Hi,
I’m a newbee to Maxscript (although I know AutoLisp very well) and I’m finding it much harder to use maxscript because max itself is so much deeper than AutoCAD. Anyway-
I have 2 questions:
- How do I select objects by block sub-objects?
- How do I do string “strips” (in AutoLISP it’s “Substr” function), so I can disect strings character by character?
Maybe there is an easier way altogether. What I’m tring to do is this: I have layers of doors that are getting imported from AutoCAD as 2d Block objects, each with a name that describes the door type and size. I’m writing a script to automatically substitute these blocks with Pivot doors. Typical name of a block would be SL-36x6x80, this is a Single pivot Left hand hinged door 36″ wide, 6″ deep, 80″ high. So it would be great if I could strip out the name get the sizes and type and set them to variables to create new 3d doors.
Any help would be greatly appriciated…
Thanks,
Billibong
The max equivalent of autocad’s Substr function is substring
myString = “SL-36x6x80”
mySubstr = substring myString 4 2
would return “36”
To grab a single character from a string you can also use:
myString = “SL-36x6x80”
mySubstr = myString[3]
would return “-”
If the autocad objects are always named like SL-36x6x80 you may be better off using the filterString function:
myString = “SL-36x6x80”
myStringParts = filterString myString “-x”
would return the following array of strings : “SL”, “36”, “6” and “80”
To use these numeric parts as actual numbers in max you will need to convert them to integers. Here’s an example:
myString = “SL-36x6x80”
myStringParts = filterString myString “-x”
doorType = myStringParts[1]
doorWidth = myStringParts[2] as integer
doorThickness = myStringParts[3] as integer
doorHeight = myStringParts[4] as integer
Check out the online reference for more info about substring and filterString.
Good luck
Martijn
Hey Martijn,
Thanks alot for the info! Is there a good on-line reference file that just lists all the functions available in Maxscript? Also is there a way to easily select the sub-objects (children) of a block definition?
If I get this script working I’ll post it and share it. I can think of many uses for this type of script in Arch Visualization, where we are always importing AutoCAD block info.
Thanks Again,
Bill
Hey,
I answered my own question-
To select block subobjects just select the block, then
Max select child
B