Any luminaries out there know how you can get access to the symbol style that is currently used for an asset (e.g. a valve) in AutoCAD P&ID?
When you create an asset type in the P&ID Class definitions interface (e.g. a Valve) you have to assign a 'symbol' to the item so that, when you select it from something like a palette, it is inserted. However, you can have multiple symbols for each Class Definition. This prevents having to have a different class definition (i.e. Valve) in your palette for every variation of that type of valve (e.g. Jacketed, Close Bored, Non-Return, etc.). If you have 10 different types of valves, and you do, if you have a different class defintion for each variation, you'll wind up with 60 or more items in your tool palette for each variation.
While that is problem enough, because Autodesk, in all of their wisdom, doesn't have the substitution palette working on the interface, it is actually impractical to select one of 60 items on your tool palette, because on any monitor worth using, the symbols are so small, that you can't read them. You have to wait for the tool-tips to work. So... doesn't work.
I want to solve this problem by querying the drawing through a .NET program that will determine the symbol that is currently being utilized by each asset. But the actual symbol currently being used by an asset is not accessible from any interface that I can see. It is not recorded in the database, and it is not recorded in the .NET interface of the asset. You can see it on the properties palette. It's shown under the 'Styles' heading with the property 'Graphical style', along with every other property that goes to describe the asset. But it's the only property that isn't shown anywhere else.
So where is it recorded? Does anyone know of a way that you can determine what graphical symbol is being used by each asset without using the AutoCAD properties interface? How do you access it from the .NET interface?
