Lists

StrucPLUS Material List Marker

Answer

The functions under this menu have been provided as a drafting tool to help detail steelwork.

MatLeader

This function draws a material item bubble and a leader line to indicate the item. The Bubble is an attributed block (if “Include Attribute?” toggle is checked) which invisibly stores the details of the labeled item.

This same program is used inside many of the other SPDetailer functions when a new item is added to the drawing.

The MatLeader display contains:

  • Item Mark – which is placed as an attribute in the centre of the bubble.
  • Tag No. – an optional tag number that is placed outside the bubble as text and does not form part of the attributed information
  • Tag Comment 1 & 2. – optional tag comments which are placed outside the bubble as text and does not form part of the attributed information
  • Include Attribute? – for the information to be stored in the attributed block this check box must be active. If you simply intend to duplicate a bubble and do not require the material information to be stored then uncheck this box. When the box is unchecked the drawn bubble contains a double lined circle (the outer circle does not plot) to represent those bubbles which do not store information.
  • Section – item section size and nomination
  • Quantity As Drawn – enter the number of items, which are As Drawn.
  • Quantity Opposite Hand – enter the number of items, which are drawn Opposite Hand (mirror image).
  • Item Length – enter the length of the section or item.
  • Item Mass – calculate and enter the weight of this item. If 0 (zero) is entered the mass calculation is ignored.
  • Calculate Mass – if the mass properties are stored in the MASS.DAT file, this function will look at the mass value and multiple this by the length of the item. The answer is then placed in the Item Mass edit field.
  • Remarks – enter the remarks required for this item. These remarks are the same that are placed in the Material List.

Edit MatLeader – if the MatLeaders are drawn with the “Include Attributes?” toggle on (single circle bubble), this function as able to edit the attribute. Same as DDATTE command.

Extract List – this function will look for all instances of a MatLeader (attributed) on the current drawing and write all the stored information out to an external database file. The file will be created as drawingname.mat

Insert MatList – this function run the above program and then draw a Material List (either up or down the page). The requested insertion point is to be either to the top right or the bottom right of the drawing border depending which direction the list is to be drawn.

Update MatList – should some of the MatLeaders are required to be edited, then this program will need to be used to update the above list. This function runs the above program, but removes the existing MatList prior to generating a new one.

MatList Spreadsheet – this function consolidates all the drawingname.mat files, in the current folder, and creates a *.csv file of them, which can then be opened in Microsoft Excel.