Nearly every sector of architecture and engineering requires quantity take-offs. This dreaded task has been improved through the use of new utilities built into AutoCAD, but it doesn’t cover all of the bases. This lesson is going to teach the basics of utilizing AutoCAD Fields within Tables to gather information and quantities of your drawing objects. The examples shown, as in past lessons, are a little generalized so that you can expand on them using the numerous other options in the Field dialog box, or create something more specific to your sector of designing and drafting.

The example being used is a small sanitary sewer layout that I’d like to get an individual and total count of linear feet of pipe for.  You can see the basic layout of the sanitary system in the image below.

Begin by creating your table.  The style of table you use; the number, width, and height of rows and columns you choose; text size and style; and type of content you plan to populate it with will determine the settings you make in the Insert Table dialog box. Instead of telling you how to go about this, I’m going to suggest you try out a lot of different options and get comfortable in the dialog.  For the purposes of this exercise, I created a bare-bones table with title and data row.  In a real world situation you would likely have headers and populate all of the cells with valuable data, but that’s not the point of the exercise so let’s just get to it.

See the image below for the basic table I created and start the process of inserting the Field into the cell.

Once in the Field dialog box, select “Object” under the “Objects” category and press the “Select object” button.

This will take you back into your drawing in order to pick the line, arc, polyline, polygon, viewport, etc.  Choose the object to associate the field with and then filter the property, format, and precision of the object back in the dialog.

To get additional or more detailed information into the cell along with the Field, select the “Additional Format…” button and define and conversion factor, prefix, suffix, zero suppression, and/or number separators as seen in the image to the right. Pick “OK” when you are done to return to the Field dialog.

In the next image, you can see the results of all the variables you have formatted within the “Field expression” area of the dialog box.  This data is a mix-n-match of VBA, LISP, and Diesel in order for the Field to operate properly.  As you can tell, there isn’t much discernable information there, and the Field will not work if it is manually edited.  Click “OK” when you are done.

Below, you can see the Field populated in the table listing the length of line (which represents the pipe) in which I selected.  You’ll also notice that there is a space between the length and the “L.F.”, which is because I placed a space before the “L.F.” when I entered it in the suffix area of the Advanced Format dialog box.  It is forethought like this that makes your plans all that much cleaner, organized, and easier to read.

In the next image, you’ll see that I have duplicated the process I had already done, but for the remaining lengths of pipe I want to calculate.  In the cell next to “Total Length” you can enter a formula in two ways.  The first method is described below.

Select “Formula” from the “Objects” category and select the “Sum” button.  This will take you back to the drawing, allowing you to select a crossing window of the cells you want to include in the sum.

You can see the process of selecting the cells to be included for the sum below.

The resulting options back in the dialog box are format, precision, and additional format-similar to what has been available in previous exercises.  Once you have defined the settings you’d like in the cell, select “OK” to return to the drawing.

The image below displays the resulting sum of the pipe lengths as defined in the formula.

For those that are more familiar with Microsoft Excel and the process of typing formulas that it offers, that method is available too. The image below captures the basic methodology of using formulas from Excel in an AutoCAD table to produce the same results.

If you pay close attention to the different options available in the Field dialog box for objects, you will notice that this exercise is merely an inkling of what’s possible.  Dive into the dialog box head first and get comfortable with it.

Also, if you follow me on Twitter or subscribe to the RSS feed, you will notice that I will be posting a third entry this week to finish out all the topics I want to discuss.  Also, I plan on having a wrap-up post over the weekend to resolve any loose ends from the month and to give you the opportunity to give me some feedback.  If you don’t follow me or aren’t subscribed to the feed, be sure to check back regularly for updates.