Through the Interface

Wizards vs. code samples?

As many of you are probably aware, my team (DevTech) is involved in a number of activities around the APIs to Autodesk products: we talk about them at conferences and seminars (what we tend to call "evangelism"), we provide API training, support & consulting, and we also develop content to publish via blogs and the Autodesk Developer Network website. One activity of which people may not be aware is the work we do around development tools: one very good example is the ObjectARX Wizard that ships on the ObjectARX SDK and helps C++ developers build applications and use various... Read more →

Reminder: F# programming contest deadline looming...

There are just a few days left before the February 28th deadline of the F# programming contest. Thanks to those of you who have already submitted entries! At least one potential prize is still up for grabs - beyond those I've ear-marked for existing entrants - so if you're working on something and plan on submitting it in the next week or two (even if you won't be able to meet the original deadline for the actual submission), then please let me know by email. If you haven't notified me by Saturday that you have something in the works... Read more →

Smoothly transitioning between 3D AutoCAD views using .NET - Part 1

This inspiration for this post came during the research for this previous post, where we looked at implementing LookAt inside AutoCAD. It also has roots in the need to perform smooth transitions when zooming inside AutoCAD, which the ZOOM command manages for transitions between 2D views. Fenton Webb, from our DevTech Americas team, kindly volunteered to put together an ObjectARX sample that formed the basis for the code in this post. A huge thanks to Fents for his hard work on this! This code presents a technique that allows smooth transitioning between 3D views in AutoCAD: you set up... Read more →

Creating your own custom RSS feeds with Yahoo! Pipes

Some of you might consider this to be slightly off topic (unless you make some bizarre connection with the fact that Carol Bartz is now CEO of Yahoo! :-). Actually there is a more direct connection, as the technology I'm introducing in this post - and have just had lots of fun playing around with - has some really interesting capabilities for people who would like to filter and customize the various RSS feeds to which they subscribe. Firstly I'd like to thank my friend and colleague Shaan Hurley for telling me about Yahoo! Pipes. This technology - which... Read more →

Creating an editable AutoCAD solid using .NET

This question came up recently on the AutoCAD .NET Discussion Group: how to create a Solid3d object which provides the user with the full set of grips to manipulate it (which I've abbreviated to "editable" in the title of this post :-). This comes down to a enhancements that were made in AutoCAD 2007 to allow better manipulation of solids via the user-interface via extended grips and a push-pull mechanism. These capabilities need to be enabled solids as you create them - and unfortunately cannot be retro-fitted to existing solid objects - by telling the solid that you would... Read more →

The new APIs in AutoCAD 2010 - Part 2

This is the second post in the series looking at the new APIs in AutoCAD 2010, and following on from this post. I've copied the information in this post from the recently-published Platform Technologies Customization Newsletter, a quarterly newsletter available to ADN members. A big thank you to Stephen Preston, Fenton Webb and Gopinath Taget for putting the material together. Parametric Drawing API If you know Inventor® software products, then this feature will seem strangely fam iliar :-). Using the same solver engine as Inventor, and closely following the Inventor parametric design user interface, the AutoCAD 2010 Parametric Drawing... Read more →

Navigation blues...

I need to vent. I've had an open ticket with Six Apart (the people providing TypePad, the service on which this blog is hosted) since January 2nd of this year. Kerry Brown had kindly pointed out a problem with Through the Interface's calendar navigation on December 26th, but as I was on vacation it took me a few days to get around to submitting the issue. The issue was related to an enhancement I made to this blog's navigation some time ago: somebody suggested showing more than a single month of posts, so I implemented an advanced template feature... Read more →

The new APIs in AutoCAD 2010 - Part 1

This is the first post in a series looking at the new APIs in AutoCAD 2010, and follows on from this post looking at the migration steps required. I've copied the information in this post from the recently-published Platform Technologies Customization Newsletter, a quarterly newsletter available to ADN members. A big thank you to Stephen Preston, Fenton Webb and Gopinath Taget for putting the material together. AutoCAD 2010 New API Overview AutoCAD 2010 has some really cool APIs. Please download the ObjectARX 2010 Beta SDK and review the Migration Guide for a complete list of changes and additions. [This... Read more →

Migrating your application to work with AutoCAD 2010

This post looks at the basic steps required to prepare your application to work with AutoCAD 2010. I've copied the information from the recently-published Platform Technologies Customization Newsletter, a quarterly newsletter available to ADN members. A big thank you to Stephen Preston, Fenton Webb and Gopinath Taget for putting the material together. AutoCAD 2010 software release marks the end of a binary compatibility cycle. Remember the migration from AutoCAD 2004/5/6 to AutoCAD 2007? Don’t worry – this time is a lot easier. And now you have another three years of compatibility to look forward to. The major migration issues... Read more →

Sometimes the best ideas are the simple ones

My sister sent this one through to me, and I think it's just great: a font with holes in, allowing you to save up to 20% on ink and therefore reduce your impact on the environment. Here's what the font looks like inside AutoCAD, to give you an idea: I don't think the eco-innovators have very much to teach the CAD world, however: we've been using dashed linetypes for years! :-) I'd be very interested to hear how the readers of this blog have made changes to their (or their customers') work processes in the interests of either economy... Read more →

Developer Days Online

Another first for my team... a few months prior to a new release of our various products we typically travel the world to tell ADN members about the new product and API features these products will (probably) contain. This year we presented to upwards of 1400 people in 21 cities around the world. Due to the early nature of the information the events on this tour are only open to ADN members and people who have signed a non-disclosure agreement. This year, we've decided also to present many of the DevDays tour sessions online - at no cost -... Read more →

Parallelized pixelization inside AutoCAD using F#

As promised in the last post, we're now going to look at how to change the code to make the colour averaging routine work in parallel. The overall performance is marginally better on my dual-core machine, but I fully expect it to get quicker and quicker as the number of cores multiply. To start with, though, here's the modified "synchronous" version of the code - as I went through making the code work in parallel, I noticed a bunch of general enhancements that were applicable to both versions. Here's the updated F# code: // Use lightweight F# syntax #light... Read more →

Importing and pixelizing images inside AutoCAD using F#

A friend and esteemed colleague asked - very validly - why I decided to use circles on a grid to display the results of a mathematical function in this last post, rather than using a linear object of some kind. Well I did, in fact, have a plan in mind... :-) This post extends the concept, introduced in that post, of displaying data in a grid of solid-hatched circles. This post focuses on importing a bitmap image from a file, pixelizing the contents and using the "averaged" pixel colours to modify our grid. The idea actually came to me... Read more →