AutoCAD DevBlog

2015 New API Usage : AcGiGeometry::edge

By Madhukar Moogala

In this blog post , I will illustrate a simple usage of our new AutoCAD2015 API AcGiGeometry::edge(const AcArray<AcGeCurve2d*>& edges) this API essentially defines a boundary of a fill ,can be used to display hatch – either pattern based , or solid hatches or gradients.

In my example ,I have created a custom entity deriving from AcDbPolyline and drawing a hatch in my graphics database, to define the boundary of my hatch. I have extracted line segments from my custom entity and passing those to edge API.

Code Snippet:

Adesk::Boolean ADSKMyEntity::subWorldDraw (AcGiWorldDraw *pWd)

{

assertReadEnabled () ;

/*Purpose is to diplay the hatch using new API AcGiGeometry::edge

on the my entity[ADSKMyEntity] deriving from polyline */

Adesk::Boolean result = Adesk::kFalse;

AcArray<AcGeCurve2d*> geCurves;

double hatchDev = 0.0;

hatchDev =

pWd->deviation(kAcGiMaxDevForCurve, AcGePoint3d::kOrigin);

AcGiFill acgiSolidFill;

acgiSolidFill.setDeviation(hatchDev);

int nSegs = -1;

AcGeLineSeg2d line;

AcGeLineSeg2d *pLine;

nSegs = this->numVerts() ;

for(int i = 0; i < nSegs; i++)

{

if(this->segType(i) == AcDbPolyline::kLine)

{

    this->getLineSegAt(i, line);

    pLine = new AcGeLineSeg2d(line);

    geCurves.append(pLine);

 

}

}

 

pWd->subEntityTraits().setFill(&acgiSolidFill);

/* geCurves represents boundary of hatch*/

result = pWd->geometry().edge(geCurves);

return result;

}

You can download full sample project ADSKEntity

We're hiring

By Stephen Preston

The ADN team is hiring an API evangelist based in our San Francisco office. Please spread the word. Experience with AutoCAD APIs - or any other Autodesk technology - is not required (but would be a bonus).

https://www.linkedin.com/jobs2/view/13975557

Autodesk is hiring an API evangelist!  If you’re a software engineer who’s enthusiastic about new technologies, enjoys interacting with others and sharing this enthusiasm, and loves to evangelize code –then this is the job for you!

Autodesk is in the process of launching a large number of new cloud services – all of which are designed as platforms for developers to build upon.  We need to tell the world about these new APIs.  As the successful candidate, you will join the Developer Technical Services team (our developer evangelist team at Autodesk, and part of our Cloud Platforms Division).

Responsibilities:

• Working directly with third party developers to help them solve their problems using our APIs. 
• Acting as developer advocate to our internal software development teams – helping them understand the APIs our developer community needs to be successful.
• Evangelizing our new technology through conferences, hackathons, meetups, blogging, webcasts, social media, and whatever other communication channels you dream up.

To be successful you will have the following attributes:

• You’re a gifted programmer who is excited about learning new technology and teaching others. (You already know deep in your heart if you’re a natural programmer – if you don’t then you’re not).
• You have a good grounding in web programming technologies, including JavaScript, REST and HTML5.
• You have a good grounding in, or are willing to learn, mobile platform programming technologies, such as Java and Objective-C.
• You’re intelligent and inquisitive, and enjoy solving problems.
• You enjoy interacting with people – including one-on-one conversations and presenting to large audiences at conferences.
• You enjoy writing – including blogging, tweeting, and other social media outlets.

Zoom to a Window in Editor using CommandASync

By Madhukar Moogala

In this post, I will illustrate a sample based on AutoCAD 2015 API Editor.CommandAsync.

Problem: Can I zoom to particular window in an Editor as long as I press esc or cancel to quit?

Answer: Yes, with help of CommandAsync, you can achieve this task.

#region "send Zoom command by callback function"

private static bool ZoomExit = false;

//declare the callback delegation

delegate void Del();

private static Del _actionCompletedDelegate;

// Exit function，check if Zoom command is esc\cancelled

static void

MdiActiveDocument_CommandCancelled(object sender,CommandEventArgs e)

{

    ZoomExit = true;

}

[CommandMethod("TestZoom")]

public static void TestZoom()

{

   var ed = Application.DocumentManager.MdiActiveDocument.Editor;

   var doc = Application.DocumentManager.MdiActiveDocument;

   //esc event

   doc.CommandCancelled += MdiActiveDocument_CommandCancelled;

   // start Zoom command

   Editor.CommandResult cmdResult1 =

   ed.CommandAsync(new object[]{

   "_.ZOOM", Editor.PauseToken, Editor.PauseToken});

   // delegate callback function, wait for interaction ends

   _actionCompletedDelegate = new Del(CreateZoomAsyncCallback);

   cmdResult1.OnCompleted(new Action(_actionCompletedDelegate));

   ZoomExit = false;

}

// callback function

public static void CreateZoomAsyncCallback()

{

    var ed = Application.DocumentManager.MdiActiveDocument.Editor;

    //if Zoom command is running

    if (!ZoomExit)

    {

        // AutoCAD hands over to the callback function

        Editor.CommandResult cmdResult1 =

        ed.CommandAsync(new object[]{

        "_.ZOOM", Editor.PauseToken, Editor.PauseToken});

        // delegate callback function, wait for interaction ends

        _actionCompletedDelegate = new Del(CreateZoomAsyncCallback);

       cmdResult1.OnCompleted(new Action(_actionCompletedDelegate));

    }

    else

    {

        ed.WriteMessage("Zoom Exit");

        return;

    }

}

#endregion

Autodesk Exchange Apps Webinar May 22nd: Learn about exciting new features that bring new opportunities

By Virupaksha Aithal

Without a doubt, Autodesk Exchange Apps is now the best and easiest way for developers to reach Autodesk customers. With over 1,860,000 visitors and over 620,000 downloads, customers continue to demonstrate how much they have come to rely upon Autodesk Exchange Apps to find the tools that help increase their productivity.

With 18 Autodesk Exchange Apps stores now up and riunning and our recent and upcoming enhancements, there is opportunity for any type – and price – of app. Exchange Apps now offers multiple ways of delivering apps to customers:

• Desktop apps
• Web services
• Give-aways to generate leads for your development services
• High price, mid-range, low-priced per unit or monthly subscription

If you develop apps but haven't yet put your toe in the water with Exchange Apps, the Autodesk Developer Network (ADN) team is ready to help you.

You're invited to attend a webinar on May 22^nd, hosted by Jim Quanci and Stephen Preston.

As they present and demo the latest trends and features, you'll learn how you can leverage this growing platform, publisher and customer community. You'll learn the tricks of the trade when publishing on Exchange Apps, get ideas on how to be successful and learn about the ability to expand your geographic reach by publishing localised apps in addition to English language ones.

Here's what you need to know:

Webinar details:

• Date: Thursday, May 22^nd, 2014
• Time: 8 a.m. PDT – 11 a.m. EDT – 4 p.m. BST – 5 p.m. CET
• Duration: Approximately one hour
• Open to anyone interested in publishing apps on Autodesk Exchange Apps

Registration: Reserve your place by May 20th by sending an email to [email protected] with 'Exchange Apps webinar' as the subject. Make sure you include:

• Your full name
• Email address
• Company name

If you are interested in the webinar but time zones or work commitments prevent you from attending, we invite you to register anyway, so that we can send you the link to the recording after the event.

Note: If you want a head start in learning how to publish apps, visit www.autodesk.com/developapps. If you have any questions, send an email to [email protected].

Autodesk University Call for Proposals

By Stephen Preston

In case you missed the announcement, here is a reminder that the AU Call for Proposals is now open. You have until May 23rd to submit your proposa for a class, lab, panel or roundtable session. Click on the image below to go to the Call for Proposals website.

Non-DWG window in AutoCAD 2015 using .Net

By Balaji Ramamoorthy

AutoCAD 2015 enables the creation of Non-DWG document window. The Non-DWG document window appears as a tab just as any other drawing window.

In this blog post, I have attached a C# project to create a Non-DWG document window and demonstrate its usage.

To try it :

1. Build the sample project using Visual Studio 2012 with .Net framework set to 4.5.

2. Start AutoCAD 2015 and netload the dll.

3. Run "MyWnd" command. This command creates a Non-DWG document window that accepts user input for the radius of a smiley.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. Create another drawing and run the "InsertSmiley" command. This command creates a smiley based on the radius value provided in the Non-DWG document window.

Now, here is a brief description of the steps to create a Non-DWG document window using .Net :

Step-1. Create a WPF usercontrol and customize it as you would create it usually.

Step-2. Create a custom document class. This class will be used to hold the data that are specific to this document window.

Step-3. Create a custom document window class derived from WPFDocumentWindow.

- Override the "OnCreate" method to know when the document window is created.

- Override the "OnLoad" method to associate the custom document with our document window class

- Override the "OnActivate" method to know when the document window gets activated.

Step-4. Create an instance of the custom document window class and add it to the DocumentWindowCollection using Application.DocumentWindowCollection.AddDocumentWindow.

In the attached sample, the steps to associate a custom document have been commented. AutoCAD 2015 at present becomes unstable if a custom document is associated with the custom document window. This behavior has been logged in our internal database for our engineering team to analyze.

So the attached sample project retrieves the document data by directly accessing the usercontrol for the "InsertSmiley" command to access.

Here is the sample project :

Download NonDwgDocWindow_Net

 

Coordinates of Points in a Point Cloud entity

By Balaji Ramamoorthy

For a PointCloud entity created using a PCG file, a simple way to get the coordinates of the points would be insert a spatial filter using the "acdbModifyPointCloudDataView" method. For the PointCloud entity created using RCP file, the way to insert a spatial filter is to use the "AcDbPointCloudEx::addSpatialFilter" method. While creating a spatial filter would still provide access to the point coordinates, the other method is to use the "AcDbPointCloudEx::traverseAllPointData" method.

Here is a sample code to identify the coordinates of the point using the "traverseAllPointData" method :

#include "AcPointCloud.h"

#include "AcDbPointCloudEx.h"

#include "AcDbPointCloudApi.h"

 

class MyPointCloudProcessor

                        : public IAcDbPointCloudPointProcessor

{

public:

    MyPointCloudProcessor(){}

 

    virtual ~MyPointCloudProcessor(){}

 

    virtual ProcessSate process(

                    const IAcDbPointCloudDataBuffer* buffer)

    {

        const AcGePoint3d *pts = buffer->points();

        for(int cnt = 0; cnt < buffer->numPoints(); cnt++)

        {

            AcGePoint3d pt = pts[cnt];

            // Get the pt coordinates

        }

        return ProcessSate::Continue;

    }

};

 

static void AdskMyTestCommand()

{

    ads_point pt;

    ads_name name;

    if (acedEntSel

        ( L"Select a point cloud",

            name, pt) != RTNORM)

        return;

 

    AcDbObjectId id;

    if (acdbGetObjectId(id, name) != Acad::eOk)

        return;

 

    AcDbEntityPointer pEntity(id, AcDb::kForWrite);

    if (pEntity.openStatus() != Acad::eOk)

        return;

 

    AcDbPointCloudEx *pPtCloud

                            = AcDbPointCloudEx::cast(pEntity);

    if(pPtCloud == NULL)

        return;

 

    MyPointCloudProcessor *pPCProcessor

                                = new MyPointCloudProcessor();

 

    // The last parameter is the Level of Detail.

    // There is currently no way to get the maximum LOD value

    // from a pointcloud entity.

    // You can pass a value between 1 and 100 depending

    // on the Level of detail required.

    pPtCloud->traverseAllPointData(pPCProcessor, NULL,

              IAcDbPointCloudDataBuffer::DataType::kColor, 2);

    if(pPCProcessor != NULL)

    {

        delete pPCProcessor;

        pPCProcessor = NULL;

    }

}

Recognising Cancel when using acedCommandC

By Balaji Ramamoorthy

Sending commands to AutoCAD command line now has two variants of the earlier acedCommand method. The acedCommandS is simpler to use and suitable when all the parameters (a.k.a tokens) that are required by AutoCAD to complete the command execution are known without a need for user input. When using acedCommandS by providing all the parameters, there is no possibility of cancelling the command.

acedCommandC is to be used when you need AutoCAD to pause for some user input while is command is run by AutoCAD. In this case, there is a possibility of user cancelling the command without providing the input. To identify this condition, here is a code snippet that uses the "acedCmdCWasCancelled" and "acedCallBackOnCancel" methods. Also, due to the asynchronous nature of acedCommandC, the completion of the command can only be identified from the callback method provided to acedCommandC as in this code snippet.

#include "acedCmdNF.h"

 

static void AdskMyTestCommand()

{

    ads_point pt1;

    int rt = ads_getpoint(

        NULL,

        _T("\nSelect first point: "), pt1);

 

    int rs = acedCommandC

                (

                    &MyCallback,

                    NULL,

                    RTSTR,

                    _T("_line"),

                    RT3DPOINT,

                    pt1,

                    RTNONE

                );

 

    acutPrintf(ACRX_T("\nAfter acedCommandC call.

                        acedCommandC is asynchronous..."));

}

 

static int MyCallback(void * pData)

{

    if (acedCmdCWasCancelled())

    {

        acutPrintf(ACRX_T("\nCommand was cancelled..."));

        return 0;

    }

 

    if(isLineActive())

    {

        int rs = acedCommandC

            (

                &MyCallback,

                NULL,

                RTSTR,

                PAUSE,

                RTNONE

            );

 

        acedCallBackOnCancel();

 

        return 1;

    }

 

    CallWhenLineDone();

 

    return 0;

}

 

static void CallWhenLineDone()

{

    acutPrintf(ACRX_T("\nCommand completed."));

}

 

static Adesk::Boolean isLineActive()

{

    struct resbuf rb;

    acedGetVar(_T("CMDNAMES"),&rb);

    if (_tcsstr(rb.resval.rstring, _T("LINE")))

        return Adesk::kTrue;

    return Adesk::kFalse;

}

Non-DWG window in AutoCAD 2015

By Balaji Ramamoorthy

AutoCAD 2015 enables the creation of Non-DWG document window. The Non-DWG document window appears as a tab just as any other drawing window.

In this blog post, I have attached a C++ project to create a Non-DWG document window and demonstrate its usage.

To try it :

1. Build the sample project using Visual Studio 2012 with Platform Toolset v110.

2. Start AutoCAD 2015 and load the arx module.

3. Run "ShowMyWnd" command. This command creates a Non-DWG document window that accepts user input for the dimensions of a chain link as shown here :

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. Create another drawing and run the "InsertLink" command. This command creates a chain link based on the values provided in the Non-DWG document window.

Now, here is a brief description of the steps to create a Non-DWG document window using C++ :

Step-1. Create a dialog class derived from CDialog. An MFC dialog can be created using the resource view of Visual Studio as usual.

Step-2. Create a custom document class derived from AcRxObject. This class will be used to hold the data that are specific to this document window. 

Step-3. Create a custom document window class derived from AcApDocWindow

- Override the "onCreate" method to instantiate the dialog that is to be shown.

- Override the "onLoad" method to associate the custom document created in step-2 with our document window class

- Override the "onDestroy" method to perform cleanup such as deleting the dialog instance.

- Override the "subRouteMessage" to perform resizing of the dialog when the document window size changes.

Step-4. Create a custom document window manager reactor derived from AcApDocWindowManagerReactor

- Override the "documentWindowActivated" method to keep our custom document updated with the values provided in the dialog.

- Override the "documentWindowCreated" method to get a pointer to our custom document window after its gets created

- Override the "documentWindowDestroyed" method so we know when our custom document window is no longer valid.

In the attached sample, the steps to associate a custom document have been commented. AutoCAD 2015 at present becomes unstable if a custom document is associated with the custom document window. This behavior has been logged in our internal database for our engineering team to analyze. So the attached sample project now stores the document data in a helper class as static variables for the "InsertLink" command to access.

Here is the sample project :

Download NonDwgWindowSample