Through the Interface

Implementing a simple graphing tool inside AutoCAD using F#

Well, I couldn't resist... as I mentioned in the last post - where we looked at creating a simple graph inside AutoCAD as an example of modifying objects inside nested transactions - the idea of graphing inside AutoCAD is a good fit for F#. This is for a number of reasons: F# is very mathematical in nature and excels at processing lists of data. I also spiced it up a bit by adding some code to parallelise some of the mathematical operations, but that didn't turn out to be especially compelling with my dual-core laptop. More on that later.... Read more →

Nesting instincts: getting more out of transactions inside AutoCAD using .NET

I received this question by email last week: Is it ever required to use more than one transaction per program? The simple answer is that you mostly only need one transaction active per command: you shouldn't leave a transaction active outside of a command, as this is likely to cause problems at some point, and within your own command one transaction is typically enough to do what you want. That said, the transaction mechanism inside AutoCAD has some pretty cool nesting capabilities that make it very flexible and a great way to manage sets of database operation and to... Read more →

Free online training: learn 3ds Max, Maya or MotionBuilder APIs in just one hour a day!

This is likely to be somewhat "off-topic" for the majority of this blog's readership, but anyway, here goes. (It turns out an increasing number of traditional CAD customers are making use of adjacent visualization applications, so I'm sure there are some people out there who will find this of interest... :-) Many of you have probably heard (or read) me mention, by now, that my team (DevTech) is responsible for providing a variety of technical services for members of the Autodesk Developer Network (ADN). What many of you may not know is that this covers pretty much all Autodesk's... Read more →

Implementing a LookAt command for AutoCAD using .NET

This post follows on from this previous one, where we looked at a technique for picking a face on an AutoCAD solid. Tony Tanzillo kindly pointed out this much cleaner solution for this problem, and also highlighted a really simple (and elegant) way to implement LookAt using standard AutoCAD commands. While I really like both pointers provided by Tony, I've decided to persevere with my existing - admittedly sub-optimal - approach, as much as to show ways to exercise some APIs that people may not have used themselves. Please be warned, this isn't the simplest way to address this... Read more →

Selecting the nearest face of an AutoCAD solid using .NET

This post has come out of an interesting discussion I had with Jim Cameron at the ADN party at AU 2008. He mentioned an idea, which he kindly later reminded me of by email, which was to develop an AutoCAD equivalent for Inventor's LookAt functionality. I didn't know about LookAt before this discussion, but it seems it allows you to look at a particular face: you pick a face and it rotates the view and zooms in to centre it on the screen. Rather than try to attack the whole problem at once, this post tackles selecting a face... Read more →

More fun with AutoCAD tables and their styles using .NET

In this previous post we saw some code to create a table style and apply it to a new table inside an AutoCAD drawing. While responding to a comment on the post, I realised that the table didn't display properly using my example: the first column heading was being taken as the table title and the rest of the column headings were lost - the headings in the table were actually taken from the first row of data. I suppose that serves me right for having chosen such eye-catching (and distracting) colours. :-) The following C# code addresses this... Read more →

Accessing the hidden _name property via the Design Review API

It seems that the approach for accessing the "_name" property - a hidden property often populated with interesting information about DWF and DWFx objects by our design applications - changed between Autodesk Design Review 2008 and 2009. The approach needed in ADR 2009 has now been demonstrated in a sample provided with this post on Volker's Beyond the Paper blog. Read more →

DevTV: ADN @ AU - AutoCAD .NET Basics

For those of you who were unable to attend various Developer Track sessions at this year's Autodesk University (or would just like a refresher for sessions you found useful), my team is beavering away at recording our various AU sessions as DevTV episodes. As a quick taste of how they'll (most likely) look, here's the first: Stephen Preston's popular "AutoCAD .NET Basics" session, which went by the session ID of DE205-4, this year. Here it is for view and for download (139.1 Mb). It's possibly a slightly larger session to stream or download than you may have seen in... Read more →

F# programming contest

Firstly, I'd like to wish you all a very Happy New Year! I've just taken three consecutive weeks of vacation for the first time in years, and it's done me the world of good. In fact I'm also on holiday this week but am easing back into the rhythm of things, and have decided to get back into the blogging saddle, while I'm at it. Thanks for your patience during the interruption in service. :-) So to start 2009 with a bang (or a pop, at least) I'm going to run a programming contest. The basic idea is to... Read more →