Material Table

If you want to count the number of materials for purchases or make a list of material tags with which they are marked on parts, then this plugin will come in handy. First, you need to assign materials to parts (3d-solids). This means the usual render material, which is in the properties of any drawing object in AutoCAD or BricsCAD. You can also assign materials to individual solid faces - these materials will be considered coatings (laminate, paint, edges). If you want to recalculate the amount of material in pieces (sheets or rods) or you need the weight of parts, the cost of materials, then you need the program A>V>C> Properties palette. It will add sheet dimensions, density, and price to the properties of common materials. Then you can call the MatTable command, create and save the Table of Materials.

The program works on the basis of the Data Table, uses the same settings and has the same capabilities. The dimensions of parts and their surfaces are extracted from the metrics of the solid.

Program features

• • Filter only the necessary parts from all selected by layer, by type of object, by manufacturing technology.

  • Process all parts and assembly blocks visible through the viewport.

  • Read parts from inside assembly-blocks, arrays, xrefs, and dynamic blocks.

  • Index materials, assign them non-repeating letters, so that you can then use these indices on Smart Leaders for short designation of materials for surfaces and edges.

  • Take into account the necessary stocks (scraps) of materials for the manufacture of each part.

  • Count the number of different types of materials in different ways, depending on their purpose: by volume (for solid wood/metall), by area (for sheets and coatings), by length (for rods, moldings and edge bandings).

  • Customize any kind of table, with any columns, using the lookup system.

  • Create combined columns from multiple material or part parameters.

  • Format numbers and any data using substitution formats. Each column can be formatted differently.

  • Group table rows into sections and record section names.

  • Sort rows in ascending or descending order.

  • Count sums in concatenated rows.

  • Multiply the number of parts by a given factor. This will allow you to calculate the number of materials for a series of products in one drawing.

  • Calculate mathematical formulas from single line data.

  • Calculate totals by group and across the entire table.

  • Save results in drawing in DWG-tables or texts.

  • Split long DWG-tables into multiple layouts.

  • Save results in Excel, CSV, XML files.

  • Automatically pick the folder and name for the spreadsheet file according to your settings.

  • Save results to the clipboard for pasting into any programs.

  • The program has ready-to-use table styles for inserting a list of materials into the cutting programs Cutting3 and OptiCut (paneles and bars).

  • Quickly switch between multiple presets (styles).

  • Work in 1 click - select a viewport and table to insert data along with objects to retrieve data.

  • Customize all these features in a convenient dialog box.

Program limitations

• • The program extracts materials only from solids, it does not work with surfaces, meshes and other objects.

  • The program does not work with specialized materials Mechanical, BIM, Architectural.

  • The program is optimized for working with millimeter or inch drawings. You can use other units, but the program will not be able to display their name.

The MaterialTable program comes with commands for working with tables "Paste to Table" (PTT) and "Split Table" (TableSplit). As you know, the built-in AutoCAD tables have extremely limited functionality. It will not work just to copy cells from Excel and paste them into AutoCAD. This flaw is partially compensated by the "Pastet to Table" command. With its help, you can insert any text into the AutoCAD table, separated by tabs and line breaks. Including data copied to the clipboard by the "Material Table" command. And the "SplitTable" command will help to send a table that does not fit into one sheet (layout) to the printer.

Read about downloading and installing the program here.

To run the plugin, you will have to register account and top up your account balance by making a donation or receiving bonuses.

Then you can activate one of the licenses:

• • Annual license - 15 EUR.

  • Unlimited license - 75 EUR. Free updates for 1 year.

  • The trial period is 20 days.

Also the MatTable command is included in the collection A>V>C> Pro.

If you have not found the property you need or you need help in setting up - write to avc.programming@gmail.com and offer your price for finishing touches or consultations. If you need to export a table to a SQL database or web application, this can also be done.

Operating procedure

The procedure is the same as with the Data Table.

Remember to set the drawing units correctly (INSUNITS system variable). In millimeter drawings (insunits = 4), the number of materials is displayed in the table in meters.

But when configuring in columns and groups of a table, you should consider the features:

• • Material property substitutions should be written without the mat prefix. For example: %art%,%price%

  • You can also extract some data from the properties of the parts themselves, their assembly-blocks, and from the drawing properties. For example, to count the number of materials separately for each assembly, write %block% in the grouping.

  • When using part property substitutions, material records can be multiplied - you get separate records for each part (more precisely, for a group of parts with the same properties)

  • If the names of the material and part substitutions match, the program will prefer to output the material properties. For example %length% will be the length of the sheet of material, not the length of the part. There is no way to display the dimensions of the parts, use the Sawing Table for this.

  • You can use specialized Table of Materials lookups:

    • • quantity - The amount of material by area, length, or volume. Taking into account the required scraps (see "Cost Calculation" in Common Settings). The unit of quantity depends on the purpose of the material ("Use" fields).

      • pieces - The number of pieces of material. If the dimensions of the material are specified, the program will calculate how many sheets, ribs, and roll of edge banding are needed. Calculated as quantity / piece. That is, for example, the amount of square material will be divided by the area of ​​a sheet of material and you will receive the required number of sheets.

      • weight - The weight of all parts from this material, excluding scraps. The density of the material must be specified. Not calculated for coatings and edge bandings.

      • cost - The cost of this amount of material. The unit price of the material must be specified.

• The program extracts materials only from solids. You can set up filters so that the program does not use all specified solids, but only the ones you need by layer and technology. You can also display only some types of materials in the table using filtering by purpose (based on the material property "Use").