AEC DevBlog

Working with Presenter by API

By Xiaodong Liang

The ability of Presenter is available only in COM API currently. It is provided in terms of a plug-in. You will need to use COM interop if you work with .NET API.

In theory, there are three ways to get material, but there are some limitations with the current API.

1) assume you have added a material to the palette by UI. you can iterate and find it by name. this works with plug-in or control.

2) you can add a material from archive. But this only works in a plug-in. It does not work in .NET or ActiveX control.

3) API has one method to add material from a bitmap. However it is not implemented yet.

The following code shows the 3 ways. Please note the comments.

 

public void applyMaterial()

{

    ComApi.InwOpState10 state;

    ComApi.InwOwPresenterElement m_presenter = null;

 

    state = ComBridge.State;

 

    //find presenter plugin

    foreach (ComApi.InwBase oPlugin in state.Plugins())

    {

        if (oPlugin.ObjectName == "nwOwPresenterElement")

        {

            m_presenter = (ComApi.InwOwPresenterElement)oPlugin;

            break;

        }

    }

    if (m_presenter == null)

    {

        System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("cannot find presenter plugin!");

        return;

    }

 

    ComApi.InwOwUserMaterialsColl materials = m_presenter.UserMaterials();

 

 

    ComApi.InwOwMaterial material_to_apply = null;

    String oMaterial_name_to_apply = "Shiny texture";

 

    // way1: assume the "Shiny texture" has been added to the palette by UI

    // iterate and find the material

 

    //bool flgFind = false;

    //foreach (dynamic dmaterial in m_presenter.UserMaterials())

    //{

    //    ComApi.InwOwMaterial nmaterial = dmaterial as ComApi.InwOwMaterial;

    //    if (nmaterial.name == oMaterial_name_to_apply)

    //    {

    //        material_to_apply = nmaterial;

    //        flgFind = true;

    //        break;

    //    }

    //}

 

    // way2: in plugin, you can add from Archive

    // Note: this does not work with ActiveX control or .NET control

    try

    { 

        m_presenter.UserMaterials().AddFromArchive(oMaterial_name_to_apply);

        material_to_apply = m_presenter.UserMaterials().Last() as ComApi.InwOwMaterial;             

    }

    catch (SystemException ex)

    { ;}

 

    //// way3: from bitmap // this is NOT implemented!!

    //try

    //{               

    //    //m_presenter.UserMaterials().LoadFromFile(@"c:\mytest.bmp");

 

    //}

    //catch (SystemException ex)

    //{ ;}            

 

    if (material_to_apply != null)

    {

        // apply the material to the selected object

        if (state.CurrentSelection.Paths().Count > 0)

        {

            foreach (ComApi.InwOaPath path in state.CurrentSelection.Paths())

            {

                m_presenter.MaterialMappings().AddMapping(oMaterial_name_to_apply, path, false);

            }

        }

    }

 

}

About changing background, you could find a sample in SDK \api\COM\examples\Auto\AutoPresenterExample

or refer to this blog:
http://adndevblog.typepad.com/aec/2012/07/changing-background-for-publishing-file-using-script-automation-in-navisworks.html

Change the visibility of sub-catetory in the view.

Joe Ye

 

In a view’s Visibility/Graphic Overrides dialog, click the  tab "Model Categories", the sub-options of "Window", like "glass" / "Frame Mullion", can controlled the visibility of the related geometries of the Window. Then how to check this in API?  The Revit version is 2013.

We can simply call the View.SetVisibility(Category) to set the visibility of all main categories and also the sub-categories. You can simply get the target sub-category’s built-in category, and hide it.

Here is the code fragment to show the usage of the SetVisibility method. It hide the Glass and Frame/Mullion categories.

    Transaction trans = new Transaction(doc);

        trans.Start("ChangeVisibility");

 

    //Hide glass sub-category

 

    doc.ActiveView.setVisibility(doc.Settings.Categories.get_Item(

        BuiltInCategory.OST_WindowsGlassProjection),false);

 

    //Hide the frame/mullion sub-categories

 

    doc.ActiveView.setVisibility(doc.Settings.Categories.get_Item(

        BuiltInCategory.OST_WindowsFrameMullionProjection),false);

    trans.Commit();           

To get the visibility status of sub-categories, simply call View.GetVisibility(Category) method.

Orbit Direction in View Control

By Xiaodong Liang

Question
In product, the model orbits along the same direction of the mouse moving, i.e. move to left, model orbits to left. While in view control, the direction is flipped in NavigateOrbit mode.

Solution
If you look at the Autodesk.Navisworks.Api.Tool enum, you will see the complete list of navigation modes. The “CommonXXX” ones correspond to the AutoCAM navigation modes that are the default for the product. While the NavigateOrbit is the same as the legacy orbit mode.

But in the View Control, you cannot actually use the new AutoCAM navigation modes (all the ones that start “Common…”) as we currently don’t support AutoCAM in the View Control.

In order to let your user to have the same behavior in product and View Control, you can have NavisWorks set to use the legacy navigation modes (which in my opinion are much better anyway), then the ViewControl will behave the same way. i.e. orbit direction is flipped as that of mouse direction.

Toggle Realism in .NET API

By Xiaodong Liang

.NET API has not exposed the abilities to allow you to toogle Realism, but in COM API, there are relevant objects which could help. They are:
- InwNvViewer.Gravity: toggle gravity
- InwNvViewer.CollisionDetection : toggle collision detection.
- InwNvViewer.AutoCrouch:toggle auto crouch
- InwNvViewer.CameraMode: specify the mode is first person or third person

The following is a small code snippet.

using COMBridge = Autodesk.Navisworks.Api.ComApi.ComApiBridge;

using COMApi = Autodesk.Navisworks.Api.Interop.ComApi;

 

void toogleRealism()

{    

COMApi.InwNvViewPoint2 oV =

(COMApi.InwNvViewPoint2)COMBridge.State.CurrentView.ViewPoint;

//third person

oV.Viewer.CameraMode =

COMApi.nwECameraMode.eCameraMode_ThirdPerson;      

 

    if (oV.Paradigm == COMApi.nwEParadigm.eParadigm_WALK)

    {

        // gravity, coollison or crouch can only take effect in Walk mode.

        oV.Viewer.Gravity = true;//toogle gravity on

        oV.Viewer.CollisionDetection = true;//toogle collision detection on

        oV.Viewer.AutoCrouch = true; //toogle auto crouch on

    }

}