Object Browser for Inventor

breinkemeyer — Wed, 06 Oct 2021 19:15:46 GMT

This is probably a reach, but I do lot's of work for both Inventor and Solid Edge. In SE we have a tool called Spy (see attachment) that is invaluable for programming. Does anything exist in the Inventor world?

Re: Object Browser for Inventor

JelteDeJong — Wed, 06 Oct 2021 20:10:16 GMT

I think you have several otions.

1: In the VBa editor you can press F2

for the object browser. (VBa is obsolete in my opinion and is not installed anymore by default with Inventor. but you will get exactly what you are asking for.)

2: The "Programing/API Help" is good in my opinion.

3: you can download the object model tree as PDF "Poster"

4: If you are working in Visual studio and you have made a reference to the "Autodesk.Inventor.Interop.dll" then you can use the object browser from Visual Studio.

Re: Object Browser for Inventor

Michael.Navara — Thu, 07 Oct 2021 09:37:39 GMT

I'm using following VBA macro for this. You need to display Locals window in VBA editor and run this method.

You can see in Locals

First selected object
All selected objects
Application
Active document
Active edit document (Edited part in assembly context)
Active edit object (Active sketch for example)

Now you can expand all of them and look what is inside

For quick info what is selected I print to Immediate window type of first selected object. For this you need to implement conversion function (ObjectTypeEnumToString). This function is too big to paste here, but you can generate the code using iLogic.

Spy function (VBA)

Public Sub Spy() Dim SelectedObject As Variant Dim Selection As ObjectCollection Dim app As Inventor.Application Set app = ThisApplication Dim ActiveDoc As Document Set ActiveDoc = app.ActiveDocument Dim EditedDoc As Document Set EditedDoc = app.ActiveEditDocument Dim ActiveObject As Variant Set ActiveObject = app.ActiveEditObject MainCode: On Error GoTo ErrLine1 Set SelectedObject = ActiveDoc.SelectSet.Item(1) Set Selection = app.TransientObjects.CreateObjectCollection(ActiveDoc.SelectSet) Debug.Print ObjectTypeEnumToString(SelectedObject.Type) Stop Exit Sub ErrLine1: Debug.Print "<No Selection>" Set SelectedObject = ThisApplication Stop End Sub

ObjectTypeEnumToString function stub (VBA)

Function ObjectTypeEnumToString(t As ObjectTypeEnum) As String Select Case t Case kEdgeCollectionObject: ObjectTypeEnumToString = "kEdgeCollectionObject": Exit Function ... End Select End Function

ObjectTypeEnumToString code generator (iLogic)

This function creates full code and set them to the system clipboard. Then you can just paste the code to VBA module

Dim code As New System.Text.StringBuilder Dim ote = ThisDoc.Document.Type Dim oteType As Type = ote.GetType() code.AppendLine("Function ObjectTypeEnumToString(t as ObjectTypeEnum) As String") code.AppendLine(" Select Case t") For Each value In [Enum].GetValues(oteType) Dim name = [Enum].GetName(oteType, value) code.AppendFormat(" Case {0}: ObjectTypeEnumToString = ""{1}"": Exit Function{2}", value, name, vbCrLf) Next code.AppendLine(" End Select") code.AppendLine("End Function") System.Windows.Forms.Clipboard.SetText(code.ToString()) MsgBox("Code is in clipboard", Title :="ObjectTypeEnumToString")

I hope it helps

Re: Object Browser for Inventor

breinkemeyer — Thu, 07 Oct 2021 11:31:09 GMT

Thanks guys. Using Visual studio here working in c#

topic Re: Object Browser for Inventor in Inventor Programming Forum

Object Browser for Inventor

Re: Object Browser for Inventor

Re: Object Browser for Inventor

Re: Object Browser for Inventor