Revit API: Is SetLayerSelection the best solution? - c#

Our company has hundreds of legacy AutoCAD details to choose from to import into Revit. We are using Revit 2021 and C# (Visual Studio 2019) to access the Revit API. We already have the code to create the drafting views and import the DWG files. What we still need to figure out is how to NOT import certain layers (i.e., Defpoints), and how to change the line graphics (color and/or line weight) on a per layer basis. Normally this is done via the VG Overrides dialog in Revit, but we would like to do it programmatically during the import process. Which of the following is best practice?
Solution #1: Import only “visible” layers. This is our current, and less than ideal, solution and requires turning off layers manually before the import.
DWGImportOptions options = new DWGImportOptions
{
VisibleLayersOnly = true,
};
doc.Import(#detailfilename, options, detailview, out elemId);
Solution #2: Use the SetLayerSelection method under the DWGImportOptions class. This requires that an ICollection object be passed to the method that contains the layers to be imported. How are the layers read from the DWG file into the ICollection object? A snippet of code would be greatly appreciated.
Solution #3: Something else we have not thought of.
Thank you in advance for your assistance and expertise. Snippets of code would be greatly appreciated.

Afaict, the method of choice to generate the lists of layers to import would be to implement an AutoCAD.NET application that reads the existing layers in every DWG file and processes them according to given rules.
Since that requires AutoCAD.NET work anyway, I would go whole hog and implement full preprocessing of the DWG files in that app, so that nothing more than you already have remains to be done in the Revit API.
My personal 2c only, of course.

Thank you Jeremy Tammick. I am curious if the code from your 4/12/2013 blog post could be used. I modified that code as follows, but the Open command throws an exception: "Method not available in MDI mode. Use Open method of Documents collection". Any thoughts? Many thanks.
[TransactionAttribute(TransactionMode.Manual)]
public class OpenDWG : IExternalCommand
{
public Result Execute(ExternalCommandData commandData, ref string message, ElementSet elements)
{
Autodesk.AutoCAD.Interop.AcadApplication app = new Autodesk.AutoCAD.Interop.AcadApplication();
Autodesk.AutoCAD.Interop.AcadDocument adoc = app.Documents.Application.ActiveDocument;
string pfile = "C:\\Testfile.dwg";
adoc.Open(pfile); //this command throws an exception
//add more code here to turn off unwanted layers
adoc.Save();
app.Quit();
return Result.Succeeded;
}
}

Related

Call method from interface or abstract class within static void

I'm usually a javascript developer, but for my company I just started learning c# in order to use the CimatronE 13 API to develop custom command line PDM tools for this 3D modelling software.
As I'm making progress understanding the programming language, there's this frustrating situation where I want to use an API endpoint method but I can't manage to get it working.
The Cimatron documentation says the following:
IPdm::GetRelatedDocuments
Syntax: RelatedDocuments = GetRelatedDocuments ( DocumentPath );
This method allows you to get related files from compound types of files, for example Assembly or Drawing.
Input: (String) DocumentPath,
Path to file. For example \Documents\Location\Folder\Document. The file must be Assembly or Drawing.
Return: (Variant) RelatedDocuments,
Variant type array each element of which contain two dimensioned string type array of files related to selected one.
This looks pretty straight forward to me, so I tried calling it in multiple ways from within the static void Main() method, but I keep getting errors:
var RelatedDocuments = interop.CimBaseAPI.IPdm.GetRelatedDocuments("path");
CS0120: An object reference is required for the non-static field, method, or property 'IPdm.GetRelatedDocuments(string)'
interop.CimBaseAPI.IPdm pdm = new interop.CimBaseAPI.IPdm();
var RelatedDocuments = pdm.GetRelatedDocuments("path");
CS0144: Cannot create an instance of the abstract class or interface 'IPdm'
Any ideas? It's probably simple but I'm still a noob with c# :p
EDIT:
Cimatron documentation about the interface interop.CimBaseAPI.IPdm:
Properties:
Get
Query (String, DocumentEnumType, DocumentEnumUnit )
Variant
Methods:
A lot, including Variant GetRelatedDocuments ( String )
As how I see it now... interop.CimatronE.IPdm is an interface and in order to use it's methods, we first need access to the Cimatron application. Using the application object, we can use it's methods to get the desired interfaces such as IPdm and use their methods.
The following code gives no errors from the compiler but does when executing. This seems to be related to version 13 of CimatronE, since the application object works just fine using version 12. A lot has changed between these versions which I think is the reason the API is not functioning properly, outdated.
interop.CimAppAccess.AppAccess AppAcc = new interop.CimAppAccess.AppAccess();
interop.CimatronE.IApplication CimApp = /*(interop.CimatronE.IApplication)*/AppAcc.GetApplication();
interop.CimatronE.IPdm pdm = CimApp.GetPdm();
var RelatedDocuments = pdm.GetRelatedDocuments("path");
Console.WriteLine(RelatedDocuments);
Please correct me if I'm wrong! (since I just started and still learning c#)
I ran into this same issue with Cimatron 14.
I needed to make some changes in Visual Studio for things run properly with Cimatron.
Run Visual Studio in administrator mode
Set your Debug & Release Solution Platform to 'x64'
It was also recommended to point the build path for release & debug to the same folder as the Cimatron references. In my case 'C:\Program Files\3D Systems\Cimatron\14.0\Program'. However my code appears to run fine without this.
I created the Cimatron Application with this code (VB.Net):
Dim gAppAccess As New CIMAPPACCESSLib.AppAccess 'Define an AppAccess object to get running active application
Dim gApp As CIMAPPACCESSLib.Application 'Define an Application object
gApp = gAppAccess.GetApplication 'Getting running active application
If gApp Is Nothing Then
gApp = New CIMAPPACCESSLib.Application 'Creating a new instance of a Cimatron application
End If
References: Interop.CIMAPPACCESSLib.dll & interop.CimServicesAPI.dll
It is my understanding that Cimatron 15 may also requires some manifest changes.
There is some help information in the Cimatron program under Cimatrom Modules > Cimaton SDK that may be mildly helpful.

How to output a file from a roslyn code analyzer?

I'm using the roslyn API to write a DiagnosticAnalyzer and CodeFix.
After I have collected all strings and string-interpolations, I want to write all of them to a file but I am not sure how to do this the best way.
Of course I can always simply do a File.WriteAllText(...) but I'd like to expose more control to the user.
I'm also not sure about how to best trigger the generation of this file, so my questions are:
I do not want to hard-code the filename, what would be the best way to expose this setting to the user of the code-analyzer? A config file? If so, how would I access that? ie: How do I know the directory?
If one string is missing from the file, I'd like to to suggest a code fix like "Project contains changed or new strings, regenerate string file". Is this the best way to do this? Or is it possible to add a button or something to visual studio?
I'm calling the devenv.com executable from the commandline to trigger builds, is there a way to force my code-fix to run either while building, or before/after? Or would I have to "manually" load the solution with roslyn and execute my codefix?
I've just completed a project on this. There are a few things that you will need to do / know.
You will probably need to switch you're portable class library to a class library. otherwise you will have trouble calling the File.WriteAllText()
You can see how to Convert a portable class library to a regular here
This will potentially not appropriately work for when trying to apply all changes to document/project/solution. When Calling from a document/project/solution, the changes are precalcuated and applied in a preview window. If you cancel, an undo action is triggered to undo all changes, if you write to a file during this time, and do not register an undo action you will not undo the changes to the file.
I've opened a bug with roslyn but you can handle instances by override the preview you can see how to do so here
And one more final thing you may need to know is how to access the Solution from the analyzer which, Currently there is a hack I've written to do so here
As Tamas said you can use additional files you can see how to do so here
You can use additional files, but I know on the version I'm using resource files, are not marked as additional files by default they are embeddedResources.
So, for my users to not have to manually mark the resource as additonalFiles I wrote a function to get out the Designer.cs files associated with resource files from the csproj file using xDoc you can use it as an example if you choose to parse the csproj file:
protected List<string> GetEmbeddedResourceResxDocumentPaths(Project project)
{
XDocument xmldoc = XDocument.Load(project.FilePath);
XNamespace msbuild = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003";
var resxFiles = new List<string>();
foreach (var resource in xmldoc.Descendants(msbuild + "EmbeddedResource"))
{
string includePath = resource.Attribute("Include").Value;
var includeExtension = Path.GetExtension(includePath);
if (0 == string.Compare(includeExtension, RESX_FILE_EXTENSION, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))
{
var outputTag = resource.Elements(msbuild + LAST_GENERATED_TAG).FirstOrDefault();
if (null != outputTag)
{
resxFiles.Add(outputTag.Value);
}
}
}
return resxFiles;
}
For config files you can use the AdditionalFiles msbuild property, which is passed to the analyzers through the context. See here.

Dynamic Update using the visual designer: is it possible, or better to convert flows to code?

Related to my earlier question about updating long-running flows with multiple child flows and custom activities, I'm working on implementing a plan as well as code for modifying workflows after they've been released to production.
Besides the various issues outlined in the other question, I'm trying to debug the visual designer appearing jumbled after prepping it for dynamic update. After running diffs on the .xaml, it appears to be an issue with the WorkflowViewState getting confused.
According to previous posts, it seems that abandoning the visual designer is one sure-fire way of solving this problem. However, I've found code that seems to nearly get me there. Here is how I'm saving the MainProcessFlow.xaml back to the file, after calling the DynamicUpdateServices.PrepareForUpdate method:
private static void SaveBuilderToFile(ActivityBuilder builder, string filePath)
{
// Make sure the activity builder has the right information about the c# expressions (even though its visual basic)
VisualBasic.SetSettings(builder, VisualBasic.GetSettings(builder));
// Set c# as the language
System.Activities.Presentation.Expressions.ExpressionActivityEditor.SetExpressionActivityEditor(builder, "C#");
// This is what I was hoping would correctly set the Viewstate
WorkflowViewState.SetViewStateManager(
builder.Implementation, WorkflowViewState.GetViewStateManager(builder.Implementation));
string fullPath = Path.GetFullPath(filePath);
using (FileStream file = File.Create(fullPath))
{
using (XmlWriter xmlWriter = XmlWriter.Create(file, new XmlWriterSettings { Indent = true, OmitXmlDeclaration = true }))
{
using (XamlWriter xamlWriter = ActivityXamlServices.CreateBuilderWriter( new XamlXmlWriter(xmlWriter, new XamlSchemaContext())))
{
XamlServices.Save(xamlWriter, builder);
}
}
}
}
After calling this method and opening the .xaml up in the visual designer, the activities are out of order. The flows are still "correct", in that the arrows are pointing in the right direction, but the layout is jumbled. After making my changes, creating the update map, and saving the .xaml back without the dynamicupdate information, the order is still incorrect. There is not very much documentation (that I can find) on setting the Viewstate in the xaml. Am I missing something?
Alternatively, is abandoning the visual designer a better option? We have nearly a years worth of Workflows, so it would be an immense undertaking, but getting DynamicUpdate working is a higher priority.
I just fixed such problem and I did it by taking WorkflowViewState.GetViewStateManager(builder.Implementation) before DynamicUpdateServices.PrepareForUpdate(builder). I don't know what is the problem, but after I PrepareForUpdate and the result from GetViewStateManager is null.
After I do all stuff, I pass the ViewStateManager to SaveBuilderToFile() and use it there.

Dynamically compiled project losing resources

I need to compile source code of big project dynamically and output type can be Windows Application or Class Library.
Code is nicely executed and its possible to make .dll or .exe files, but problem is that, when I'm trying to make .exe file - it's losing resources like project icon. Result file doesn't include assembly information to.
Any way to solve this? (Expected result should be the same, that manual Build function on project file in Visual Studio 2015).
Thank you!
var workspace = MSBuildWorkspace.Create();
//Locating project file that is WindowsApplication
var project = workspace.OpenProjectAsync(#"C:\RoslynTestProjectExe\RoslynTestProjectExe.csproj").Result;
var metadataReferences = project.MetadataReferences;
// removing all references
foreach (var reference in metadataReferences)
{
project = project.RemoveMetadataReference(reference);
}
//getting new path of dlls location and adding them to project
var param = CreateParamString(); //my own function that returns list of references
foreach (var par in param)
{
project = project.AddMetadataReference(MetadataReference.CreateFromFile(par));
}
//compiling
var projectCompilation = project.GetCompilationAsync().Result;
using (var stream = new MemoryStream())
{
var result = projectCompilation.Emit(stream);
if (result.Success)
{
/// Getting result
//writing exe file
using (var file = File.Create(Path.Combine(_buildPath, fileName)))
{
stream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);
stream.CopyTo(file);
}
}
}
We never really designed the workspace API to include all the information you need to emit like this; in particular when you're calling Emit there's an EmitOptions you can pass that includes, amongst other things, resource information. But we don't expose that information since this scenario wasn't hugely considered. We've done some of the work in the past to enable this but ultimately never merged it. You might wish to consider filing a bug so we officially have the request somewhere.
So what can you do? I think there's a few options. You might consider not using Roslyn at all but rather modifying the project file and building that with the MSBuild APIs. Unfortunately I don't know what you're ultimately trying to achieve here (it would help if you mentioned it), but there's a lot more than just the compiler invocation that is involved in building a project. Changing references potentially changes other things too.
It'd also be possible, of course, to update MSBuildWorkspace yourself to pass this through. If you were to modify the Roslyn code, you'll see we implement a series of interfaces named "ICscHostObject#" (where # is a number) and we get passed the information from MSBuild to that. It looks like we already stash that in the command line arguments, so you might be able to pass that to our command line parser and get the data back you need that way.

Is it possible to use Gephi compiled with IKVM in a website?

I'm currently trying to load and use the Gephi Toolkit from within a .Net 4 C# website.
I have a version of the toolkit jar file compiled against the IKVM virtual machine, which works as expected from a command line application using the following code:
var controller = (ProjectController)Lookup.getDefault().lookup(typeof(ProjectController));
controller.closeCurrentProject();
controller.newProject();
var project = controller.getCurrentProject();
var workspace = controller.getCurrentWorkspace();
The three instances are correctly instantiated in a form similar to org.gephi.project.impl.ProjectControllerImpl#8ddb93.
If however I run the exact same code, with the exact same using statements & references, the very first line loading the ProjectController instance returns null.
I have tried a couple of solutions
Firstly, I have tried ignoring the Lookup.getDefault().lookup(type) call, instead trying to create my own instances:
var controller = new ProjectControllerImpl();
controller.closeCurrentProject();
controller.newProject();
var project = controller.getCurrentProject();
var workspace = controller.getCurrentWorkspace();
This fails at the line controller.newProject();, I think because internally (using reflector) the same Lookup.getDefault().lookup(type) is used in a constructor, returns null and then throws an exception.
Secondly, from here: Lookup in Jython (and Gephi) I have tried to set the %CLASSPATH% to the location of both the toolkit JAR and DLL files.
Is there a reason why the Lookup.getDefault().lookup(type) would not work in a web environment? I'm not a Java developer, so I am a bit out of my depth with the Java side of this.
I would have thought it possible to create all of the instances myself, but haven't been able to find a way to do so.
I also cannot find a way of seeing why the ProjectController load returned null. No exception is thrown, and unless I'm being very dumb, there doesn't appear to be a method to see the result of the attempted load.
Update - Answer
Based on the answer from Jeroen Frijters, I resolved the issue like this:
public class Global : System.Web.HttpApplication
{
public Global()
{
var assembly = Assembly.LoadFrom(Path.Combine(root, "gephi-toolkit.dll"));
var acl = new AssemblyClassLoader(assembly);
java.lang.Thread.currentThread().setContextClassLoader(new MySystemClassLoader(acl));
}
}
internal class MySystemClassLoader : ClassLoader
{
public MySystemClassLoader(ClassLoader parent)
: base(new AppDomainAssemblyClassLoader(typeof(MySystemClassLoader).Assembly))
{ }
}
The code ikvm.runtime.Startup.addBootClassPathAssemby() didn't seem to work for me, but from the provided link, I was able to find a solution that seems to work in all instances.
This is a Java class loader issue. In a command line app your main executable functions as the system class loader and knows how to load assembly dependencies, but in a web process there is no main executable so that system class loader doesn't know how to load anything useful.
One of the solutions is to call ikvm.runtime.Startup.addBootClassPathAssemby() to add the relevant assemblies to the boot class loader.
For more on IKVM class loading issues see http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/ikvm/index.php?title=ClassLoader

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