3842 Modernizing SumMassProps
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Paper
Abstract
In 2003 I created the initial version of SumMassProps, an Excel Add-In that created a macro-based Excel solution for correctly summing the 10 basic mass properties (Mass, 3-axis Centers of Gravity, 3-axis Moments of Inertia, and 3-axis Products of Inertia). This was released as SAWE Paper 3310. This solution had a bare-bones Graphical User Interface (GUI) that only created the necessary header lines required to run the Add-In, all the “guts” of the solution were accessed using Excel’s built-in Paste Function) to access each of the Add-In’s summing functions.
This was not ideal. Although the original 2003 version of SumMassProps did ensure that the consistent equations were used to sum mass properties, in 2012 a major update was issued as
SAWE paper 3574. This update included a full GUI utilizing menus to access the various functions, as well as adding additional functionality to the Add-In. This version also included corrections to the summing of mass properties uncertainties as covered in SAWE paper 3360 “Are You Sure?”. In 2009 Microsoft created a different way to access functions and macros, calling this new method the Ribbon. Later, access to functions and macros using menus was discontinued within Visual Basic for Applications, the language used to create the SumMassProps Add-In, and
the Add-In would fail to load. This forced either a return to the 2003 method or a re-write of the program to encompass the new Ribbon paradigm versus a menu driven paradigm.
This paper describes the necessary steps to implement a Ribbon-based Add-In, and will also be a release for SumMassProps Version 10 (2026) that utilizes a Ribbon-based paradigm, which necessitates a re-write of the Tutorial and the User Guide to walk the user through the Add-In.
