forum.datacad.com

It would be a HUGE time saver if we could get a macro/add-in that would simulate vehicle turning similar to AutoTURN or BricsTURN.

Gets my vote.

Mark Bell wrote:Gets my vote.

+1

Definitely!!

This also gets my vote. Especially box trucks, buses (city and school) and semi trucks with trailers.

I expressed interest in writing such a macro some months ago, and have actually been looking into it over the last few days as I contemplate completion of my current project. So a post to this thread is perhaps timely from my point of view.

I have reviewed the functionality of AutoTurn and in all honesty it is beyond my capabilities to reproduce much of the functionality I see there.

What I think I may be able to do is to write something that could calculated an an approximate 2D swept path given a curve that represents the centerline of the steering axle (or perhaps the path of the steering wheel at the inside of the curve). Alternatively it could alert you to the fact that the given centerline was not possible based on the maximum steering angle of the vehicle. My macro would not take into account the speed of the vehicle or the time taken to turn lock to lock etc. Initially it would probably only work for non-articulated vehicles but it may be possible to support semis with trailers in a later version.

I am not committing to attempt to write such a macro at this stage, but I would be interested to receive any feedback on how useful such a macro would be. My gut feeling is that it could be useful for some preliminary work, but that you would still need to use other software before finalising a design where swept path calculations were in any way critical.

David - did you take a look at BricsTURN too? It is FAR less sophisticated and elegant than AutoTURN (and is fairly clunky) but could be a more reachable goal. The last time I talked with Dave G. (probably 2~3 years ago now?) about it he felt it wouldn't be that difficult to put together - but then again, he was (in my opinion) Mr. Wizard and could make the impossible happen!

David - did you take a look at BricsTURN too?

Thanks Alan. I have downloaded BricsTURN and intend to have a look at it but haven't installed it yet. I notice from the CadTools and xTurn forum that you had some problems getting it to work when you installed it back in Dec 2018, so if you have any advice in that regard it might be useful for me!
In the meantime it was suggested to me a while back that I should look at writing an updated version of Bill D'Amico's Sweep macro. My investigations indicate that there are some similarities in the processing required for this and a swept path macro, but the Sweep macro is going to be quite a bit simpler to implement. My current intention is to start with the easier macro (i.e. my version of a Sweep macro, which I will probably call 'Extrude' to avoid confusion with Bill's efforts). I can then use the experience in writing that as a starting point for a Swept Path macro. I hope the Extrude macro will only take a few months for an initial version.

Hi Dave -

I will have to look back and see what my issues where .. it may have been more of expecting BricsTurn to act more like AutoTurn than it actually did.

Hi Dave -

I finally took some time to get myself back up to speed with the issues I had with BricsTURN. It boiled down to my quicklink to BricsCAD not retaining the "Run as Administrator" check box in the icon properties.

I've re-downloaded it and have it running on BricsCAD V21 without any problems. As mentioned in my previous response it is pretty clunky (and hasn't been updated in quite a while).

I'm not sure how difficult it would be but to have the ability to back the truck/vehicle up (maybe as a separate routine?) would be a huge plus as well.

Alan