Native Macros & Automation

Your CAD system's own macros and journals, the Automation Hub that turns them into named commands, scheduled tasks, and the odd jobs around a CAD job — spreadsheets, dialogs and scripts. For SphereHarness's own recorded macros, see Macros.

Which one do I want?

SphereHarness macro — you did something with SphereHarness and want to do it again. Recorded and replayed by SphereHarness as a .cadmacro text file; no code. Start here — it is the one most people need.
Variation template — one master document in several named sizes, filled in as a grid.
Native CAD macro or journal — a SOLIDWORKS VBA macro, an NX journal or a Solid Edge macro that already exists, or that you want recorded in the CAD system's own format. This page.
Automation Hub - a library of those scripts with named parameters, so you (or a colleague) can run them without opening a code editor. Summarised below; the full page covers .NET assemblies, the per-CAD rules and a worked example.
Scheduled task — the same work, but at 6 a.m. on Tuesdays. This page.

Native CAD macros and journals

SphereHarness can drive your CAD system's own recorder, and can run scripts that already exist.

Recording in the CAD system's own format

Start recording a native macro, and stop it when I say — save it to C:\macros\hole_pattern.swp

Support differs by CAD system:

CAD system	Native recording	Format
SOLIDWORKS	Yes	VBA macro (`.swp`, `.swb`)
Siemens NX	Yes	Journal (`.cs`, `.vb`)
Solid Edge	Yes	Macro (`.bas`)
Autodesk Inventor	No — Inventor has no equivalent recorder exposed to SphereHarness	Use iLogic rules (`.iLogicVb`) instead
AutoCAD	No - AutoCAD has no recorder exposed to SphereHarness	Run AutoCAD's own `SCRIPT` or a LISP routine as a command, run a compiled .NET assembly through the Automation Hub, or use a SphereHarness macro

Running an existing script

Run the VBA macro at C:\macros\export_step.swp on the active part

Write an iLogic rule that drives the plate thickness from the "Thickness" parameter, then run it

NX journals play inside the NX session you are sitting in, on the work part, so a recorded journal works on what you have open and you can undo it normally. A journal that needs a work part when nothing is open is refused before it plays rather than failing halfway, and one that fails reports its own exception and its own line number. A self-contained journal that opens and saves its own files can still be run in a separate session if you ask for that explicitly. See the Automation Hub.

The Automation Hub

The Automation Hub is a catalogue of scripts with declared parameters. Import a script once, and afterwards anyone can run it by name with values filled in, without touching the code. The short version is below; the Automation Hub page has the whole of it, including .NET assemblies, what each CAD system does differently, and a worked example on a folder of somebody else's scripts.

Importing

Accepted files: .cs and .vb (NX journals, and the plain .vb files most Inventor iLogic rules are saved as), .swp and .swb (SOLIDWORKS macros), .iLogicVb (Inventor), .bas (Solid Edge) and .dll (.NET assemblies, on any of the five CAD systems). Importing never runs anything.

Import C:\macros\rename_features.swp into the Automation Hub

Browsing and running

What automations are available for SOLIDWORKS?

Show me the parameters of the "Rename features" automation

Run the "Rename features" automation with prefix set to BR- on the active part

Asking for the parameters first is worth the extra prompt: it tells you the types, defaults and allowed values before anything runs.

Running one automation over many inputs

Run the "Export STEP" automation once for every .sldprt in C:\parts, writing the output to C:\step

Improving an automation

SphereHarness can read the code of a stored automation and either critique it or change it.

Analyse the "Rename features" automation and suggest improvements

Edit the "Export STEP" automation to add error handling and log each file it processes

An AI edit to a working script is a draft. Read the diff, and run it on a copy of a real file before it touches production data.

Scheduled tasks

Any chat request, automation or script can be put on a schedule — one-time, daily, weekly or monthly.

Every weekday at 6 am, export the BOM of C:\projects\frame.sldasm to C:\reports\frame_bom.xlsx

Tomorrow at 18:30, run a DFM report on the active part and save it to C:\reports

List my scheduled tasks

Show me the run history of the nightly BOM export

Cancel the nightly BOM export

Scheduled work runs on the workstation, through the CAD system. The machine must be on, and the CAD application reachable, at the scheduled time.

Driving a CAD command's dialog

Some jobs are only reachable through a dialog. SphereHarness can find a command, open it, read what is on screen, fill the fields in and confirm — the same actions you would perform with the mouse.

What CAD commands are available for sheet metal?

Search the commands for anything to do with "pattern"

Open the Fillet command dialog

Read the open dialog and tell me what fields it has and their current values

Set the radius field to 5 and click OK

Cancel the open dialog

Opening a command only opens the UI — it does not create geometry. Reach for this when there is no direct operation for what you need; for ordinary modelling, the direct operations in Part Modeling are faster and more reliable. If a dialog is waiting for input, the chat cannot continue until it is answered, so either let SphereHarness confirm it or click it yourself.

A full-screen capture including all dialogs and panels is available when you want to show SphereHarness — or a colleague — the exact state of the screen.

Take a full-screen screenshot including the ribbon and any open dialogs

Spreadsheets and data

Much repetitive CAD work is really data work: a list of sizes in, a table of results out. SphereHarness reads and writes Excel workbooks and CSV files directly.

Read C:\input\sizes.xlsx and tell me what columns it has

Create one plate part per row of C:\input\sizes.xlsx, named from the Part Number column, and save them in C:\parts

Write the mass and bounding box of every part in C:\parts to a new sheet in C:\reports\summary.xlsx

Build a workbook from our quotation template with the BOM of this assembly filled in

Workbooks can also be exported to CSV or HTML, worksheets added, and cells formatted. For sending the result on to another system — ERP, email, a REST endpoint — see Connections.

Scripting, when nothing else fits

SphereHarness can also run Python, PowerShell and shell commands on the workstation — useful for the file-handling around a CAD job (renaming an export batch, tidying a folder, reading a CSV of dimensions before it drives a model).

Read C:\input\sizes.csv and create one plate part per row, named from the Part Number column

These tools run with your Windows account's permissions. Treat a request that writes or deletes files the way you would treat running the same command yourself — read what it proposes before you agree to it.