Manufacturing DevBlog

Fusion API: Create ConstructionPlane from Plane in Parametric Modeling

By Xiaodong Liang

The following code is a snippet of my add-in, Basically, it will create a ConstructionPlane based on a Plane. However, it failed at sketch = sketches.add(cons_plane).After debugging, I found constructionPlanes.add returns nothing, that is why sketches.add failed.

import adsk.core, adsk.fusion, traceback
def run(context):
ui = None
try:
app = adsk.core.Application.get()
ui = app.userInterface
product = app.activeProduct
rootComp = product.rootComponent
pt_3d_1 = adsk.core.Point3D.create(0,0,0)
normal = adsk.core.Vector3D.create(0,0,1)
plane = adsk.core.Plane.create(pt_3d_1,normal)
print(plane.normal.x,plane.normal.y,plane.normal.z)
cons_planes = rootComp.constructionPlanes
print(cons_planes.count)
cons_planeInput = cons_planes.createInput()
cons_planeInput.setByPlane(plane)
cons_plane = cons_planes.add(cons_planeInput)
#watch cons_plane. it is none.
sketches = rootComp.sketches
#throw exception because cons_plane is none
sketch = sketches.add(cons_plane)
#can work if using default plane
#xyPlane = rootComp.xYConstructionPlane
#sketch = sketches.add(xyPlane)
except:
if ui:
ui.messageBox('Failed:\n{}'.format(traceback.format_exc()))

 

When we create a construction plane in [non-Parametric Modeling], it has no relationship to anything else and is positioned in space.  We can use the Move command to reposition it anywhere in the model.  When working in [Parametric Modeling], the construction plane remembers the input geometry and is tied to it.  If that geometry changes, the construction plane will be recomputed.  It’s not possible to create a construction plane that has not relationship to anything.  The exception to this is because I create a construction plane and then delete whatever it’s dependent on.  But then it just becomes sick and the only option is to redefine it which means I need to re-associate it to some other geometry. Finally, I got know the root reason. It is an as design behavior in [Parametric Modeling]. Fusion 360 provides two types of modeling: [Parametric Modeling] and [non-Parametric Modeling]. The former is also called modeling with history, while the latter is called direct modeling.

Construction planes are real entities, while Plane object is transient, which just provides the mathematical definition of a plane.

So in [non-Parametric Modeling], the code will work well.

In default, the modeling mode follows the setting in Preference

If you want to switch the modeling mode in the middle way, you can right click the root node and click the last menu item.

Transaction.Commit throws exception

By Adam Nagy

Unlike in vanilla AutoCAD, in AutoCAD Mechanical each command is automatically wrapped in a Transaction. You can verify this by checking the value of Database.TransactionManager.TopTransaction inside your command - in case of AutoCAD Mechanical it will be an object with type AppTransaction:

When using the PlotEngine in your code to publish a drawing and creating your own Transaction to open the necessary objects, it seems to get entangled with AppTransaction. As a result you get an exception "Operation is not valid due to the current state of the object." when calling Transaction.Commit() at the end of your command:

There seems to be two workarounds: either just use the already available AppTransaction inside AutoCAD Mechanical to open the objects you need (not sure if that could have some side effects) or use an OpenCloseTransaction instead of a normal Transaction, by calling StartOpenCloseTransaction():

 

Inventor API: Hide Surface Bodies of Drawing View

By Xiaodong Liang

Question:
It is possible to hide Surface Bodies by right clicking on the [Surface Bodies] node in the "Model Tree" and then toggle visibility by clicking on [Visibility]. I want to make a custom function using the inventor API that enables us to programmatically hide all Surface Bodies in a drawing.

Solution:

I found some customers are using the two ways:

1. toggle the visibility of the surface body of the source parts

2. find out the browser node in the model tree and execute command [visibility].

Re#1, it is to modify the status of the source parts, that means it will affect not only the source parts, but also other drawing views which references this model, while in UI, one drawing view is one representation of the surface bodies. Different drawingviews can represent different surface bodies, even though they are from the same model.

Re#2, it will have to iterate the model tree to find out the correct node. In addition, in some scenarios, it would not take effect at once when executing a command. And you will also need to manage selection set.

Actually, however API has provided the direct way DrawingView.SetVisibility( Object As Object, Visible As Boolean ). Valid objects are 2d and 3d sketches, work features, surface features, occurrences and proxies for all of these. The object needs to be supplied in the context of the document referenced by the drawing view. Once the objects are input, API can toggle their visibility like UI does.

This demo below assumes there is a drawing which references one assembly. The assembly contains two parts. In each part, there are two surface bodies respectively. Now, we just want to make view2>>part1>>surface body1 invisible. The code is:

Sub toggleSBVisibleinDrawing()

    Dim oDoc As DrawingDocument 
    Set oDoc = ThisApplication.ActiveDocument 
    
    'assume we only want to toggle the surface bodies presenation 
    Dim oView As DrawingView 
    Set oView = oDoc.SelectSet(1) 
    
    'assume the reference document is an assembly 
    Dim oRefDoc As AssemblyDocument 
    Set oRefDoc = oView.ReferencedDocumentDescriptor.ReferencedDocument     
     
    'check one part 
    Dim oOnePartOcc As ComponentOccurrence 
    Set oOnePartOcc = oRefDoc.ComponentDefinition.Occurrences(1)     
     
    Dim oPartDef As PartComponentDefinition 
    Set oPartDef = oOnePartOcc.Definition 
    
    'assume we want to make one surface body invisible. 
    'Note: one part can have more than 1 surface bodies 
    
    Dim oSB1 As SurfaceBody 
    Set oSB1 = oPartDef.SurfaceBodies(1) 
    
    Dim oSB1Proxy As SurfaceBodyProxy 
    Call oOnePartOcc.CreateGeometryProxy(oSB1, oSB1Proxy) 
    
    'toggle the visibility of this object 
    Call oView.SetVisibility(oSB1Proxy, False) 
End Sub

 

after the code, you can see only the surface body in view2 is invisible. and it does not either affect the source part.

Inventor iLogic: Dislay Mass from Different LOD on Drawing

By Xiaodong Liang

This is from a forum post in which one customer wanted to get mass of each LOD and display them on the drawing of top assembly. 

The advocate Rossano Praderi shared a solution which is nice to me. He provided the dataset only. I think it will be helpful for more customers with the workflow and codes out of the dataset. So I wrote this blog. Thanks Rossano Praderi!

1. In the attached dataset, there is a top assembly with several components. Three LOD (First, Second, Third) are created.

2. The corresponding drawing of the top assembly is also created.

3. An iLogic rule is attached with this assembly. It activates each LOD one by one, and updates the value of corresponding custom property with the Mass value. If such custom property does not exist, it will be created automatically.

'get RepresentationsManager Dim repMgr As RepresentationsManager = ThisApplication.ActiveDocument.ComponentDefinition.RepresentationsManager   'record current LevelOfDetailRepresentation Dim oCurrentRepName As String  = repMgr.ActiveLevelOfDetailRepresentation.Name   Dim oRep As LevelOfDetailRepresentation Dim oRepName  Dim oMass   For Each oRep In repMgr.LevelOfDetailRepresentations     oRepName = oRep.Name     'activate this LOD     repMgr.LevelOfDetailRepresentations.Item(oRepName).Activate     'get mass      oMass = iProperties.Mass      'update value of custom property      iProperties.Value("Custom", oRepName) = iProperties.Mass Next   'restore repMgr.LevelOfDetailRepresentations.Item(oCurrentRepName).Activate

4. In the drawing document, define some Property Text (from model) in the sheet. e.g. if we need the information of First/Second/Thrid LOD. The values will be displayed in the sheet.

 

Next Accelerator in Barcelona

By Adam Nagy

We have organized quite a few accelerators already where we are working along with partners to jump start their application development.

The next one will be in Barcelona, Spain May 16 - 20.

If you are planning to build on top of our Forge platform and like the location then apply now! :)

http://autodeskcloudaccelerator.com/

 

Inventor Add-In that gets the status of a file opened from Vault

By Wayne Brill

You may want to get the status of a file that was opened from Vault. See this blog post for a discussion on a way to do this.

This Inventor 2016 AddIn example uses the EntityStatusImageInfo to get the status of the Inventor active document. The example is only getting the status of a part but could be enhanced to get other file types.  (The reason it is only working with parts is because the button is added to the "PMxPartFeatureCmdBar" command bar).

A form is used to display the image returned from this call.

EntityStatusImageInfo.GetImage()

The Graphics.DrawImage() of the Windows.Forms.PaintEventArgs passed into the Paint event for the form is used to show the image on the form.

 

Download the Inventor Add-In (Visual Studio 2013 project)

  Download Vault_Lab_10_Complete_AddIn_Add_To_Ribbon

 

Click this button the Add-In adds to the ribbon to run the code.

 

Here is the procedure that gets the vault connection, the name of the active document and then uses a FileIteration to get the status. The FileIteration object is returned by using the name of the document. (that code is not shown here).

 

Public Sub test_Vault()

    Dim myConnection As VDF.Vault.Currency.Connections.Connection = Nothing
    ' Get the Vault connection from
    ' the Inventor Vault log in
    myConnection =
        Connectivity.Application.VaultBase.ConnectionManager.Instance.Connection()

    If myConnection Is Nothing Then
        System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show _
                            ("Unable to get Vault connection, logged into Vault?")
        ' Debug.Print("Unable to get Vault connection")
        Return
    End If

    Try
        'Get the name of the Inventor active document
        Dim strFullNameOfDoc As String =
                              m_inventorApplication.ActiveDocument.FullFileName
        Dim strFileName As String = System.IO.Path.GetFileName(strFullNameOfDoc)

        Dim _FileIteration As VDF.Vault.Currency.Entities.FileIteration = Nothing
        _FileIteration = getFileIteration(strFileName, myConnection)

        If Not _FileIteration Is Nothing Then
            Dim props As PropertyDefinitionDictionary =
                myConnection.PropertyManager.GetPropertyDefinitions _
                                 (VDF.Vault.Currency.Entities.EntityClassIds.Files, _
                                    Nothing, PropertyDefinitionFilter.IncludeAll)

            Dim statusProp As PropertyDefinition =
                                       props(PropertyDefinitionIds.Client.VaultStatus)

            Dim _status As EntityStatusImageInfo =
                TryCast(myConnection.PropertyManager.GetPropertyValue _
                          (_FileIteration, statusProp, Nothing), EntityStatusImageInfo)

            System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show _
                                           ("Status =   " & _status.Status.ToString())

            _img = _status.GetImage()
            'Display a form that will show the Image
            Dim _Frm As Form1 = New Form1
            _Frm.Show()
        Else
            System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show _
                                     ("Did not find " & strFileName & " in the vault")
        End If

    Catch ex As System.Exception
        System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("Error occurred:  " & ex.ToString())
        'Debug.Print("unable to get Folder.  " & ex.ToString())

    End Try

End Sub

Vault VB Extension not loading due to Namespace setting in properties

By Wayne Brill

This post has a list of things to check when a Vault Extension is not loading.

Here is another thing to check if your extension is not loading. In the properties for the project see the setting for Root namespace (screenshot below) and compare this to the type setting in the vcet.config file. 

The project will have a namespace and a class similar to this:

Namespace VaultTest

    Public Class Test

       Implements IWebServiceExtension

In the vcet.config file the type needs to match the Namespace for the project. When “Test” is the setting for the Root namespace in the properties, the value of type for this project would need to be the following. Notice the namespace has the value from the properties as well as the value from the code.

type="Test.VaultTest.Test, test">

So the solution is either to remove the Root namespace from the properties or ensure that the type setting in the vcet.config includes the namespace from the properties.

 

Using Apprentice from VBA, iLogic or an Add-In

By Adam Nagy

Using Apprentice from inside the Inventor process is not supported. So using it from anything that is running in-process with Inventor like VBA, an Add-In dll or an iLogic code, is also not supported.  

Before 64 bit VBA became available, the 64 bit version of Inventor was using the 32 bit VBA environment which had to run in a separate process. In that case you could get away with using Apprentice from VBA. Now (I think since Inventor 2014) VBA is running in-process with 64 bit Inventor, so now you cannot use Apprentice from VBA.  

Easiest solution is to wrap all the Apprentice related functionality into your own exe and call that from inside Inventor, or just rely on the Inventor API to achieve what you need. E.g. for quite a few releases now ReplaceReference has been available in Inventor API too.  

Retrieve sketch dimension of part document inside assembly

By Adam Nagy

There is already a similar post related to Derived Assemblies. The difference there is that in that case you could not get a proxy for a sketch entity because there is no direct connection between the proxy inside the derived document and the native object in the original document: 
http://adndevblog.typepad.com/manufacturing/2014/11/get-edge-in-derived-part-that-drives-work-point.html

In case of a normal assembly we need to get the proxy for the sketch dimension entity that resides inside the part document. We can then use that to retrieve what we need.

Sub RetrieveDimension()

Dim oDwg As DrawingDocument
Set oDwg = ThisApplication.ActiveDocument

Dim oSheet As Sheet
Set oSheet = oDwg.ActiveSheet

Dim oView As DrawingView
Set oView = oSheet.DrawingViews.Item(2)

Dim oAsmDoc As AssemblyDocument
Set oAsmDoc = oView.ReferencedDocumentDescriptor.ReferencedDocument

Dim oRefOcc As ComponentOccurrence
Set oRefOcc = oAsmDoc.ComponentDefinition.Occurrences.Item(1)

Dim oPartDoc As PartDocument
Set oPartDoc = oRefOcc.Definition.Document

Dim oPartCompDef As PartComponentDefinition
Set oPartCompDef = oPartDoc.ComponentDefinition

Dim oDC As DimensionConstraint
Set oDC = oPartCompDef.Sketches(1).DimensionConstraints(1)

Dim oDCproxy As Object
Call oRefOcc.CreateGeometryProxy(oDC, oDCproxy)

Dim oObjColl As ObjectCollection
Set oObjColl = ThisApplication.TransientObjects.CreateObjectCollection()

Call oObjColl.Add(oDCproxy)

Call oSheet.DrawingDimensions.GeneralDimensions.Retrieve(oView, oObjColl)

End Sub

 

Note: if for some reason retrieving a specific dimension is not working then you could work around it by retrieving all the dimensions and deleting the ones you don't need:

Dim oDims As GeneralDimensionsEnumerator
Set oDims = oSheet.DrawingDimensions.GeneralDimensions.Retrieve(oView)

Dim o As Object
For Each o In oDims
  If Not o.RetrievedFrom Is oDCproxy Then
    Call o.Delete
  End If
Next

Inventor Add-In using C++/CLR

By Adam Nagy

Philippe already created a sample mixed-managed (C++/CLR) add-in that you can have a look at. But I thought it could be useful to list the steps to achieve that. Instead of creating a C++ Inventor add-in using the Inventor Add-In wizard, adding .NET support to it, and separating the generated code from the managed parts using #pragma unmanaged /#pragma managed blocks, it's easier to create a C++/CLR Class Library and implement your ApplicationAddInServer in .NET.

1) Create the "C++/CLR Class Library" - preferably inside "%APPDATA%\Autodesk\ApplicationPlugins" to make your life easier

2) Create a "x64" platform for the project and keep that active

Inside the "Configuration Manager" dialog, under "Active solution platform" select "<New...>" and add the "x64" platform

3) Reference "Autodesk.Inventor.Interop.dll"

Click "PROJECT" >> "References..." and browse to "<Inventor install folder>\Bin\Public Assemblies" and add "Autodesk.Inventor.Interop.dll"

4) Inside the same dialog box also add a reference to "System.Windows.Forms" just so that we can show a message box from our code later on

5) Implement the "ApplicationAddInServer" class

// MyClrAddIn.h

#pragma once

using namespace System;
using namespace System::Runtime::InteropServices;
using namespace System::Windows::Forms;
using namespace Inventor;

namespace MyClrAddIn {
  public ref class StandardAddInServer : public ApplicationAddInServer
  {
  public:
    StandardAddInServer(void)
    {

    }

    virtual void Activate(ApplicationAddInSite^ addInSiteObject, bool firstTime)
    {
      MessageBox::Show("Add-In Loading");
    }

    virtual void Deactivate()
    {
      MessageBox::Show("Add-In Unloading");
    }

    virtual void ExecuteCommand(int CommandID)
    {
    }

    virtual property Object^ Automation
    {
      // If you want to return an interface to another client of this addin,
      // implement that interface in a class and return that class object
      // through this property
      Object^ get()
      {
        return nullptr;
      }
    }
  };
}

5) Create a GUID and a ProgId for the class and make it ComVisible

namespace MyClrAddIn {
  [
    ProgId("MyClrAddIn.StandardAddInServer"),
    GuidAttribute("3543165F-7F19-4614-8842-572A5EBE9549"),
    ComVisible(true)
  ]
  public ref class StandardAddInServer : public ApplicationAddInServer
  {
    // etc...

Note: you can use Visual Studio's "Create GUID" dialog for creating a new GUID

7) Create an *.addin file inside your solution's folder with name "" and content  

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
  <!-- Type attribute is same as Type registry key
  (Standard, Translator, Plugin (Server only) -->
  <Addin Type="Standard">
     
  <!-- Should be the same as the "GuidAttribute" in MyClrAddIn.h -->
  <ClassId>{3543165F-7F19-4614-8842-572A5EBE9549}</ClassId>
  <ClientId>{3543165F-7F19-4614-8842-572A5EBE9549}</ClientId>

  <!-- Both of the following fields should be translated.
  NO OTHER FIELDS SHOULD BE TRANSLATED! -->
  <DisplayName>MyClrAddIn</DisplayName>
  <Description>MyClrAddIn</Description>

  <!-- Assumes that MyClrAddIn.dll is in the same folder as the *.addin file -->
  <Assembly>MyClrAddIn.dll</Assembly>

  <SupportedSoftwareVersionGreaterThan>17..</SupportedSoftwareVersionGreaterThan>
  <LoadOnStartUp>1</LoadOnStartUp>
  <Hidden>0</Hidden>
</Addin>

Here is the source code of the project:
https://github.com/adamenagy/Inventor-AddInWithCLR