Our engineer's are interested in developing a C# application that will send external data to RAM Structural System to create a complete structural model. The ideal method for interfacing with RAM would be through a Custom Menu inside of the RAM Manager but we are not sure if this is possible. All of the published examples we have found use VBA and write data outside the program o the RAM .RSS file. Is this the only method of externally communicating with RAM or can we create a Custom menu inside RAM which attaches a EXE or DLL? Thank you.
Hi Seth,
Hope you are doing well. We are still doing a lot of work with our API integration to RAM SS and our Database Model Builder Tool and we have run across an issue that your team might have an answer to. We have recently (this afternoon!) discovered a feature in RAM SS Modeler dealing with Overriding the Live Load Reduction factors for Beams and Columns. Many times in our projects, we would not reduce the LL on Floor Beams, sometimes on Floor Girders, and nearly all of the time on Columns. So new tool as shown in the attached screen shot is very welcome. But, of course, the engineers are not asking me if we can control the LLR factors on individual elements through the RAM DA API? I was able to find a reference to LLR I the IMemberData1 object but I can't understand how to use it or if it is even a solution. Please see the attached screen shot for background. Do you think there is a solution?
Chris
In the Developers Guide I see reference to "fMaxLLRed" = Max live load reduction in the IColumn interface, but nothing for beams. You might try the same property with ILayoutBeam interface.
Thank you for responding. I investigated the MaxLLRed variable and I can see it for Columns in the IColumn interface but could not find an equivalent function in the IBeam or ILayoutBeam interfaces. Would be really nice to have this in the API, particularly with it being available in the RAM SS GUI, but I don't know if your developers could add this feature without too much effort?
We did have one other thought and that would be to turn LL Reduction Off for everything and then use the IColumn MaxLLRed variable to force LL Reductions in Columns only? Do you think this is a possible legitimate workaround?