topic Re: Parent object's Z coordinate in AutoCAD Architecture Customization Forum

Parent object's Z coordinate

Anonymous — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 11:56:55 GMT

I need to get elevation of a wall to which my window is attached to.
I had hoped to get it like this:

Dim Anch, Obj, PObj, App

Set App = GetObject(,"AutoCAD.Application")
Set Obj = App.Activedocument.ObjectIDtoobject("[ObjectID]")
Set Anch = Obj.GetAnchor
Set PObj = Anch.Reference

RESULT = PObj.Location(2)

This fails, why?

Thanks,
Jussi

Re: Parent object's Z coordinate

Anonymous — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 12:29:25 GMT

What version of ADT are you using? Your "Set App" line needs to be changed, based on the version you use:

2004
Set App = GetObject(,"AutoCAD.Application.16")

2005
Set App = GetObject(,"AutoCAD.Application.16.1")

2006
Set App = GetObject(,"AutoCAD.Application.16.2")

--

David Koch
Autodesk Discussion Group Facilitator

Re: Parent object's Z coordinate

Anonymous — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 16:42:34 GMT

It's 2006, but this way it will work on 2004 to 2006 versions.
I know this is something you shouldn't do...

Jussi

kirjoitti viestissä:5089334@discussion.autodesk.com...
What version of ADT are you using? Your "Set App" line needs to be changed,
based on the version you use:

2004
Set App = GetObject(,"AutoCAD.Application.16")

2005
Set App = GetObject(,"AutoCAD.Application.16.1")

2006
Set App = GetObject(,"AutoCAD.Application.16.2")

--

David Koch
Autodesk Discussion Group Facilitator

Re: Parent object's Z coordinate

Anonymous — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 23:35:32 GMT

OK, I see where omitting the number altogether does work, at least it does in 2004 and I can not test any other version right now.

From where are you getting the ObjectID property? [Perhaps this was added in 2005 or 2006, in which case you will have to excuse my ignorance, as I do not have access to either of those versions right now.] You may have better luck using the Handle automatic property. I have seen the following work in 2004, 2005 and 2006, to get the wall object in which a door is anchored. A similar approach should work for windows, as well. Note that while you can leave off the ".16" and have it work in 2004, you can not omit the ".4". This should be ".4.5" for 2005 and ".4.7" for 2006. I leave working out whether the "Location(2)" part will return the elevation of the wall up to you.

Set app = GetObject(,"AutoCAD.Application.16")
Set sched = app.GetInterfaceObject("AecX.AecScheduleApplication.4")
Set door = app.ActiveDocument.HandleToObject("[Handle]")
Set anchor = door.GetAnchor()
Set wall = anchor.Reference

--

David Koch
Autodesk Discussion Group Facilitator

Re: Parent object's Z coordinate

Anonymous — Sun, 19 Feb 2006 15:22:19 GMT

ObjectID comes from the Window. Using ObjectIDs is similar to Handles, but
the big difference is that Handles fail inside XREFs.
Anyway, I'm able to get to the parent object (Wall) succesfully, the actual
problem is with the Location property.

Formula succeeds if the last line is

RESULT = PObj.Location

.. but this returns unusable information.
Extracting the value for z coordinate ("Location(2)") fails.

Jussi

kirjoitti viestissä:5090236@discussion.autodesk.com...
OK, I see where omitting the number altogether does work, at least it does
in 2004 and I can not test any other version right now.

From where are you getting the ObjectID property? [Perhaps this was added
in 2005 or 2006, in which case you will have to excuse my ignorance, as I do
not have access to either of those versions right now.] You may have better
luck using the Handle automatic property. I have seen the following work in
2004, 2005 and 2006, to get the wall object in which a door is anchored. A
similar approach should work for windows, as well. Note that while you can
leave off the ".16" and have it work in 2004, you can not omit the ".4".
This should be ".4.5" for 2005 and ".4.7" for 2006. I leave working out
whether the "Location(2)" part will return the elevation of the wall up to
you.

Set app = GetObject(,"AutoCAD.Application.16")
Set sched = app.GetInterfaceObject("AecX.AecScheduleApplication.4")
Set door = app.ActiveDocument.HandleToObject("[Handle]")
Set anchor = door.GetAnchor()
Set wall = anchor.Reference

--

David Koch
Autodesk Discussion Group Facilitator

Re: Parent object's Z coordinate

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Feb 2006 00:32:50 GMT

Jussi wrote:
> Formula succeeds if the last line is
>
> RESULT = PObj.Location
>
> .. but this returns unusable information.
> Extracting the value for z coordinate ("Location(2)") fails.

Try this instead of the single line above:

Dim pnt as Variant
pnt = PObj.Location

RESULT = pnt(2)

--
Brian Winterscheidt
LWPB Architects & Planners, P.C.
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Re: Parent object's Z coordinate

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Feb 2006 12:45:36 GMT

No luck here...

I tried this both with "as Variant" declaration and without. Since Formulas
are VBScript not VBA, I think there's only Variant data type.

Jussi

"Brian Winterscheidt" kirjoitti
viestissä:5090675@discussion.autodesk.com...
Jussi wrote:
> Formula succeeds if the last line is
>
> RESULT = PObj.Location
>
> .. but this returns unusable information.
> Extracting the value for z coordinate ("Location(2)") fails.

Try this instead of the single line above:

Dim pnt as Variant
pnt = PObj.Location

RESULT = pnt(2)

--
Brian Winterscheidt
LWPB Architects & Planners, P.C.
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Re: Parent object's Z coordinate

Anonymous — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 17:00:50 GMT

Jussi wrote:
> No luck here...
>
> I tried this both with "as Variant" declaration and without. Since Formulas
> are VBScript not VBA, I think there's only Variant data type.
>

Doh. Yeah, I was working in VBA at the time, and just typed it in
there... directly referencing the Location(2) didn't work in VBA, but
assigning it to pnt and referencing that *did* work in VBA. Forgot to
check it in VBScript. Sorry about that...

Does the Elevation prop instead of Location give the same results?

--
Brian Winterscheidt
LWPB Architects & Planners, P.C.
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Re: Parent object's Z coordinate

Anonymous — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 20:41:23 GMT

To my understanding there's no elevation property, not as an Automatic
Property in PSDs or AecWall object property...

Jussi

"Brian Winterscheidt" kirjoitti
viestissä:5092082@discussion.autodesk.com...
Jussi wrote:
> No luck here...
>
> I tried this both with "as Variant" declaration and without. Since
> Formulas
> are VBScript not VBA, I think there's only Variant data type.
>

Doh. Yeah, I was working in VBA at the time, and just typed it in
there... directly referencing the Location(2) didn't work in VBA, but
assigning it to pnt and referencing that *did* work in VBA. Forgot to
check it in VBScript. Sorry about that...

Does the Elevation prop instead of Location give the same results?

--
Brian Winterscheidt
LWPB Architects & Planners, P.C.
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Re: Parent object's Z coordinate

Anonymous — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 10:50:38 GMT

Has anyone found a way to acquire the 'Z' location of a wall thru VBScipt?

We have tried some things here:
http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?p=512816#post512816

Terry Message was edited by: tatriest

Re: Parent object's Z coordinate

Anonymous — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 16:05:52 GMT

Well, I have concluded that the Location Variant is an array, as seen in the attached Prop Set Def, the 'IsArray' defintion returns TRUE.

I have tried numerous ways to extract each coordinate, but failed.

I am beginning to think it is unreachable.

HAS ANYONE EVER DONE THIS ????

Terry Message was edited by: tatriest

Re: Parent object's Z coordinate

Anonymous — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 15:10:44 GMT

This is a fundamental problem with vbscript and array properties in AutoCAD/ADT.

I think this can be solved 3 ways:

1) C++ and OMF, add a query to the wall object called "Elevation". This is a very clean and easy solution but you must be an ADN member and also distribute the arx file with your drawings.

2) Use dotnet and expose a method to activex that you use from a forumula property set. No ADN required, but you still have the same deployment issues. You will also have to register the dll and it will be much slower than #1.

3) The start and endpoint of the wall are exposed to lisp as dxf code 10. You could try the lisp activex interface in a VBS formula. This avoids the deployment issue but will also be slower than #1.

Chris Arps
www.visionrez.com

Re: Parent object's Z coordinate

Anonymous — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:26:38 GMT

THIS CAN BE DONE

This is the vbscript code placed in a property set that applies to a ceiling grid object. The result you get is the elevation of the grid. Which we use in a display theme to show by color the elevations of the ceiling grids.

Place this into a Formula Property Definition and call it elevation. Then use this in a Display defintion and you got coolness.

RESULT="--"
On Error Resume Next
Set app = GetObject(,"AutoCAD.Application")
Set aec = app.GetInterfaceObject("AecX.AecBaseApplication.5.5")
aec.Init app
Set util = aec.ActiveDocument.Utility
Set clg = app.ActiveDocument.HandleToObject("[Handle]")
pt1 = util.ConvertToVariantArray(clg.location)
RESULT = pt1(2)

two things:
1)
The Z value is buried in two different properties of the object. Sometimes it's know as "location" and sometimes it's know as "elevation". Thus the call the get the property of the "clg" object in this case is "location". But with a door or wall it may be "elevation"

2)
I am running AutoCAD MEP 2008 so possibly the statement:
("AecX.AecBaseApplication.5.5")

Please let me know if this works in AutoCAD Architecture 2008

You could also test it in past versions by changing the version number as posted previously. But this will not work in 2007 versions. The dll for 2007 left out parts needed to make this vbscript work. I was able to acquire a modified dll from tech support at AU last year that made it work in 2007. And in 2008 it seems to run fine but we have noticed some problems on 2008 installations on Vista. We have not found the error yet. We just don't run this stuff on that machine...

Re: Parent object's Z coordinate

Anonymous — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 02:16:10 GMT

A bit late, but I did not have access to 2008 at the time of the original post, and only recently was reminded of this thread. This works just fine for me in 2008 and also 2009, if you change "AecX.AecBaseApplication.5.5" to "AecX.AecBaseApplication.5.7". I do not have Vista, so I can not comment on potential issues when running it under Vista.

--

David Koch
Using ADT 2004 at work; access to 2005-2009 at home

Re: Parent object's Z coordinate

Anonymous — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 02:49:37 GMT

Here is a sample file, with two formulas extracting the Z-coordinate of a Wall (one using the Location property, and one using the StartPoint property - both give the same result). The formula has been extended to test for the version running, and to use the correct application version (works only for 2008 and 2009 as written).

--

David Koch
Using ADT 2004 at work; access to 2005-2009 at home

Re: Parent object's Z coordinate

David_W_Koch — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 22:24:27 GMT

Somehow my last post got changed from the new David_W._Koch who has less than 100 posts to the old David_W._Koch who has over 11,000 posts, and the attachment appears to have been lost in the translation (at least from the web interface). An attempt to repost the file met with failure, so perhaps there are issues with attachments at the moment and the original one will magically appear in the future. If not, I will try to remember to attempt another repost in the future.

David Koch
Using ADT 2004 at work; access to 2005-2009 at home

Re: Parent object's Z coordinate

Anonymous — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 18:39:35 GMT

Does anybody know the property of mass elements. I am trying to have a PSD pull the elevation from a mass element. I think the ceiling one will work, i just need to change the object type instead of clg.location to ????.location or ????.elevation.

Is there a listing of these anywhere?

Eric

Re: Parent object's Z coordinate

David_W_Koch — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 22:54:10 GMT

You can find the properties of various AEC Objects in the Help. In the 2009 Help, on the Contents tab, expand AutoCAD Architecture 2009 Help > AutoCAD Architecture ActiveX Reference. There are a number of subnodes here; which one to expand will depend upon the object type in question. Mass Elements happen to be under the AEC Base Automation Reference node. Scroll down and select the AECMassElement Object to see the Methods, Properties and Events that apply to Mass Element objects (each is a hyperlink to the Help topic on that method/property/event).

It would appear that you can get the insertion point of the Mass Element from the Location property. If you need to get to the Z-coordinate, you will likely need to use the method that BHashman noted above (assuming you are using 2008 or 2009); I would assume that the point array returned would not be directly readable by VBScript in a formula property.