How to reproduce end points of AutoCAD lines in Conceptual Mass family using Dynamo?

[viratmanchanda]

Hi everyone,

I have been given this skeleton with a set of irregular profiles in a series as a dwg file (please see attached images and dwg file). I am supposed to recreate these profiles in Revit and then loft them to get a solid.

This is the process I followed:
Step 1: Import the Autocad file in the Conceptual Mass family.
Step 2: Make reference planes aligned to each profile
Step 3: Set each reference plane as host and make points on the ends of each segment making the autocad profile
Step 4: Make "line through points" in the required fashion to recreate the profile
Step 5: Repeat Step 3 and 4 till all profiles are done
Step 6: Loft to recreate solid

This method is extremely tedious and has some inaccuracies based on my ability and patience to snap the points at the end of each segment. This is where I was hoping Dynamo could automate some of these steps.

I am new to Dynamo so I am not sure of its capabilities but here is how I was hoping it might help.

Step 1: Locate the coordinates of the end points of all the segments of the the imported AutoCAD file.
Step 2: Place points on each of those end points
Step 3: Help me host the points based on reference planes I have already placed aligned to each profile (I know this might be a stretch)

From that point on, the process of recreating the profile would have to be manual. I would have to select the order in which I need the "line through points" to be to replicate the profile and then loft to create the solid.

Am I thinking correctly? Is that possible in Dynamo? I would much appreciate if anyone would share the nodes in Dynamo that could do this and also point me in the right direction of how to go about creating the visual script.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Virat

[josephpeel]

If you can create the geometry in Dynamo, you can use the Direct Shape by Geometry node to create it in revit.
There are also Geometry by Loft nodes and it is definitely possible to import cad lines. So it should be possible.

However, if you can figure out the formulas to describe it, it would be much better if you can generate the shape parametrically in dynamo. Then you could play around with the settings to adjust the form to whatever looks/fits best.
The top and bottom curves of your sections look like splines through about 4 points plus straight lines joining the ends. There are spline by points nodes too. So the first profile could be defined with the positions of 8 points, then the points could be offset in each subsequent profile using a formula for the taper.

[viratmanchanda]

Hi Josepheel.
thank you very much for this suggestion. Can you point me in a direction where I can get more information about how to use this node? I have checked the web and not found much on youtube. I found this

https://dynamonodes.com/2016/02/18/directshape-bygeometry-directshape-transform/

but found some code I could not understand. Maybe the answer is already there in this link but I, being an absolute newbie, was not able to see it.

Your direction seems to be the most hopeful so far and I truly appreciate any further help.

Best

Virat

[DanielHurtubise]

Why not export the lines start-end to excel then import that into Dynamo?

[viratmanchanda]

That sounds brilliant!!!
The form is in AutoCAD. Can you tell me the nodes or the workflow I would use for that?
Thanks a ton!!!

[DanielHurtubise]

Here's an idea

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5rr0xjkrhxicm5d/AutoCADLinesToDynamo.zip?dl=0

[viratmanchanda]

Dear Daniel,

I am truly thankful for and honestly blown away by your generosity of going to the extent of making the video and explaining the whole process.

Unfortunately, I am working on AutoCAD version 2015 and it does not have the export options for end point coordinates. While I get hold of the 2017 version, I had one question regarding the export. The export has the options for start and end points of the X, Y and Z coordinates of lines. Is the word "Lines" used loosely and actually includes all liner elements like arcs, non uniform curves? Meaning, when we export, does it give the start and end coordinates of all types of linear entities or just simple straight lines?

Thank you again very very much indeed.

[DanielHurtubise]

This options exists in 2015 but might not be in the same ribbon.
If you want to make sure you only get a certain set of lines, you can run that tool on selected elements and not the entire drawing.