It is possible to call Microsoft Office Excel from an RBD command to read and write data to and from Excel. If Excel is available, RBD will automatically detect and load the Excel interopt. If Excel is detected, the solver output will contain the following lines at the beginning.

    Processing Python commands
    import base modules and macros
    Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel is loaded
    Ans.Customize.Misc interop is not available
    ready to process commands

The Excel application is initiated using:

excel=Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.ApplicationClass()
excel.Visible=True
excel.DisplayAlerts=False

Use the following line to open an Excel file:

workbook=excel.Workbooks.Open(r"E:\RBD\MODELS\COMMANDES\EXCEL\Excel_v160_files\Velocity.xlsx")
ws=workbook.Worksheets[1]

To read data from the current worksheet, use the following:

xlrange = ws.Range["A2", "B66"]
values=xlrange.Value2

Before using the values in an RBD script, it may be necessary to convert them to real values:

realValues=System.Array.CreateInstance(float,2,values.GetLength(0)) 
for i in range(0,values.GetLength(0)):
    print '{0:e} {1:e}'.format(values[i,0],values[i,1])
    realValues[0,i]=values[i,0].real
    realValues[1,i]=values[i,1].real

Similarly, it is possible to write values to the current worksheet. The following sequence of commands shows how to create a new worksheet and write the joint force in the new worksheet:

# retrieve joint force measure
force=joint.GetForce()

# obtain time values for this measure
values=force.FillValuesThroughTime()

# create a new worksheet
ws2=workbook.Worksheets.Add()
ws2.Name='Reaction forces'

len=values.GetLength(0)

cell=ws2.Range["A1"]
cell.Value2='Time'
cell=ws2.Range["B1"]
cell.Value2='Fx'
cell=ws2.Range["C1"]
cell.Value2='Fy'
cell=ws2.Range["D1"]
cell.Value2='Fz'
cell=ws2.Range["E1"]
cell.Value2='Mx'
cell=ws2.Range["F1"]
cell.Value2='My'
cell=ws2.Range["G1"]
cell.Value2='Mz'

# put values into the new worksheet
end="G"+str(1+len)
cells=ws2.Range("A2",end)
cells.Value2=values