Displaying a view into a PictureBox

[Anonymous]

Hi.

Is it possible to create a something like a snapshot or print screen of certain view using API and then displaying it into PictureBox control in a Visual Studio form? Something similar to what we can achieve using Client View through Apprentice Server but as far as I know this solution cannot be contained into an Inventor add-in and that's why I cannot use it in my project.

Is there any workaround in this situation? Getting a thumbnail image wouldn't be a good idea in this case so I am looking for another solution.

[NachoShaw · Accepted solution]

hi

there isn't a method inside inventor. although the clientview requires an image of, it's not really an image. I did manage to make a workaround though in visual studio. it takes a bit of setting up but it's not that bad.

add a rectangle to the form at the same size and location as the picturebox.
use it as a snapshot frame and save the image out as a bitmap

I'll look tomorrow at my code projects, see if I can put the code up for you (was a while ago I did that)

thanks

nacho

[BrianEkins · Accepted solution]

You can do something as simple as what I've done below.  I created a new project and added a button (Button1) and a picture box (PictureBox1).  There's a reference to the Inventor interop and below is the code for the click event of the button.  It connects to Inventor, saves an image of the active few to a file, and then displays that image in the picture box.

    Private Sub Button1_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
        Dim invApp As Inventor.Application
        invApp = GetObject(, "Inventor.Application")

        Dim view As View = invApp.ActiveView
        view.SaveAsBitmap("C:\Temp\Junk.png", Me.PictureBox1.Width, Me.PictureBox1.Height)

        PictureBox1.Image = Image.FromFile("C:\Temp\Junk.png")
    End Sub

[Anonymous]

Thanks @BrianEkins and @NachoShaw for your contribution.

@BrianEkins your code is what I was looking for. I am very thankful for it.

@NachoShaw please post your code in this topic. I am very curious how your solution looks like. After that I will mark this topic as solved with two solutions.