newbie: writing data file that can be read by ACAD, use lsp?

I wrote a Visual Basic program that calculates any number of (x, y)
points along a parabola curve. I save the coordinates to a text file,
but one user has asked if I can output the data in a form that he can
read directly into ACAD. My data looks like this (but I can format it
any way ACAD would like):

x -18.00 y 12.00
x -15.75 y 9.19
x -13.50 y 6.75

I was thinking that if I embedded the data into a .lsp file similar to
the ascpoint.lsp file (from the file):

; ASCPOINT.LSP is a utility for use with AutoCAD Release 10 or 11,
; which reads coordinate data from ASCII files in CDF or SDF format,
; and generates AutoCAD geometry using the incoming coordinate data.

the user would be able to read load the .lsp file from ACAD and see the
parabola drawn for him.

Is this the best approach to making an ACAD readable file? If so I would
like to post my current .lsp file here to for pointers, I'd appreciate
any help I could get.

Thanks,
Mike

 

Hi Mike

this is one possible way to do it. There are some other ways:

- your Basic application can write a dxf file
- your Basic application can write an AutoCAD script file
- you can wirte an additional lisp program wich reads your original point file and creats the points/lines in AutoCAD.

Which possibility you choose depends on diffrent conditions (can you change output format, is it only for AutoCAD or also for other CAD programs, how much points are there - must it be fast or dosnt that matter etc.)

bob.at

 

That looks like a good approach to me. I think you kind of answered your
own question. I am assuming you have ascpoint.lsp available, so just use
that to import your point data. Just format the data file in SDF (space
delimited) or CDF (comma delimited). For example, CDF will look like:

-18.00,12.00
-15.75,9.19
-13.50,6.75

Just format your point output this way and have your user use ascpoint.lsp
to get it into acad.

LT

 

Thanks to Larry and bob.at.

This worked great, the user wasn't too good with autocad and that was
why I was trying to simplify this for him down to opening 1 drawing or
lisp file of some sort - but he got some help at work and learned how to
use ascpoint.lsp and now the above approach works great for him, so I
don't have to embed the data in a file for all.

Thanks for both of your replies,
Mike