Witch program language to move to?

[Anonymous]

Hello.
I'm a VBA programmer, my new 3D program using VBA made look for an other language due to the VBA limitation at lest regarding 3D (eg: It's not possible to select a face from a 3d solid),
I know there is .Net, ARX and lisp, I want you guys to advise me about the most powerful one i should move to, my new application will need 3D solid , xData,

[cadMeUp]

ARX gives you the most powerful api to customize AutoCAD.
Since you have a VBA background, you may want to use VB. NET since you will recognize the syntax and it would be alot smoother transition for you. I personally use a combination of ARX and C#. Both are very powerful, C# is easier to learn and use but you can only create custom objects and entities using ObjectARX. What's nice though in NET if you have a custom object/entity you can create a wrapper for it so you can access the functionality using C# or VB. Whichever one you choose though, if you will be programming for AutoCAD 2007 or 2008, you should use Visual Studio 2005. The ObjectARX SDK that you can download from Autodesk's website, which is free, will provide you with wizards in Visual Sudio to create start-up projects using C++, C#, or VB.

[Anonymous]

thank you

[Anonymous]

There's more to be said...

If you want to get the most out of your time and labor and you have any
common sense you will understand that "web development" is the trend in ALL
software development these days and will be so for a very very very long
time as long as the Internet is around. This is not to day that AutoCAD or
Revit will be running in a browser anytime soon. Ha Ha, no way.

It is to say the design of programming languages, the architecture by which
software is applied and the development of new business models as well as
existing business models are all being compelled to adapt to "web
development" which is just a catch-all phrase even though much of what I am
talking about is literally implemented using Internet Protocols and actually
deployed via the web.

All kinds of software vendors have either done so or are modifying their
products to expose scriptable APIs which support open-source scripting or
interface with .NET or J2EE frameworks to enable their products to
interoperate with Internet Protocols. JavaScript for example is everywhere
these days.

That said, it is wiser to learn C# than stay with the old and outdated VB
syntax and gammare. Why? Because C#, Java and the client-side scripting
language JavaScript all have exactly the same punctuation so you can learn
three languages for the price of one so to speak. In many cases the syntax
and grammar is also identical. Its also important to know and understand
that you will have to become proficient writing code using JavaScript these
days for any code that runs in a browser. Furthermore, C# allows you to work
on Windows or Linux platforms.

There's only so many hours in a day and each of us are on this earth only so
long. Acquiring language skills that can be used and reused in different
circumstances is the intelligent thing to do. That is why Microsoft created
the .NET Framework. That is why Microsoft created C# and that is why you
should learn C#.

<%= Clinton Gallagher
NET csgallagher AT metromilwaukee.com
URL http://clintongallagher.metromilwaukee.com/


wrote in message news:5752597@discussion.autodesk.com...
thank you

[Anonymous]

thanks

[Anonymous]

Please let me know if it's possible with C# and .net to program palettes and treeviews (like sheetset), and make new object from 3D solid, so that the name shows up in the propriety palette instead of "3D Solid", and make it's custom proprieties as well,

[cadMeUp]

I know you can create and program your own palletes. One of my applications creates a pallete on application load, so I know you can do it. There is a sample in the ObjectARX SDK at:
..\samples\dotNet\SimpleToolPalette

With 'new object from 3D solid' you would first have to create your custom entity in ObjectARX, then create a wrapper for it in ObjectARX. The wrapper will allow you to access the functionality of your 3D object using C# or VB. I have created a custom pipe entity using this exact method for AutoCAD 2008 and it works very well!!
There is a sample in the ObjectARX SDK that shows how to do this:
..\samples\entity\SimpleSquare

Of course you can just use ObjectARX to work with your custom entity but writing a wrapper for it gives you some added flexibility.

I suggest reading the ObjectARX Developer's Guide which can be found in the ObjectARX SDK:
Devel guide: ..\docs\arxdev.chm
Ref man: ..\docs\arxref.chm

If you look into the 'arxref.chm' doc you will get an idea of all of the capabilities of ObjectARX.

Also I think you can purchase a printed copy of the ObjectARX Developer's Guide at the Autodesk store on Autodesk's website.

[Anonymous]

No, can't create an Inventor clone in
AutoCAD using .NET and C#.

You can use Palettes and any control that .NET
supports (there are some limitations when they
are used on Palettes, that Autodesk has not
resolved).

You cannot create custom objects in .NET, for
that you need native ObjectARX/C++.

--
http://www.caddzone.com

AcadXTabs: MDI Document Tabs for AutoCAD 2008
Supporting AutoCAD 2000 through 2008
http://www.acadxtabs.com

wrote in message news:5756993@discussion.autodesk.com...
Please let me know if it's possible with C# and .net to program palettes and treeviews (like sheetset), and make new object from 3D solid, so that the name shows up in the propriety palette instead of "3D Solid", and make it's custom proprieties as well,

[kain]

Hello,

I'm looking for some help and I was wondering if you could help me. I'm a college student starting to work on a project for my college so I can graduate. (don't know how it's called in English, i'm from Venezuela! ), as I was saying, I'm lookit to develop a web map server using dwg files, my application must have the ablity to edit dwg files and then publish them in a web server as a jpeg or bmp, etc. I've been searching the web and found that I can develop such applications with .NET especifically but I need Autocad SDK, so I found 2 possible solutions one is REALDwg and the other one is ObjectARX, I read a little more and REaldwg seems to be the perfect solution for me but the thing is this is for a student program so i can't afford to pay 5,000$ for that. now i'm looking at ObjectARX and it seems to work for me but I'm not sure, could you tell me the differences between these 2 programs? and If it would do the job I need to do, develop my application on .NET so I can edit the dwg and publish them on the web.

Thank you very much!

sorry for my mistakes on the grammar/words.

Francisco

Oh and I know ObjectARXX need Autocad to run if it still does the job for me it's no problem I do have a legal Autocad key..

[cadMeUp]

What version of AutoCAD is it? and will you have access to the server that AutoCAD will be running on? Will this be executing from a command you create to run in AutoCAD?
Are you using Visual Studio? Which version of Visual Studio?

Virtually anything is possible with ObjectARX. You don't need REALDwg to do what you are asking, unless, from what I have read, you don't have AutoCAD on a computer that your app will run on. Using net you don't even really need the ObjectARX SDK (but highly recommended you have it installed as it provides documentation using net). You just need AutoCAD installed on the computer that your application will be running on.

Probably you need to look into how to transfer your files, using net, to a web server programmatically. In Visual Studio look into the System.Net namespace. Also, producing DWF files, which are easier to produce in AutoCAD, instead of jpeg or bmp images (to view DWF files though the client would have to have the DWF viewer installed on the computer that will be viewing). But jpeg images are possible too! It depends on how you will create the images.

There are most certainly ways to accomplish what you are asking about. Maybe you can outline the steps that your application would take to get from start to finish.

You're not looking at an easy task! But, It can be done! I am sure someone is already doing this very thing.

[kain]

Thanks LarryB,

The version of Autocad is Autocad 2007, and yes i will have access to the server, in fact I will be making the server to. For Visual Studio I still don't know wich version to use is it ok Visual Studio 2005? Which language is more easy to integrate with Autocad. Visual Studio or Java?...
this I didn't understand sorry "Will this be executing from a command you create to run in AutoCAD?"

I didn't know that I could produce DWF files, as your telling it seems very easy and the client just need a viewer installed on his machine. that may work too, i'll see that when i get to that point hehe..

I know it's not an easy task but I need to do it so I can graduate, it has to be not so easy. An as you say it can be done...

the steps ? mmm something like this:

1. The administrator will have the ability to create, modify, delete the DWG file of the map
2.Then the Server application will read the DWG file and transform it to a DWF or Jpeg, etc. *
here comes another not so easy task. you see the map is from a region, a State of my country. In the region it will be drawn some antennas that represent the coverage of a wireless carrier. The meaning for this application is that the client will see the map with the antennas and the user will be able to "click" on any antenna and see the information of that antenna (this information is stored on a Database i've build)
As you see the server must have the ability to read the objects that DWG has and make a link to every object(antenna) with the Database.
3. And after that publish through a web map server to the client.

Thanks again man!

[cadMeUp]

To program AutoCAD 2007 using net you need Visual Studio 2005. I recommend Visual Studio 2005 Professional. The core languages that come with Visual Studio are C#, Visual Basic, and C++, and anyone of these languages can be used to customize AutoCAD 2007. I believe that you can also purchase each language seperately if needed. I think you would want to go with Visual Studio 2005 Profesional as it also includes additional items for web development.

I may be wrong, but I don't think there is a way to use java with AutoCAD.

If your server is capable of processing asp net web pages then that would give you some more flexibility as you can create your asp net apps with Visual Studio.

It sounds to me like you could just create an image map on an html web page with the map preset to gather the info after a user clicks on one of the items. Is using AutoCAD dwg's a requirement?

You probably need to do some processing on the server but I don't know if you need AutoCAD to do this. PHP, Perl, ASP.NET, or CGI scripts can produce what you want with relative ease. It sounds like trying to process AutoCAD dwg's may be additional processing that you don't necessarily need.

[kain]

ok with Visual Studio is ok.

yes you are right creating an image map works to. but for the project to be accepted as a Tesis, I must use autocad, what I mean, it has to be difficult to do the project so I can graduate. that's why...

thanks for the info. I'll write back soon.

[cadMeUp]

Good Luck with it. Hope it turns out well! I would like to see your finished production.

[jobro888us]

Hi Kain,

Good luck with your graduate project. I am doing also my graduation for the Highschool. I choose a project: Connect fields from a windowsServer 2005 database to block's in an autocad drawing. I have Visual studio 2005 that makes it easyer to do the job. But maybe it is a tip for you: Maybe you can also use VBA or visual lisp for your project. It is installed in every Autocad version and is lot easyer and very important: there is lots of documentation about VBA. If you school is OK with that. My school wasn't so I had to do the .NET. On the Autodesk website there are some good examples about .NET. But it is more a challenge to do it in .NET and you have much more posiibilitys to solve a problem.

Good luck

jobro(Holland)