Through the Interface

Filtering Windows messages inside AutoCAD using .NET

Back when I joined Autodesk in 1995, I worked in European Developer Support with one of the most talented programmers I've met, Markus Kraus. One of Markus' contributions to the R13 ARX SDK (or maybe it was R14?) was a sample called pretranslate, which remained on the SDK up until ObjectARX 2008, under samples/editor/mfcsamps/pretranslate (it was removed from the 2009 SDK when we archived a number of aging samples). Anyway, with AutoCAD 2009 the API that makes this sample possible has been added to the .NET API, so in homage to Markus' original sample (which I have fond memories... Read more →

Generating fractals inside AutoCAD using F#

Some of you may remember my interest in fractals from these two previous posts. Well, while researching a problem in F# (related to the conversion of the last post's code to F#), I stumbled across this post from Luke Hoban, which contains some neat, recursive F# code to generate the Mandelbrot set, sending the result to the console as ASCII text. I couldn't resist modifying the code to generate Solids (filled shapes with 3 or 4 sides, as opposed to Solid3d objects) inside AutoCAD. Here's the F# code: #light module Mandelbrot #I @"C:\Program Files\Autodesk\AutoCAD 2009" #r "acdbmgd.dll" #r "acmgd.dll"... Read more →

Sectioning an AutoCAD solid using .NET

In the last post we saw how to access some of the 3D modeling functionality introduced in AutoCAD 2007. This post continues that theme, by looking at how to section a Solid3d object programmatically inside AutoCAD. Thanks to Wayne Brill, from DevTech Americas, for providing the original code that inspired this post. Here's the C# code: using Autodesk.AutoCAD.ApplicationServices; using Autodesk.AutoCAD.DatabaseServices; using Autodesk.AutoCAD.EditorInput; using Autodesk.AutoCAD.Runtime; using Autodesk.AutoCAD.Geometry; using System; namespace SolidSection { public class Commands { [CommandMethod("SS")] public void SectionSolid() { Document doc = Application.DocumentManager.MdiActiveDocument; Database db = doc.Database; Editor ed = doc.Editor; // Ask the user to select an... Read more →

Sweeping an AutoCAD surface using .NET

AutoCAD 2007 introduced more advanced solid & surface modeling tools. This post takes a look at how to generate one particular type of surface: a SweptSurface, which is created by sweeping a profile (which could be a region, a planar surface or a curve) through a particular path (which must be a curve). The below C# code shows how to sweep an object along a curved path to create a surface. Our SAP (for SweepAlongPath) command doesn't provide all the options of the standard SWEEP command, as the point is to show how to do this programmatically, not to... Read more →

Autodesk Design Review 2009 API documentation now available

Those of you developing with Autodesk Design Review will be happy to find out that the ADR API documentation for the 2009 release is now available on Beyond the Paper. Enjoy! Read more →

Deleting unused annotation scales in AutoCAD using .NET

Back in this previous post we looked at some code to add new annotation scales and attach them to textual entities inside AutoCAD. As a comment on that post, someone requested information on how to safely delete annotation scales from a drawing. I (very) speculatively responded, at the time, that it was probably appropriate to use Database.Purge() to make sure there were no dependencies on the scales before erasing them. I've just seen an internal email confirming this, so I thought I'd write it up in a quick post. [As a side not, this is presumably the technique used... Read more →

An automatic numbering system for AutoCAD blocks using .NET - Part 4

In the original post in this series, we introduced a basic application to number AutoCAD objects, specifically blocks with attributes. In the second post we extended this to make use of a generic numbering system for drawing-resident AutoCAD objects, and in the third post we implemented additional commands to take advantage of this new "kernel". In this post we're going to extend the application in a few ways: firstly we're going to support duplicates, so that the LNS command which parses the current drawing to understand its numbers will support automatic and semi-automatic renumbering of objects with duplicate numbers.... Read more →

DevCamps 2008 - Customization and Application Development Conferences

Last year we held our first DevCamps for AEC and Manufacturing customers & partners. Following on from their success, this year's events are fast approaching: this year we've added Geospatial into the mix, and are holding DevCamps through the month of June. Manufacturing DevCamp June 11-13, 2008 Portland, Oregon Architecture, Engineering & Construction DevCamp June 16-18, 2008 Wakefield, Massachusetts (near Boston) Geospatial DevCamp June 25-27, 2008 San Rafael, California (near San Francisco) This is really a good opportunity to meet and get to know members of my team (DevTech) and Autodesk's engineering teams, as well as getting first-rate information... Read more →

An automatic numbering system for AutoCAD blocks using .NET - Part 3

In the last post we introduced some additional features to the original post in this series. In this post we take advantage of - and further extend - those features, by allowing deletion, movement and compaction of the numbered objects. Here's the modified C# code, with changed/new lines in red, and here is the updated source file: 1 using Autodesk.AutoCAD.ApplicationServices; 2 using Autodesk.AutoCAD.Runtime; 3 using Autodesk.AutoCAD.DatabaseServices; 4 using Autodesk.AutoCAD.EditorInput; 5 using Autodesk.AutoCAD.Geometry; 6 using System.Collections.Generic; 7 8 namespace AutoNumberedBubbles 9 { 10 public class Commands : IExtensionApplication 11 { 12 // Strings identifying the block 13 // and the... Read more →

An automatic numbering system for AutoCAD blocks using .NET - Part 2

In the last post we saw some code to perform simple sequential numbering of blocks (reflected in a particular attribute contained in each block). In this next installment we'll extend the code by introducing a NumberedObjectManager class, which will manage the activities related to maintaining the sequence of numbers used by the various blocks. The main code will create an object of this class which will be used extensively in this and the next post by a number of new commands. Here's the updated C# code, with changed & new lines marked with a red line-number. For your convenience... Read more →

An automatic numbering system for AutoCAD blocks using .NET - Part 1

I had this interesting request come in by email: I have a problem where I have a block I need to insert into several parts of a drawing. The block has three attributes, 1. Point number, 2. Level, and 3. Code. I would like to do the following; 1. be able to select objects in a drawing and have it insert the block and autosnap to circle centres, and auto number each point number attribute. 2. be able to manually select points which are automatically numbered. 3. it should remember the last point number. 4. have the option to... Read more →

Storing custom AutoCAD application settings in the Registry using .NET

Thanks to Sreekar Devatha, Gopinath Taget & Jeremy Tammik (from DevTech India, Americas and Europe, respectively) for contributing to my knowledge in this area over the last few months (whether they knew they were doing so, or not :-). This post shows how to make use of a handy interface inside AutoCAD to place custom settings in the Registry and how to then read them back. The code is very simple: you simply open up the current profile and then access/modify your hierarchy of setting beneath it. I've used a Registered Developer Symbol (RDS) to prefix the section of... Read more →

Finding all the AutoCAD entities on a particular layer using .NET

This question came in recently by email: Is there a way to obtain the object IDs of all the object on a layer? I found the GetAllObjects() method of the Transaction object but it doesn't work. That's right: GetAllObjects() will return the objects accessed via (or added to) the transaction - it has nothing to do with retrieving objects based on any particular property. What you need to do is Editor.SelectAll(), the equivalent of acedSSGet("X") in ObjectARX and (ssget "X") in AutoLISP. You need the version where you pass in a SelectionFilter specifying the layer for which to search.... Read more →

Autodesk University 2008: putting it to a vote

The organizers of AU are asking people to vote on the sessions they'd most like to attend at this year's conference. The sessions being presented by my team are not part of that list, so here they are, in case any of you completing the survey were wondering about them. I should mention that at this stage the below sessions are still subject to change. Platforms (AutoCAD, RealDWG, AutoCAD OEM, DWF) Product API Title AutoCAD All AutoCAD APIs: The Right Tool for the Job AutoCAD .NET AutoCAD .NET Basics AutoCAD .NET AutoCAD .NET: A Tour AutoCAD .NET AutoCAD .NET:... Read more →