Excel inputs to configurations, over multiple instances

bill_pope032

I want to plot "topographic maps" of a specific excavation area, that change over time, to compare how much changes between any two "snap shots". The attached Excel worksheet shows (A-K) columns and (1-8) rows to define the location of each depth reading on a horizontal reference "ground plane". The columns are parallel vertical planes & sketches, and the rows represent where the data points appear along the intersection of each sketch and the "ground plane" reference sketch.  The "Net Depth Readings" measurements will feed points in Onshape, one spline per column sketch, that get lofted into a bumpy surface. I got tangled up in how to do it, but I have to believe someone has done it before. 

eric_pesty

This might help, you'd have to organize the data a bit differently but I think it should be able to do what you want!
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/a5566bc4a7c123d4958fd925/w/de9e3b016a0232b5b8ec183d/e/97994fc552ad661c4611715d

eric_pesty

This might help, you'd have to organize the data a bit differently but I think it should be able to do what you want!
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/a5566bc4a7c123d4958fd925/w/de9e3b016a0232b5b8ec183d/e/97994fc552ad661c4611715d

bill_pope032

Eric, 
Thanks for the quick response, and what you sent should work. I have not done any programming in Featurescript, so I have a few questions.
1. Can I change the program by inserting "inches" where it now reads "meters"? If not, I can certainly make the conversion on input & output.
2. looks like you start indexing columns with "0"; is that  so the the A, B, C etc. is not treated as part of the X, Y, Z row inputs? 
3. Can I do away with the whole convention of using sketches on planes to create my family of splines, and just go to sets of 3D points in space?. I noticed you set all Y values on the simple example to 0, so the points were all in the XZ plane.

eric_pesty

@bill_pope032
I actually didn't write that code so I can't answer these questions directly... I just came across it looking for something and it seemed applicable to your question. I didn't mean to imply I created it!

My approach would have been to first try to format my data to make it work with that custom feature but if that wasn't feasible/easy, then I would copy that code and start poking at it to make it do what I need!

I have created a couple custom features but they were fairly simple and none dealing with importing data like this, however taking a quick peak at the code it seems reasonably simple (fairly short) so might not be too hard to modify it depending on your coding abilities/willingness to brute force your way through trial and error!

This is the original thread I found this in, you might be able to reach out to the original author from there: https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/comment/39876#Comment_39876

bill_pope032

Eric: Thanks again for such a rapid response; I think I got it from here, and I will take a look at the original source as you suggest. Bill