Outputting a bill of materials to a test file

rustyncc1701

Hey,

I looked though user guide/command reference but I can't find a way to export a bill of materials to a text file. I can only insert it into a drawing. The problem with this is that I have like 100 parts and they don't come close fitting on a page. It would be nice to just output this to a spread sheet or something like that. Does anyone know how to do something like this?

Thanks,
Dale

RSW

Ditto, I'm running into the same issue with bill of materials, and more such as adding and showing user data as the default BOM does not show all needed information.

I'm in the same boat as I need to be able to output the BOM to Excel, either as an excel document or through a delimited text format from within Bricscad as a table to file export option (preferably without having to use 3rd party add-ons).

A workaround for now is to doubleclick on the BOM table (and this is a regular table), then select all entries you want to be in Excel, copy (CTRL-C in the Windows version), open an Excel worksheet and then paste into Excel. If all goes well the entries should be in rows and columns as in the Bricscad BOM/table. If necessary re-export from Excel to a text file if that is what you ultimately need.

Per Gogstad

Have you tried dataextraction? Here is also a tutorial video related to BIM data extraction.

https://blog.bricsys.com/bricscad-bim-advanced-data-extraction/

RSW

@Per Gogstad said:
Have you tried dataextraction? Here is also a tutorial video related to BIM data extraction.

https://blog.bricsys.com/bricscad-bim-advanced-data-extraction/

I tried data extraction, it works if the items are blocks or xrefs but that is not really how mechanical objects are usually drawn. When doing mechanical it is common to create parts (i.e. one drawing for each object) and (sub)assemblies where the parts are combined into the actual product. All kept together with parametric constraints etc. Turning parts into blocks to be able to add attributes sort of defeats the purpose of mechanical modelling and adds another step to do over and over again for each unique part.

Data extraction does not seem to work with parts in an assembly even though the parts could be considered similar to XREFs. So that is why the current BOM (Bill of Materials) should be improved with an option to directly export a BOM to e.g. Excel or a delimited text file. Or the data extraction is not working properly if it should work.

rustyncc1701

Thanks for the the answers. I can just use the cut and paste for now but it seems like they should have a way to output the BOM to a file.

Jason Bourhill

Have you raised a support request to ask for this feature?
With the BOM table, after selection you can right mouse click and select "Export Table..." from the context menu. This runs TABLEEXPORT and allows you to write the BOM out to .csv

Regards,
Jason Bourhill
CAD Concepts

RSW

Yes I have raised a support request for direct export. Exporting the table to CSV is another route but then I would need to import the CSV etc. so that would be additional steps where copy paste works just as well and faster.

I got a reply from Support that custom properties are on the roadmap, but without an indication of when it would be implemented. So for those in need of custom properties like SolidWorks etc. instead of the parameter workaround as described above you may want to file a support request as well for custom properties to be added to give Support/Development team an idea of demand (which may help for prioritising development/implementation).