Infrastructure Modeling DevBlog

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  :) !

Creating your first Android App to view Map from Autodesk Infrastructure Map Server(AIMS)

By Partha Sarkar

The very first step is setting up the development environment with SDK, Tools and configuring them correctly. I think, Building Your First App is the first place you need to go to understand what SDK, Tools are required and how to configure them.

 

Once you have completed your "Hello World" app and some of the tutorial android apps, you are almost ready to see how you can create a simple mapping application to view Map served from Autodesk Infrastructure Map Server.

 

In this example I used WebView class from Android APIs. Here is the code snippet :

import android.app.Activity;

import android.os.Bundle;

import android.webkit.WebView;

import android.webkit.WebViewClient;

 

public class AIMSWebViewActivity extends Activity {

 

 WebView mWebView;

 

 @Override

 public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {

  super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

  setContentView(R.layout.main);

 

  // This initializes the member WebView

  // with the one from the Activity layout;

  // requests a WebSettings object with getSettings();

  // and enables JavaScript for the WebView with

  // setJavaScriptEnabled(boolean).

  // Finally, an initial web page is loaded with loadUrl(String).

 

  mWebView = (WebView) findViewById(R.id.webview);

  mWebView.getSettings().setJavaScriptEnabled(true);

  mWebView.getSettings().setBuiltInZoomControls(true);

  mWebView.loadUrl("http://www.MyAIMSSite.com/MapView/");

 

  // setContentView(mWebView); // this works too

 

  mWebView.setWebViewClient(new HelloWebViewClient());

 }

 

 private class HelloWebViewClient extends WebViewClient {

  @Override

  public boolean shouldOverrideUrlLoading(WebView view, String url) {

   view.loadUrl(url);

   return true;

  }

 }

}

 

Screenshot of Android AIMS Map View application :

   

 

And here is a short video of the same running in Emulator.

 

I hope this is useful to you!

Get the LandXML from Cloud to create a TIN Surface in Civil 3D

By Partha Sarkar

In my previous blog post we saw how quickly and easily we can upload and store a LandXML file in Windows Azure Cloud storage. In this post we will see how we can access our LandXML files stored in Cloud and use the same to create a TIN Surface in Civil 3D.

Here is the C# code snippet with minimal error handlers :

public static void LandXMLDownLoadFromCloudStorage()

{

 

// Get the AutoCAD Editor

Editor ed = Application.DocumentManager.MdiActiveDocument.Editor;

 

try

{

 

  // declare the Windows Azure storage account connection string

  //string connStr = "DefaultEndpointsProtocol=https; " +

  //  " AccountName=your_storage_account_name; " +

  //  "AccountKey=your_storage_account_key";

 

  string connStr = "DefaultEndpointsProtocol=https; " +

    " AccountName=your_storage_account_name; " +

    "AccountKey=your_storage_account_key";

 

 

  // get the Storage account      

  CloudStorageAccount cloudStorageAccount = CloudStorageAccount.Parse(connStr);

 

  // Create the blob client that provides authenticated access to the Blob service.

  CloudBlobClient blobClient = cloudStorageAccount.CreateCloudBlobClient();

 

  // Get the container reference.       

  CloudBlobContainer blobContainer = blobClient.GetContainerReference("c3dlandxmlsurface");       

 

  // Get a reference to the blob.

  CloudBlob blob = blobContainer.GetBlobReference("Civil3DLand.xml");

 

  // Download the file to local system

  string downloadedLandXmlFile = @"c:\Temp\Civil3DLandXMLSurface.xml";

 

  blob.DownloadToFile(downloadedLandXmlFile);       

 

  // Call Civil 3D Function to Import the LandXML

  // We need to use Civil 3D COM API IAeccSurfaces:: ImportXML() to Import a LandXML

 

  if (File.Exists(downloadedLandXmlFile))

  {

    Civil3DImportLandXML(downloadedLandXmlFile);     

  }       

 

}

catch (StorageClientException e)

{

 

  ed.WriteMessage("Storage Client Error : " + e.Message);

  // Exit here ?

}

catch (Autodesk.AutoCAD.Runtime.Exception ex)

{

  ed.WriteMessage("Error encountered: " + ex.Message);

 

}

 

For the implementation of Civil3DImportLandXML(filename)function, refer to my previous blog post topic Creating a TIN surface from LandXML file

 

Hope this is useful to you.

Storing LandXML in Cloud

By Partha Sarkar

In my previous blog post I indicated to experiment with storing LandXML files in Cloud so that we can access the same anytime and anywhere. I thought of trying to use Windows Azure Blob storage. If you are in the learning phase of Cloud services and want to quickly build a sample to understand how it works, the following could be a good starting point How to use the Windows Azure Blob Storage Service in .NET. This how-to-guide gives you step by step detail on how to build an application using Windows Azure Blob Storage Service in .NET, hence I am not writing down each steps here, instead let’s see how we can extend this learning to create a simple .NET application for Civil 3D to upload a LandXML to cloud and in the later part we will see how to access and get the same LandXML in Civil 3D and create a TIN surface.

Here is a screenshot of the assemblies I added to my C3DLandXMLCloudStorageSample project –

 

And here is the C# code snippet with minimal error handlers :

public static void LandXMLUpload2CloudStorage()

{

 

  // Get the AutoCAD Editor

  Editor ed = Application.DocumentManager.MdiActiveDocument.Editor;

 

  try

  {

    // declare the Windows Azure storage account connection string     

    //string connStr = "DefaultEndpointsProtocol=https; " +

    //  " AccountName=your_storage_account_name; " +

    //  "AccountKey=your_storage_account_key";

 

    string connStr = "DefaultEndpointsProtocol=https; " +

      " AccountName=your_storage_account_name; " +          "AccountKey=your_storage_account_key";

 

      // get the Storage account

 

    CloudStorageAccount cloudStorageAccount = CloudStorageAccount.Parse(connStr);

 

    // Create the blob client that provides authenticated access to the Blob service.

    CloudBlobClient blobClient = cloudStorageAccount.CreateCloudBlobClient();

 

    // Get the container reference.

    // All letters in a container name must be lowercase.

    // http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd135715.aspx

 

    CloudBlobContainer blobContainer = blobClient.GetContainerReference("c3dlandxmlsurface");

 

    // Create the container if it does not exist.

    blobContainer.CreateIfNotExist();

 

    // Set permissions on the container.

    BlobContainerPermissions containerPermissions = new BlobContainerPermissions();

 

    // In this sample, I am using a public access for the blob.

    // However, your application may need a different permisson.

 

    containerPermissions.PublicAccess = BlobContainerPublicAccessType.Blob;

    blobContainer.SetPermissions(containerPermissions);

 

    // Get a reference to the blob.

    CloudBlob blob = blobContainer.GetBlobReference("Civil3DLand.xml");

 

    // Upload a file from the local system to the blob.

    ed.WriteMessage("\nStarting to upload the LandXML file...");

    blob.UploadFile(@"c:\Temp\Existing Ground Surface.xml");       

    ed.WriteMessage("\nCivil 3D Surface LandXML file is uploaded to Cloud Storage :  " + blob.Uri);

 

  }

  catch (StorageClientException e)

  {

 

    ed.WriteMessage("Storage Client Error : " + e.Message);

    // Exit here ?

  }

  catch (Autodesk.AutoCAD.Runtime.Exception ex)

  {

    ed.WriteMessage("Error encountered: " + ex.Message);

 

  }

 

}

 

Next we will see how to access this LandXML from cloud and get it in Civil 3D to create a TIN surface.

Creating a TIN surface from LandXML file

By Partha Sarkar

In AutoCAD Civil 3D we can use the LANDXMLIN command and import a LandXML file to create Civil 3D objects like Surface, Alignment, Pipe Network etc. Sometime ago, a Civil 3D application developer asked me about how do I create a Surface from a LandXML file using API ?

Civil 3D has the following COM API to create a Surface from LandXML -

IAeccSurfaces::ImportXML() -> Given the specified surface name and XML file, it creates a new surface from the imported XML data, adds it to the collection, and returns an instance of the new object.

.NET equivalent of this COM API is not yet available (in the current release), however, we can use COM Interop and create a .NET application. Here is a relevant C# code snippet -

 

public static void Civil3DImportLandXML(String filelocation)

{

  //get editor and database

  Editor ed = Application.DocumentManager.MdiActiveDocument.Editor;

  Database db = Application.DocumentManager.MdiActiveDocument.Database;

 

  //start a transaction

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

  {

    AcadApplication oApp = (AcadApplication)Application.AcadApplication;

    string sAppName = "AeccXUiLand.AeccApplication.10.0"; // Civil 3D 2013

    AeccApplication aeccApp = (AeccApplication)oApp.GetInterfaceObject(sAppName);

    AeccDocument aeccDoc = (AeccDocument)aeccApp.ActiveDocument;         

 

    // Get the AeccSurfaces object

    Autodesk.AECC.Interop.Land.AeccSurfaces oAeccSurfaces = aeccDoc.Surfaces;

 

    String landxmlFile = filelocation;       

    oAeccSurfaces.ImportXML(landxmlFile);

 

    // Call AutoCAD COM API ZoomExtents to see the Surface object

    oApp.ZoomExtents();

 

    trans.Commit();

  }

 

}///

Here is the result of calling the above function in Civil 3D 2013 [I used Civil 3D tutorial dataset here] -

While trying this in Civil 3D, I was thinking how about keeping my LandXML in Cloud storage and using it from anywhere, anytime ? Does it sound interesting ? I will continue this to see how we can store Civil 3D LandXML files in cloud and use them whenever and wherever I want to create a TIN surface.

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