topic Is it possible to use OMF in RealDWG to access AEC objects? in ObjectARX Forum

Is it possible to use OMF in RealDWG to access AEC objects?

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Nov 2016 16:33:25 GMT

Hello,

As usual, my question is about RealDWG, not ObjectARX overall. I have become aware of the Autodesk Object Enabler products, and understand that they can be used to enable access to application specific objects from one application in other applications. For example, the Civil 3D Object enabler, when used to enable AutoCAD allows that application to read Civil 3D entities.

My interest is related to how this object enabling can work with RealDWG, which can be used to create host applications, much as AutoCAD is considered a host application. In fact, installation of the Civil 3D object enabler allows the option upon installation, to enable an installation of the RealDWG SDK, and also the option to enable any host application built with the RealDWG SDK.

What does enabling the RealDWG SDK do, and how is that useful?

Similarly, what does enabling do to a host application built with RealDWG, and how is that useful?

Thanks,

Regan

Re: Is it possible to use OMF in RealDWG to access AEC objects?

Alexander.Rivilis — Thu, 10 Nov 2016 20:10:07 GMT

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/objectarx/is-it-possible-to-use-omf-in-realdwg-to-access-aec-objects/td-p/6665039

Re: Is it possible to access AEC objects in RealDWG with an object enabler?

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Nov 2016 20:24:44 GMT

I'm not sure what happened with the title of the first post in this thread, but that is not what I was asking. A link to a similar thread does not answer my questions.

What does enabling the installed SDK do?

What does enabling a host application developed with RealDWG do?

Does this enabling give access to additional objects, and if so, how?

Thanks,

Regan

Re: Is it possible to access AEC objects in RealDWG with an object enabler?

tbrammer — Mon, 14 Nov 2016 08:38:05 GMT

In general the job of an object enabler (OE) is to implement a set of virtual methods to enable:

I/O from and to DWG and DXF
visualization
grips and dragging
object snap

If your host application offers these features, the OE will just enable them for the custom object.

You asked to "access AEC objects". There are two ways to understand this question.

Alexander linked to a thread I started about using OMF with RealDWG. OMF is the SDK that offers "unlimited access" to AEC objects by means of creating AEC objects and querying their properties - i.e. Wall thickness, window styles etc.

Object enablers "access" objects through a limited interface which I pointed out above.

In case of AEC objects things are even more complex. I don't want to go too deep into details. If you are dealing with AEC objects you might know about "display representations" that depend upon the viewing direction. This is even beyond the standard OE functionality as far as I understand.

Hope that helps.

Re: Is it possible to access AEC objects in RealDWG with an object enabler?

Anonymous — Mon, 14 Nov 2016 23:35:45 GMT

Thank you for that information. Quite interesting.

I have looked further at the object enabler portion of the documentation. It seems like an OE is what we are looking for, but we don't want any of the GUI functionality which they enable. By 'access' I meant that I hoped that the Civil 3D OE would allow programmatic access to geometry and properties of Civil 3D objects, similar to how a native Civil 3D SDK might. That sounds like what was described as the OMF functionality.

It seems like the usage of OEs can be generically supported by OLE automation, making the interface to the objects loaded in a DBX OE discoverable without additional interface information, which otherwise seems missing. This is important because we would be using but obviously not defining the Civil 3D OE, and would be stuck with whatever interface is available.

The trick will be if the OE interface provides property and geometry access, in addition to being able to read or write that data to a DWG or DXF. Access to the data which would be 'filed' is what we want, not the actual filing operation itself.

Please correct me if it seems that I have interpreted any of this incorrectly.

Thanks,

Regan