Importing parametric splines from Mathcad (or Excel book) to SW

I am an inventor working out of my home lab. Much if not most of my work is done by simulation and analysis in MathCad v13. SolidWorks

2006-3.1 is my platform for visualizing the result, making it look pretty with Photoworks, move it around with Animator, use it as a model for FEA, and then send out the drawings and have it made.

The aerodynamics, fluid dynamics, boundary conditions for antenna surfaces, transducer (speakers, hydrophones), dynamic stresses, all involve surfaces that are defined by equations developed inside MathCAD. Statistical analysis also lets me make wonderful surface plots that I would really like to turn into models. I can easily export the solutions to them at as many points as any matrix or table I like. Even to a workbook in Excel.

I have one nasty problem that, in my ignorance, I can't seem to solve. How do I get a parametric curve on my data points into SW. I know I can import the data from an Excel or TXT file with SW curve XYZ but it's useless if its not parametric. I can copy the points, one by one to a "real" spline by hand, but I need to have it at least simi- interactive. That is, if the data file changes, I can at least redo the curve in SW.

I am using a work-around is non-interactive and difficult to translate the syntax but leads me to think that the solution should be easy. From Matt Lombard's extremely helpful site I downloaded the macro "eqcurve.swp". It works very well to generate parametric spline curves from an equation that is solved at each chosen "X" by SW's macro edition's Visual Basic 6. I am not a programmer and don't know VB but it looks like this macro gets the spline into SW via an Excel workbook (table). How can I get my data, not my equation, to form the SW spline that can be edited and used for surface generations, lofts, and edges? Can anybody help? This has been alluding me for over two years now.

Steve Smith

Here's a way that's maybe not perfect, but it does work.

Make your data points as a text file, in X, Y, Z format, then make the curve through XYZ points using the text file. When you make a change, just save the change to the XYZ text file, and edit the definition of the curve feature, point it to the updated file, or even to a file with the same name but different data, and the curve will update.

I tested this, and it does work, even with dependent features, nothing blows up due to losing a reference to the curve. Types of references I tested were using the curve to create a lofted surface, using the midpoint of the curve to create a perpendicular plane, and a sketch with a pierce relation.

good luck!

matt