Infrastructure Modeling DevBlog

Using MAPTRIM in .NET Application

By Partha Sarkar

MAPTRIM is AutoCAD Map 3D's UI command. API equivalent for MAPTRIM is map_dwgtrimobj().  It is part of the C/C++ and LISP APIs. API equivalent of MAPTRIM is not yet available in .NET.

 

If you want to use MAPTRIM with necessary input parameters, you can build the command string and use SendCommand() or SendStringToExecute() to pump the command in AutoCAD Map 3D's command line.

 

Here is code snippet on how to use it for a selected layer and for all layers : 

'' Using Maptrim command through SendCommand

'' in the following example 'miscellaneous0' is the layer name for selection

 

  Dim commandStr AsString = ".maptrim " +"s " +"l " +"y " +"miscellaneous0" + vbCr +"n " + "o " + "y " + "y " + "i " + "y "

  acApp.ActiveDocument.SendCommand(commandStr)

 

 

'' Using Maptrim command through SendCommand

'' this example is for all Layers

Dim commandStr AsString = ".maptrim " +"s " +"l " +"n " +"n " + "o " + "y " + "y " + "i " + "y "

acApp.ActiveDocument.SendCommand(commandStr)

How to access the AutoCAD Civil 3D Survey Database in .NET Application?

By Partha Sarkar

In AutoCAD Civil 3D COM API, using AeccSurveyDatabase:: Projects, we can access the collection of the existing Survey projects. If you want to access a particular Survey Project e.g. (Test_Survey_DB) as shown in the screenshot below, we can use the AeccSurveyProjects:: FindItem(VARIANT varIndex).

 

 

Here is a C# .NET code snippet which demonstrates how to access a particular Survey Project using the COM API  : 

// Get the AutoCAD Editor

Editor ed = AcadApp.DocumentManager.MdiActiveDocument.Editor;

 

// Get the Survey Application and AeccSurveyDatabase

AeccSurveyApplication aeccSurveyApp = newAeccSurveyApplication();

aeccSurveyApp.Init((AcadApplication)AcadApp.AcadApplication);

AeccSurveyDatabase aeccSurveydb = (AeccSurveyDatabase)aeccSurveyApp.ActiveDocument.Database;

AeccSurveyProjects surveyProjs = aeccSurveydb.Projects;

 

// Accessing a Particular Survey Project

// IAeccSurveyProjects:: FindItem

// Gets the Survey Project with the given name.

 

AeccSurveyProject surveyProj = surveyProjs.FindItem("Test_Survey_DB");

if (surveyProj != null)

{

  // now we can access the various Props of AeccSurveyProject object           

  ed.WriteMessage("\nSurvey Project Name :  " + surveyProj.Name.ToString());

  ed.WriteMessage("\nSurvey Project Path :  " + surveyProj.Path.ToString());

  ed.WriteMessage("\nNext available point number   : " + surveyProj.GetNextWritablePointNumber().ToString());

}

 

 

 

How do I change the default styles of Points in AutoCAD Civil 3D using .NET API?

By Partha Sarkar

In AutoCAD Civil 3D ‘Create Points’ dialog, under Parameter if you expand the ‘Default Styles’ collection, you will see the default ‘Point Style’ and ‘Point Label Style’ field and their corresponding values in the ‘Value’ column as shown in the screenshot below –

If you want to change these default style values using Civil 3D .NET API, you need to get the SettingsPoint object first and then update the Style and Label styles value as shown in the C# .NET code snippet below –

using (Transaction trans = db.TransactionManager.StartTransaction())

{

 

  // get the SettingsPoint object

  SettingsPoint pointSettings = civilDoc.Settings.GetSettings<SettingsPoint>() as SettingsPoint;

 

  // now set the value for default Style and Label Style

  // make sure the values exists in DWG file before you try to set them

  pointSettings.Styles.Point.Value = "Benchmark";

  pointSettings.Styles.PointLabel.Value = "Elevation Only";

 

  trans.Commit();

}

 

Once you run your custom application the default style and labels style value for Point object will be changed –

Hope this is useful to you!

Creating Featureline using COM API IAeccLandFeatureLines:: AddFromPolyline()

By Partha Sarkar

Civil 3D .NET API is yet to get the necessary functions to add / create featureline object. We have a wish list logged for the same. Till we get the .NET API, let's see how to use the existing COM API IAeccLandFeatureLines:: AddFromPolyline() in .NET application using Interop.

 

Following VB.NET code snippet demonstrates creation of a Featureline in AutoCAD Civil 3D using COM API IAeccLandFeatureLines:: AddFromPolyline() -

 

Using trans As Transaction = HostApplicationServices.WorkingDatabase.TransactionManager.StartTransaction()

  Try

    If oAcadApp Is Nothing Then

      oAcadApp = GetObject(, "AutoCAD.Application")

    End If

  Catch ex As Exception

    ed.WriteMessage(ex.Message)

  End Try

 

  Try

    oAeccApp = oAcadApp.GetInterfaceObject("AeccXUiLand.AeccApplication.10.0")

    oAeccDoc = oAeccApp.ActiveDocument

    oAeccDB = oAeccApp.ActiveDocument.Database

 

    ' Select the 3D Polyline which you want to convert to Feature Line

 

    Dim promptEntOp As New PromptEntityOptions(vbCrLf + "Select a 3D Polyline : ")

    Dim promptEntRs As PromptEntityResult

    promptEntRs = ed.GetEntity(promptEntOp)

    If promptEntRs.Status <> PromptStatus.OK Then

      ed.WriteMessage("Exiting! Try Again !")

      Exit Sub

    End If

    Dim idEnt As ObjectId

    idEnt = promptEntRs.ObjectId

 

    Dim oFtrLn As AeccLandFeatureLine = Nothing

    Dim oFtrLns As AeccLandFeatureLines = oAeccDoc.Sites.Item(0).FeatureLines

 

    Dim plineObjId As Long = idEnt.OldIdPtr

 

    oFtrLn = oFtrLns.AddFromPolyline(plineObjId, oAeccDB.FeatureLineStyles.Item(0))

 

    trans.Commit()

  Catch ex As Exception

    ed.WriteMessage("Error : ", ex.Message & vbCrLf)

  End Try

End Using

 

Once you build your application using above code snippet and run it in Civil 3D , you would see a Featureline being created -

 

 

Hope this is useful to you!

ODTables.Item(tableName) does not work on Windows7/Vista?

By Daniel Du

Issue

I am migrating my Map 3D VBA application to .NET, but when I call ODTables.Item(strTableName), it always crashes AutoCAD on Windows 7/Vista, and it works well on WinXP.

Solution

You can use following workaround on Windows 7/Vista to solve this problem:

VB.NET:

<code_begin>
    Dim ODTbl As AutocadMAP.ODTable
    ODTbl = Nothing
    For index = 0 To ODTbls.Count - 1
       Debug.WriteLine( ODTbls.Item(index).Name.ToString())
       If (ODTbls.Item(index).Name.ToString() = TargetTable) Then
            ODTbl = ODTbls.Item(index)
        Exit For
       End If
    Next

<code_end>

VBA code:

<code_begin>
Public Sub GetMapApp()
Dim amap As AcadMap
Dim tbl As ODTable
Dim tbls As ODTables
Set amap = ThisDrawing.Application.GetInterfaceObject("AutoCADMap.Application")
Debug.Print amap.Projects.Count 

'' workaround
Set tbls = amap.Projects(ThisDrawing).ODTables

If (tbls.Count) > 0 Then
For Each tbl In tbls
If tbl.Name = "Building" Then ‘ set OD Table name here as per your data
Debug.Print tbl.Name
End If
Next
End If

End Sub

<code_end>

TinSurfaceTriangle and its vertices direction in AutoCAD Civil 3D

By Partha Sarkar

Recently I was working on a project and I had to use TinSurfaceTriangle object to access the Surface triangle vertices. You might be knowing already that TinSurfaceTriangle class encapsulates a triangle in a TinSurface in AutoCAD Civil 3D. TinSurfaceTriangle type exposes the following members -

 Vertex1 - > Gets the first vertex in the triangle. 

 Vertex2 - > Gets the second vertex in the triangle. 

 Vertex3 - > Gets the third vertex in the triangle.

 

One question came up during our discussion - in which direction (clock-wise or anti-clockwise) these vertex points are counted. So, to figure out that I did a quick test to iterate through the vertices and see which direction they are returned by Civil 3D API. Here is the result which shows us the direction :

 

And the C# .NET code snippet I used :

using (Transaction trans = db.TransactionManager.StartTransaction())

{

  TinSurface surface = trans.GetObject(surfaceId, OpenMode.ForRead) as TinSurface;

 

  TinSurfaceTriangleCollection tinSurfTrianglColl = surface.GetTriangles(true);

 

  if (tinSurfTrianglColl.Count > 0)

  {

    foreach (TinSurfaceTriangle tinsurfTriangle in tinSurfTrianglColl)

    {

      // Vertex1

      Point3d pnt3d = tinsurfTriangle.Vertex1.Location;

      ed.WriteMessage("\n Vertex1 ::  X1 : " + pnt3d.X.ToString() +

                      "  Y1 : " + pnt3d.Y.ToString() +

                      "  Z1 : " + pnt3d.Z.ToString());

 

      // Vertex2

      pnt3d = tinsurfTriangle.Vertex2.Location;

      ed.WriteMessage("\n Vertex2 ::  X1 : " + pnt3d.X.ToString() +

                      "  Y1 : " + pnt3d.Y.ToString() +

                      "  Z1 : " + pnt3d.Z.ToString());

 

      // Vertex3

      pnt3d = tinsurfTriangle.Vertex3.Location;

      ed.WriteMessage("\n Vertex3 ::  X1 : " + pnt3d.X.ToString() +

                      "  Y1 : " + pnt3d.Y.ToString() +

                      "  Z1 : " + pnt3d.Z.ToString());

 

    }

 

  }

 

  trans.Commit();

}

 

Hope this is useful to you!

Data sharing between AutoCAD Civil 3D and HTML5 application

By Partha Sarkar

In the process of exploring HTML5 canvas and draw geometries, I thought how about ‘creating a HTML5 application to show a Civil 3D Pipe Network geometry’. 

With this goal in mind, I first approached to create a simple Civil 3D .NET application to select a Pipe, get the Pipe Network and export the Pipe coordinates from the selected network to an external file (TXT file). We can use the following Civil 3D .NET API to get the Pipe’s start and end points –

Pipe.StartPoint

Pipe.EndPoint

So, the first part was easy to create a TXT file and store all the StartPoint and EndPoint of the Pipes in a selected Pipe Network.

In the second part, I wanted to read the TXT file with Pipe Geometry from Civil 3D. I found the FileReader in HTML5 which provides an API to select files and access their data.

After accessing the data, I had to parse it and create an array in JavaScript. In the next part, it was easy to get the HTML5 canvas and the context and loop through the array storing the pipe network vertices and create line using HTML5 context.lineTo() API

 if (cleanlineVertices.length > 3)

{
	context.beginPath();
	context.moveTo(cleanlineVertices[0], cleanlineVertices[1]);
	for (var i = 2; i < (cleanlineVertices.length - 1); i+=2)
	{		
	 context.lineTo(cleanlineVertices[i], cleanlineVertices[i+1]);	
	}
		
	// Set Line width
	context.lineWidth = 5;
		
	// Set Line color
	context.strokeStyle = '#fa00ff';
	context.stroke();
}

 

In this video you will see the workflow and a quick demo of this application.

 

So, we can share data from AutoCAD Civil 3D and a HTML5 can show us the geometry in the actual project site and all the stakeholders can verify if the network is passing through the desired location  :) !

Accessing AutoCAD Civil 3D Alignment Design Speeds using .NET API

By Partha Sarkar

For a given Alignment object in AutoCAD Civil 3D, we want to find out the all the 'Station' values and the corresponding 'Design Speed' as shown in the screenshot below -

 

We can access these values using DesignSpeed class in Civil 3D .NET API.

Here is a relevant code snippet in C# -

 

Alignment objAlignment = trans.GetObject(alignmentId, OpenMode.ForRead) as Alignment;

 

foreach (DesignSpeed objDS in objAlignment.DesignSpeeds)

{

 

  ed.WriteMessage("\n\tDesign Speed Number :{0} -- Start Station: {1} --- Design Speed Value :{2}",

    objDS.SpeedNumber.ToString(), objDS.Station.ToString(), objDS.Value.ToString() );                      

 

}

Hope this is useful to you!

Resolving Style conflicts in exporting Civil 3D Object styles using .NET API

By Partha Sarkar

StyleConflictResolverType Enumeration specifies how to resolve conflicts (the same name for an existing style and a new imported style) when exporting styles to another drawing using StyleBase::ExportTo(). 

Members of  StyleConflictResolverType Enumeration - 

CancelRemaining
Rename
Ignore
Override

Here is a C# .NET code snippet which demonstrates how to use Autodesk.Civil.StyleConflictResolverType in resolving conflicts -

 

LabelStyleCollection lStyles = civilDoc.Styles.LabelStyles.PointLabelStyles.LabelStyles;

foreach (ObjectId stId in lStyles)

{

  LabelStyle pSt = trans.GetObject(stId, OpenMode.ForRead) as LabelStyle;

  // Export the style

  pSt.ExportTo(outDb, Autodesk.Civil.StyleConflictResolverType.Override);

  // Now export its children

  for (int i = 0; i < pSt.ChildrenCount; i++)

  {

    LabelStyle chSt = trans.GetObject(pSt[i], OpenMode.ForRead) as LabelStyle;

    chSt.ExportTo(outDb, Autodesk.Civil.StyleConflictResolverType.Override);

  }

}

Hope this is useful to you!

Accessing Child Object Style using .NET API

By Partha Sarkar

In this particular example we will see how to access Civil 3D Surface Spot Elevation Child label style. Suppose there is a Surface Spot Elevation Child label style named "Foot Meter_Child" in a Civil 3D DWG file and we try to use the following VB.NET code snippet to find out the number of Spot Elevation label style in the same DWG file, child label styles won't be shown or counted as shown in the screenshot below -

Dim surfaceSpotElevnLblStyle As LabelStyleCollection = civilDoc.Styles.LabelStyles.SurfaceLabelStyles.SpotElevationLabelStyles

MsgBox("This DWG File has : " + surfaceSpotElevnLblStyle.Count.ToString + " Surface Spot Elevn Label Styles !")

 

 

Above code snippet shows the count of 'Spot Elevation' labels as two omitting the child label style.  So how do we access Child Object Style using .NET API ?

We can access child label style from the parent label style's ObjectId using [index]. Here is the relevant VB.NET code snippet -

 

Try

 

    Dim surfaceSpotElevnLblStyle As LabelStyleCollection = civilDoc.Styles.LabelStyles.SurfaceLabelStyles.SpotElevationLabelStyles

    'MsgBox("This DWG File has : " + surfaceSpotElevnLblStyle.Count.ToString + " Surface Spot Elevn Label Styles !")

 

    Dim surfaceLblStyleId As ObjectId = Nothing             

    Dim osurfaceElevnLabelStyle As LabelStyle  = Nothing

 

    For Each surfaceLblStyleId In surfaceSpotElevnLblStyle

      osurfaceElevnLabelStyle = trans.GetObject(surfaceLblStyleId, OpenMode.ForRead)

      MsgBox("Style Name : " + osurfaceElevnLabelStyle.Name.ToString + "  " + "Children Style Count : " + osurfaceElevnLabelStyle.ChildrenCount.ToString)

      If (osurfaceElevnLabelStyle.ChildrenCount >0) then              

          Dim childLblStyleId As ObjectId =   osurfaceElevnLabelStyle(0)

          Dim childLblStyle As LabelStyle = trans.GetObject(childLblStyleId, OpenMode.ForRead)

          MsgBox("Child Style Name :" + childLblStyle.Name.ToString)                          

 

      End If

    Next        

 

    trans.Commit()        

Catch ex As Exception

    ed.WriteMessage("Exception Message is : " + ex.Message.ToString())

Exit Sub

End Try

Hope this is useful to you!