🎨 SolidWorks RAL Color & Property Management Macro
This project focused on creating a SolidWorks macro with a UserForm to manage RAL colors, feature visibility, and custom properties efficiently.
The solution helps engineers and designers standardize colors while maintaining accurate metadata in parts and assemblies.
🔹 Project Overview
- Objective: Simplify the process of:
- Applying standardized RAL colors to parts and assemblies
- Hiding/unhiding features interactively from a macro
- Adding, updating, and managing custom properties (e.g., Material, Finish, Project Code) via a UserForm
- Exchanging property data with Excel for reporting and documentation
- Deliverable: A VBA macro with a modern UserForm embedded into SolidWorks, providing engineers a centralized tool for color and property management.
🛠 Tools & Features
- SolidWorks 2024
- VBA Macro & UserForm with:
- Dropdown list with predefined RAL colors
- Checkboxes for feature hide/unhide
- Text fields for custom property entry and modification
- Transmit to 3D button → Applies the values entered in the UserForm directly to the model
- Read from 3D button → Extracts selected custom properties from the active model, copies them into the clipboard, and allows pasting them into Excel for reporting
- Custom Properties API used to ensure metadata consistency across assemblies and parts
📸 Project Media
Custom UserForm for RAL color selection, property management, and data exchange.
Macro in action – applying RAL colors, hiding features, updating custom properties, and transmitting data to Excel.
📂 Deliverables
- SolidWorks VBA Macro with UserForm
- Predefined RAL Color Database integrated into dropdown list
- Full support for:
- Property editing and transmission to 3D
- Color application
- Feature visibility toggling
- Property extraction to clipboard for Excel use
- Video demo showing real workflow usage
🎯 Key Learnings
- Enhanced user interaction in SolidWorks macros using UserForms
- Leveraged API for color, feature, and property control
- Created a reliable two-way data exchange between SolidWorks and Excel (via clipboard)
- Improved workflow efficiency for large projects requiring consistent RAL colors and structured metadata