Modify Civil 3D Pipe Style Display Settings with Lisp

[alexka]

I'm trying to write a lisp that would change the Pipe Centerline layer and color as shown below.

I tried a vlax-dump-object on the style, but I don't know how to find the correct syntax when the "indexed contents not shown"

Has anyone seen a lisp that accomplishing something similar to this, or does someone know how I can find the correct syntax for the non-vla-objects?

Thanks.

[hippe013]

To get an item that is indexed use the following:

(vlax-get-property style1 'DisplayStylePlan i)

***Where "i" is an integer index beginning at zero***

Though I am thinking that what you are trying to do is not possible or "not exposed?". I was doing some testing but I was coming up with invalid pointers.

[alexka · Accepted solution]

Thanks @hippe013. That got me going in the right direction. Below is what I came up with. It modifies the layer and color of the plan pipe centerline display. Color 256 is bylayer.

(defun getpipeapp  (/ c3d verstring prodstring)
 (setq c3d        (strcat "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\"
                          (if vlax-user-product-key
                           (vlax-user-product-key)
                           (vlax-product-key)))
       c3d        (vl-registry-read c3d "Release")
       verstring  (substr c3d 1 (vl-string-search "." c3d (+ (vl-string-search "." c3d) 1)))
       prodstring (strcat "AeccXUiPipe.AeccPipeApplication." verstring))
 (if (setq c3d (vla-getinterfaceobject (vlax-get-acad-object) prodstring))
  c3d
  nil))

(defun c:WaterPipeStylePlan (/)
(setq style0 (vlax-get (vla-get-activedocument (getpipeapp)) 'pipestyles))
(setq style1 (vlax-get-property style0 'item "WATR- N"))
(setq style2 (vlax-get-property style1 'DisplayStylePlan 0))
(vlax-put style2 'color "256")
(vlax-put style2 'layer "C-WATR-PIPE-N")
)

Thanks again for your help.

[jtshumpert]

What if you want to select a certain pipe and change that pipe style?

Ex: If pipe style is set to show a proposed style and you want to change it to an existing style.

[alexka]

@jtshumpert,

If all you want to do is modify the style of a pipe, you can do that through the properties drop-down given that the pipe style already exists within the drawing as shown below: 

I don't think a lisp routine would make this easier. Let me know if I'm not understanding what you're trying to do correctly.

[jtshumpert]

I Know how to do that, but what to streamline the selection to one button on toolbar, pick one for exist, pick one for proposed...

[BlackBox_]

---

@jtshumpert wrote:

I Know how to do that, but what to streamline the selection to one button on toolbar, pick one for exist, pick one for proposed...

---

I had to use .NET API to create custom LispFunction for that.

Cheers

[Jeff_M]

To expand on why @BlackBox_ had to resort to .NET... trying to set the pipe's style in lisp, even though you can successfully get a style to set it to, throws an error. There are 2 ways to try to set a property, (vlax-put pipe 'style newstyle) or (vlax-put-property pipe 'style newstyle) and both throw errors:

error: ActiveX Server returned an error: Bad variable type

error: ActiveX Server returned an error: Type mismatch

[BlackBox_]

@Jeff_M is correct; for whatever reason, the Style Property for a Part (Structure or Pipe) in LISP is exposed (not listed as read-only), but is clearly not implemented given the exceptions raised as a result of attempting to set that Property.

So, I rolled my own, which allows me to quickly 'sync' any Part (without the lag of synchronizing them all) or to change a Part's Style as I need using this snippet in .NET API (C#):

                            if (styles.Contains(styleName))
                                part.StyleId = styles[styleName];
                            else
                                ed.WriteMessage("\n; error: Style not found ");

Cheers