Advice on creating a program

[Aero]

Due to the nature of my work I do a lot of traffic sign designs, which can be done by hand (taking a few hours to a day dependant on factors) or done via an excel spreadsheet fairly quickly.

However there are software packages available which offer a slicker input for their data. An prime example is this:

How would you go about creating an interface like this? Where you provide a few inputs into a form and it can plot out the information that you specify to a simple drawing. I.e. showing slope of the ground, number of posts and their height and the dimensions of the sign and foundations.

I have no problems performing the calculations for this and I have already written an excel spreadsheet but I'd love to be able to create a peice of software that would allow me to input the sign specific details, perform calculations to check if it's suitable and then produce a basic drawing with some of the calculated data.

I realise that this may be a fairly complex task but it's something that I feel would be worthwhile for me to undertake and there are a variety of situations in which I feel this could be useful.

Any help or guidance on where to begin with something like this would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

 

[Aero]

Do you work with KeyTraffic out of interest?

I use KeySIGNS and KeyLINES regulary.

Thanks for the responses so far, can you recommend any good C# books?

 

[Aero]

To be honest, something like this may seem pretty simple but any beginner will struggle to get it working properly.
If you have a set of requirements already I'd suggest having a look at one of the rent-a-coder sites out there. If this is something for your work I'm assuming you'd be willing to pay for it and you can get decent people reasonably cheaply if you look around.

It's something I would like to try for myself separate from work. Just in my spare time. As I could count this as a chunk of CPD towards my chartership. It's more of a hobbie than a work based project.