Day: 2025.04(April).20

Swap Patterns (CID) or ITM’s in CAMduct, ESTmep & CADmep

20 Apr 2025 Darren Young

Did you know you can change the Pattern (CID) of an Items in your Takeoff or Drawing in Fabrication? A Simple COD script is all it takes. Obviously, you an do some irrational things like try to change a piece of Decoiled Straight (Pattern #866) to a Square Elbow (Pattern #3). But there’s plenty of cases where swapping ITM’s and Patterns makes a lot of sense.

You may want to take a piece of Machine Cut Straight (Pattern #1) and change it to Decoiled (Pattern #35) or Sheared (Pattern #36) or the universal Straight (Pattern #866).

You may even want to keep the same pattern number and merely load a new ITM to get dfferent options like going from a Gored to Adjustable Elbow based on your library. The possibilities are really endless.

Credit for this technique goes to Christopher Kelly (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelleychristopher/) of Infinate CAD Solutions (https://infinitecad.com/) in Riverdale, Utah.

How It Works

The script itself is fairly simple if you know COD scripting. The Steps are as follows…

  1. Define the Path of the ITM file you want to Swap In.
  2. Define Restrictions on what ITM’s in your DWG/MAJ to apply to.
  3. Save Values you want to carry over.
  4. Load new ITM definition from Disk.
  5. Save Carry Over values to updated ITM definition.
  6. Update/Save Changes to ITM
REM - STEP 1
REM - Define Replacement ITM
dim itmName = MAPPATH_ITEMS + "\Imperial Content\CID866.itm"

REM - STEP 2
REM - If Item Matches Target You Want To Swap...
if item.PatNo = 1 Then

  REM - STEP 3
  REM - Save Values to Bring to New ITM
  dim saveAlias = item.Alias
  dim saveBoughtOut = item.BoughtOut
  dim saveDim1 = item.dim[1].Value
  dim saveDim2 = item.dim[2].Value
  dim saveDim3 = item.dim[3].Value
  dim saveDrawing = item.Drawing
  dim saveETag = item.ETag
  dim saveInsSpec = item.InsSpec
  if Upper(saveInsSpec) = "NOT SET" then saveInsSpec = ""
  dim saveISpecLock = item.ISpecLock
  dim saveNotes = item.Notes
  dim saveNumber = item.Number
  dim saveOrder = item.Order
  dim saveQty = item.Qty
  dim saveService = item.Service
  dim saveSpecification = item.Specification
  dim saveSpecLock = item.SpecLock
  dim saveSpool = item.Spool
  dim saveStatus = item.Status
  dim saveZone = item.Zone

  REM - STEP 4
  REM - If Loading New ITM Successful...
  if item.Load(itmName) Then

    REM - STEP 5
    REM - Restore SAves Values
    item.Alias = saveAlias
    item.BoughtOut = saveBoughtOut
    item.Dim[1].Value = saveDim1
    item.Dim[2].Value = saveDim2
    item.Dim[3].Value = saveDim3
    item.Drawing = saveDrawing
    item.ETag = saveETag
    item.InsSpec = saveInsSpec
    item.ISpecLock = saveISpecLock
    item.Notes = saveNotes
    item.Number = saveNumber
    item.Order = saveOrder
    item.Qty = saveQty
    item.Service = saveService
    item.Specification = saveSpecification
    item.SpecLock = saveSpecLock
    item.Spool = saveSpool
    item.Status = saveStatus
    item.Zone = saveZone

    REM - STEP 6
    REM - Updagte ITM and Save to Memory
    item.Update ()
    item.RefreshCosts ()
  else
    Debug "Error: Swap Failed. Unable to Load Replacement ITM."
  end if
end if