Possible to get of shape file before import (.net)?

[brianchapmandesign]

Does MAP API have a way of determining outer limits / min/max coordinates of a shape file prior to actually importing it?  If not, does anyone know any opensource applications with this particular feature? 

[norman.yuan · Accepted solution]

By "Map API", if you mean the ObjectARX Map API (namespace Autodesk.Gis.Map.ImportExport, or any Autodesk.Gis.Map.xxxxx), then, no, there is no direct APIs exposed to get data in SHP file without actually importing the data into AutoCAD (as AutoCAD native entities).

However, with AutoCAD Map, it comes another set of APIs (purely .NET) - Geospatial APIs (previously Platform APIs), which is based on FDO APIs. You can use it to read SHP data as FDO source, thus query its data, be it geometric, or non-geometric attributes.

You can even directly use FDO APIs, which comes with AutoCAD Map installation and is required by geospatial APIs. And yes, FDO is open sourced, and there are quite some open-source FDO apps, free or not, that you can find. But if you only need to do as you described, it would be simply enough to write your own code in .NET with FDO APIs, which are already available to any AutoCAD Map installation anyway.

[brianchapmandesign]

Thank you @norman.yuan that's exactly the direction I needed. Thanks for taking the time to help people, in this particular forum especially.