updating an exploded material table

[Mahdi_Nasr]

Hello, good day. I’d like to continue working on the material volume tables in AutoCAD — specifically the ones that have been exploded and no longer retain a defined table structure.

These tables begin with a top row that contains the stationing of each section, formatted like this:
Material(s) at Station 0+250.00
This first row contains only one column.

The second row has four fixed columns that serve as headers for the data rows below. These headers are consistent across all sections and do not change. From left to right, they are:

Material Name

Area

Volume

Cumulative Volume

The third row and all subsequent rows contain the actual data, aligned with the headers above. The material names may vary from project to project, but within a single project, they remain consistent across all sections.
In the second column of each row, the area of the material is listed as a numeric value.
The third column contains the volume, and the fourth column contains the cumulative volume.

Since these tables have been exploded, the numbers no longer update automatically. That’s why we need a solution where, after manually updating the area values, the corresponding volumes and cumulative volumes are automatically recalculated and replaced in the table.

So far, all our attempts to achieve this have failed.

Now I’d like to share some insights that might help:

Stationing is critical.
The first step must be to extract the station number from the top row as an integer. This allows us to calculate the distance between two consecutive sections, which is essential for computing the volume of a truncated cone.

Area values should remain unchanged.
We only need to read them and use them in calculations to update the Volume and Cumulative Volume columns.

New observation about table geometry:
The vertical spacing between the second row and all subsequent rows is exactly three times the text height.
Also, the insertion point (X coordinate) of the area values is exactly aligned with the insertion point of the word “Area” — and the same applies to the Volume and Cumulative Volume values.

Update logic:
Let’s assume we have only one material row (though usually there are more).
Let’s name the area value in the first section A1, and the area in the second section A2.
These two values represent the top and bottom surfaces of a truncated cone with height H, where H is the difference between the station numbers of the two sections.
The calculated volume should replace the volume value in the second section.
Then, this volume should be added to the cumulative volume from the first section, and the result should replace the cumulative volume in the second section.

Naturally, this volume and cumulative update must follow the correct station order