Infrastructure Modeling DevBlog

AutoCAD® WS is now supporting AutoCAD® Civil 3D Object Model

By Partha Sarkar

AutoCAD Civil 3D Drawings are now supported on AutoCAD WS and some of you might have already seen this news in AutoCAD WS Blog page. I just played with some of the Civil 3D tutorial DWG files containing Civil 3D objects like TIN Surface, Alignment, Corridor, Pipe Network etc.

If you want to embed a link of a particular Civil 3D DWG file using <ifram> in yout HTML code or in  HTM5 application, it's easy -

<iframe src="https://www.autocadws.com/main/publish?link=S0NGTGtwNkY1S2pqcEJ2" 
	width="1000" 
	height="700">
<p>Your browser does not support iframes.</p>
</iframe>

You might ask, how do I generate the link for my Civil 3D DWG file? Here are the steps -

1. Log-in to your AutoCADWS account and upload a Civil 3D DWG file.

2. Navigate to "Share" tab in the Ribbon and use the "Get link to Share" button as shown in the screenshot below -

You can use the same URL in your src attribute of <iframe> tag.

 

Cheers

Partha Sarkar

 

Live streaming sessions from AU 2012

By Partha Sarkar

AU Virtual will deliver live streaming sessions from AU 2012 in Las Vegas, plus more than 250 on-demand technical classes on the newest releases of Autodesk products and classes on the latest trends and challenges facing the design industry—right to your desktop. 

Check the "Live from AU Schedule" and 'add to Calendar' the ones you feel interesting for U!

Full details here: http://Autodesk.com/auv 

 

Running Flexible Web Layouts Examples

By Daniel Du

I am following the “Flexible Web Layouts Examples” on MapServer 2013 wikihelp, and found that this wiki page is a little out-dated. I do not have time to fix them all, so I am just trying to blog how I make some of the examples running. In case you don’t know, the source code of these examples is available on the installation DVD in Samples\FlexibleWebLayoutsSamples.

 

The zip file, FlexibleWebLayoutsExamples.zip, contains source files. Unzip this into theinstallDir\WebServerExtensions\www folder with “Use folder names” selected in WinZip. It installs the following files:

• fusion\templates\mapguide\examples\*
• fusion\widgets\Example*.js
• fusion\widgets\widgetinfo\example*.xml
• fusion\widgets\example*\*

 

Run Example 1:

Example 1 demos how to create the simplest widget. After installing the code, you will find a new widget name “Example1” available in flexible web layout editor.

1. Create a new flexible web layout in Infrastructure Studio 2013 by c, select a template, I am using slate. Of cause, please make sure MapServer is running first.

2. Assign a map for the Map Tab, I am using the Sheboygan dataset.

3. I would like to add my test widget into “Toobar(Main Menu)”, you can also put it into other menu if you’d like to, so I switch to “Toobar(Main Menu)” tab, and click “New” in components available in this layout section:

4. You should see a mater type names as “Example1”, if not, try refresh. If it does not appear even after refreshing, then your probably made some mistakes at installation, a common problem is to install the JS/xml files into wrong folder, so please make sure you have same folder structure with the existing widgets. Select “Example1” as master type then click OK button.

5. Now I have a new component in the flexible web layout, you can change the ID as you will, I am using the default ID “Example1”:

6. Add this component into layout UI, dragging “Example1” into the window left side, a new button is created in main menu toolbar:

7. view in browser, and click “Example1” button in main menu toolbar, the “hello word” message shows up:

 

Running Example2

Example 1 is pretty simple, I will move next to Example2. Example 2 is a widget that is designed to be called as a command from a menu, it output the information of selected feature. It requires Mozilla^® Firefox^® 3.6 or higher and the Firebug extension because it writes to the Firebug console.

I am following the same process as example1 to add a new button into main menu toolbar, and browse it in Firefox this time. To run this example, I need to select some features first, then click  the “Example2 ” button.

Oops! I got an error message:

Fusion Error:
WARNING: Exception occurred in AJAX callback.
Message: theMap.getMapName is not a function
Location: http://localhost/mapserver2013/fusion/widgets/Example2.js (47)
Response: {"layers":["Parcels"],"extents":{"minx":-87.739602320342,"miny":43.765720296224,"maxx":-87.737804056497,"maxy":43.766709329904},"Parcels":{"propertynames":["RLDESCR1","RTYPE","RACRE","RLOT","RNAME","RLDESCR2","RLDESCR3","RBILAD","RSQFT","RLDESCR4"],"propertyvalues":["Description1","Zone","Acreage","Lot Dimensions","Owner","Description2","Description3","Billing Address","Lot Size (SqFt)","Description4"],"propertytypes":[9,9,9,9,9,9,9,9,7,9],"metadatanames":["dimension","bbox","center","area","length"],"numelements":15,"values":[["BRAND SUBD","RES","0.17","60X124","THIEME, ELAINE M","LOT 11 BLK 3","","2008 N. 25TH ST.","7440",""],["BRAND SUBD","RES","0.25","80X135","RAFFEL, JAMES E","LOT 3 &amp; THE N 20\\' OF LOT 4","BLK 2","2006 N. 24TH ST.","10800",""],["BRAND SUBD","RES","0.25","80X135","FUERST, ROBERT O","N 30\\' OF LOT 23 &amp; S 50\\' OF","LOT 24 BLK 2","2005 N. 25TH ST.","10800",""],["BRAND SUBD","RES","0.17","60X124","TUPPER, ANSEL JR","LOT 12 BLK 3","","2002 N. 25TH ST.","7440",""],["BRAND SUBD","RES","0.22","70X135","YANG, SHOUA PAO","THE S 40\\' OF LOT 4 &amp; THE N","30\\' OF LOT 5 BLK 2","2002 N. 24TH ST.","9450",""],["BRAND SUBD","RES","0.23","75X135","RAKOW, GLEN J.","N 45\\' OF LOT 22 &amp; S 30\\' OF","LOT 23 BLK 2","1919 N. 25TH ST.","10125",""],["BRAND SUBD","RES","0.17","60X124","MATELKO, RICHARD A.","LOT 13 BLK 3","","1918 N. 25TH ST.","7440",""],["BRAND SUBD","RES","0.28","90X135","CASTELLAN, MARY","THE S 30\\' OF LOT 5 &amp; ALL OF","LOT 6 BLK 2","1914 N. 24TH ST.","12150",""],["BRAND SUBD","RES","0.23","75X135","ROERDINK, JAMES P.","LOT 21 &amp; S 15\\' OF LOT 22 BLK","2","1913 N. 25TH ST.","10125",""],["BRAND SUBD","RES","0.22","75X125","PIONTKOWSKI, JOHN A.","S 45\\' OF LOT 15 &amp; N 30\\' OF","LOT 16 BLK 3","1904 N. 25TH ST.","9375",""],["BRAND SUBD","RES","0.19","60X135","HAMER, MARGARET J","LOT 19 BLK 2","","1849 N. 25TH ST.","8100",""],["BRAND SUBD","RES","0.19","60X135","BOPHA, DAVID &amp; MANYP","LOT 8 BLK 2","","1850 N. 24TH ST.","8100",""],["BRAND SUBD","RES","0.22","75X125","HORWITZ, DONALD","LOT 14 &amp; THE N 15\\' OF LOT 15","BLK 3","1912 N. 25TH ST.","9375",""],["BRAND SUBD","RES","0.19","60X135","ABRAHAM, ROBERT A.","LOT 20 BLK 2","","1905 N. 25TH ST.","8100",""],["BRAND SUBD","RES","0.19","60X135","LAMB, DANIEL F","LOT 7 BLK 2","","1906 N. 24TH ST.","8100",""]],"metadata":[["","","","",""],["","","","",""],["","","","",""],["","","","",""],["","","","",""],["","","","",""],["","","","",""],["","","","",""],["","","","",""],["","","","",""],["","","","",""],["","","","",""],["","","","",""],["","","","",""],["","","","",""]]}}

 

You may get scared with such a long error message at first glance, To be frankly, I got a high blood pressure as well when I saw this first time . But let’s clam down and looked into the error again, I highlighted and marked it as bold. Message: theMap.getMapName is not a function , it seems that theMap object does not have a method “getMapName”. So I looked into the source code of map widget, which is C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Autodesk Infrastructure Web Server Extension 2013\www\fusion\lib\Map.js by default. Yes, that’s the reason, getMapName method is missing, so I went ahead to add this method as below, around line 1247:

 

//Added by Daniel 2012/11/01
getMapName: function() {
    return this.aMaps[0]._sMapname;
},

 

It is pretty simple one. 

As I said earlier, I am using Slate as my template when testing these examples, and the slate template is referring to a compressed single file of fusion library. To apply my changes, I need to edit the JavaScript reference in C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Autodesk Infrastructure Web Server Extension 2013\www\fusion\templates\mapguide\slate\index.html, please refer to this blog post for more information about this:

<script type="text/javascript" src="../../../lib/fusion.js"></script>

Now let’s refresh the page and test again, the information about the selection has been written to the firebug console:

Look at it closer:

 

Okay, I would like to stop here since I am busy with other stuff and do not have time to try the others examples, you may want to keep trying the following examples yourself. I found Example3 does not work as expected, and this has been reported to engineering team, they will take care of it in future. If you are interested in investigating more, you can debug it yourself with help of Firebug, as introduced in this post. All source code of fusion is released with the product(C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Autodesk Infrastructure Web Server Extension 2013\www\fusion). Hopefully you can work them out yourself.

 

Good luck!

Vote for Visual Studio x64 Edit-and-Continue

By Partha Sarkar

I'm cross-referencing this blog post titled “Vote for Visual Studio x64 Edit-and-Continue “ by Stephen Preston as I think it's a very useful feature and developers would love this in VS x64.

Please go ahead and cast your vote :)

Editing Station property of a Sampleline using AeccSampleLine.Station API

By Partha Sarkar

This VB.NET code snippet demonstrates how to add a Civil 3D SampleLine using COM API IAeccSampleLines:: AddByPolyline() method and then check whether the sample line is locked to the station using  IAeccSampleLine:: LockToStation, before updating it's Station value using COM API IAeccSampleLine:: Station Property.

 

'idEnt is Polyline ObjectId

Dim pLineEntity As Autodesk.AutoCAD.DatabaseServices.Entity = _

  DirectCast(trans.GetObject(idEnt, OpenMode.ForWrite), Autodesk.AutoCAD.DatabaseServices.Entity)

 

'idEnt1 is Alignment ObjectId

Dim alignmentEntity As Autodesk.AutoCAD.DatabaseServices.Entity = _

  DirectCast(trans.GetObject(idEnt1, OpenMode.ForWrite), Autodesk.AutoCAD.DatabaseServices.Entity)

 

Dim pline As Autodesk.AutoCAD.Interop.Common.AcadLWPolyline = _

  DirectCast(pLineEntity.AcadObject, Autodesk.AutoCAD.Interop.Common.AcadLWPolyline)

Dim oAlignment As Autodesk.AECC.Interop.Land.AeccAlignment = _

  DirectCast(alignmentEntity.AcadObject, Autodesk.AECC.Interop.Land.AeccAlignment)          

 

 

Dim oSampleLine As Autodesk.AECC.Interop.Land.AeccSampleLine = _

  oAlignment.SampleLineGroups.Item(0).SampleLines.AddByPolyline("My_SampleLine", pline, False)

 

'' IAeccSampleLine:: Station Property

'' Gets or sets the alignment station for this sample line.

ed.WriteMessage(vbCrLf + "Station Value :" + oSampleLine.Station.ToString())

 

' Check whether the sample line is locked to the station

If(oSampleLine.LockToStation)

  oSampleLine.LockToStation = False

End If

 

'' Now Change the Station Value

'' Following hardcoded value is applicable to Civil 3D Sample DWG - "Sections-Views-Create.dwg"

oSampleLine.Station = 550.50

ed.WriteMessage(vbCrLf + "Station Value After Change:" + oSampleLine.Station.ToString())

trans.Commit()

 

Here is the Result :

 

 

Hope this is useful to you!

APPHACK @ AU

By Partha Sarkar

I'm cross-referencing this blog post titled APPHACK @ AU  in case you haven't seen this yet...

Here’s a chance to win US$5000 (and a lot of publicity) for your next great idea for an AutoCAD app.

APPHACK @ AU is a virtual code-fest to produce apps/plugins for AutoCAD using the ObjectARX and/or .NET APIs, and it's open to any ADN member who can produce a working app/plugin for AutoCAD. The event culminates in a live demo at Autodesk University in Las Vegas on November 26, 2012.  Simply submit your app and a demo video and you're in the running for some nice prizes. But hurry - the deadline for submissions is 11:59pm Pacific on Wednesday, 14 November, 2012.