topic Re: Loading an Icon in Inventor 2025 in Inventor Programming Forum

Loading an Icon in Inventor 2025

pfk — Wed, 01 May 2024 09:07:02 GMT

My Inventor 2024 addin uses the following to put a button with an icon on the toolbar.

stdole.IPictureDisp standardIconIPictureDisp = null; stdole.IPictureDisp largeIconIPictureDisp = null; if (standardIcon != null) { #pragma warning disable CS0618 // Type or member is obsolete standardIconIPictureDisp = Support.IconToIPicture(standardIcon) as stdole.IPictureDisp; largeIconIPictureDisp = (stdole.IPictureDisp)Support.IconToIPicture(largeIcon); #pragma warning restore CS0618 // Type or member is obsolete } mButtonDef = AddinGlobal.InventorApp.CommandManager.ControlDefinitions.AddButtonDefinition( displayName, internalName, commandType, clientId, description, tooltip, standardIconIPictureDisp, largeIconIPictureDisp, buttonDisplayType);

However this does not work with Inventor 2025 as .NET no longer supports Microsoft.VisualBasic.Compatibility.VB6 which provides the Support.IconToIPicture function.

Thanks

Paul

Re: Loading an Icon in Inventor 2025

WCrihfield — Wed, 01 May 2024 12:00:17 GMT

Hi @pfk. I do not currently create Inventor add-ins, or code with C#, but I may be able to help with this specific issue. There has been a newer way to convert between the 'IPictureDisp' type and the 'Image' type for further processing/conversion. It uses the System.Windows.Forms.AxHost Class, or at least a sub class that utilizes that class. Below are a few links you can look into. The first is the oldest.

https://modthemachine.typepad.com/my_weblog/2012/05/thumbnail-viewer-component-on-a-64-bit-system.html

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-programming-ilogic/ilogicmini-toolbar-combo-box-list-item-icon-from-browser-node/m-p/11029159/highlight/true#M135937

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.windows.forms.axhost

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.windows.forms.axhost.getipicturedispfrompicture

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.windows.forms.axhost.getpicturefromipicturedisp

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.drawing.image

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.drawing.image.save

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.drawing.image.getthumbnailimage

Re: Loading an Icon in Inventor 2025

Michael.Navara — Wed, 01 May 2024 12:03:40 GMT

See the Inventor 2025 SDK. There is a sample how to convert Icon to IPictureDisp

...\DeveloperTools\Samples\VCSharp.NET\AddIns\SimpleAddIn\PictureDispConverter.cs

Re: Loading an Icon in Inventor 2025

JelteDeJong — Wed, 01 May 2024 19:25:12 GMT

There is an alternative to the "Microsoft.VisualBasic.Compatibility.VB6 ". You can create your own utility class that lets you get rid of that namespace functionality.

You can find the code for the utility class here:

https://adndevblog.typepad.com/manufacturing/2012/06/how-to-convert-iconbitmap-to-ipicturedisp-without-visualbasiccompatibilityvb6supporticontoipicture.html

In my tutorial post "Adding icons to your buttons" you can see how to use the utility class. However, it's written in vb.net

Re: Loading an Icon in Inventor 2025

pfk — Wed, 01 May 2024 23:12:30 GMT

...\DeveloperTools\Samples\VCSharp.NET\AddIns\SimpleAddIn\PictureDispConverter.cs worked nicely - thank you.

Paul

Re: Loading an Icon in Inventor 2025

gilsdorf_e — Thu, 21 Aug 2025 07:55:44 GMT

Honestly, it seems very cumbersome just to have icons loaded in Inventor addons. And it did not get better with .NET 8.0. Is this something that could be tackled by the Autodesk developers in the Inventor API?