Inventor Thumbnail Generation

[Bryan-Kelley]

Hello Everyone,

  We have ~100K Inventor dwg files within Autodesk Vault Professional that do not have their Thumbnails ('Save Preview Picture" toggle turned on). There are >150K Inventor dwg within the same Vault that do.  Previously, the drawing template file had that toggle turned off, that has since been altered.

  What I want to do is take all the dwg files that have that toggle off, open up the file, update it, save it, close it, check it in.

  If anyone has done something similar in the past, I would like to know how you approached it.  iLogic, VB, etc.

Thank you,
Bryan

[bradeneuropeArthur]

With this it should work:

Dim d As Inventor.FileDialog

 Call ThisApplication.CreateFileDialog(d)
d.MultiSelectEnabled = True
d.Filter = "Inventor Drawing|*.dwg"
d.ShowOpen
d.CancelError = False
If Not d.FileName = "" Then
	Dim a() As String = Split(d.FileName, "|")

i=0
For i = 0 To UBound(a)
Dim dwg As Inventor.DrawingDocument	
dwg = Nothing
	dwg = ThisApplication.Documents.Open(a(i))
	 ThisApplication.CommandManager.ControlDefinitions.Item("VaultCheckOut").Execute
	 Call dwg.SetThumbnailSaveOption(ThumbnailSaveOptionEnum.kActiveComponentIsoViewOnSave)
	 ThisApplication.CommandManager.ControlDefinitions.Item("VaultCheckIn").Execute
         dwg.save
	 dwg.close(True)
Next 

End If

[Bryan-Kelley]

Hello bradeneuropeArthur,

  Thank you for the reply.  Ideally, I'd like to place this within the C:\Users\Public\Documents\Autodesk\Inventor 2020\Macros\Default.ivb or within iLogic using an External Rule and have it run after opening each DWG file.  Whether or not the file has the thumbnail enabled or not.  But I do not need it to Check-In the files, I'll do that with Task Scheduler.

  My plan was:

1. Use Task Scheduler to run a Sequential Task consisting of:
   1. Get & Check Out 1,000 DWG files at a time.
   2. Migrate the DWG files. (This step would be where the Save Preview Picture setting would be toggled.)
   3. Check In the 1,000 DWG files.
2. Repeat this process ~100 times to get all the files updated correctly within one of the Vaults.

  When I run this as an iLogic function, it opens the Open dialog and I can select multiple files, but ideally, it would be used in the manner described above.  It needs to enable the Save Preview Picture toggle after the file is opened but nothing else beyond that.  Thank you again for your input, it is greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Bryan Kelley

[bradeneuropeArthur]

You can also write your own tasksheduler task for it using Vb.net.

It works also fine.

Are you familiar with this?

[Bryan-Kelley]

No, I was one of the product designers for Inventor from 2004-2016, but never did any programming/development.  

[bradeneuropeArthur]

This is the same code for vba:

without Check in:

Public Sub l()

Dim d As FileDialog

Call ThisApplication.CreateFileDialog(d)
d.MultiSelectEnabled = True
d.Filter = "Inventor Drawing|*.dwg"
d.ShowOpen
d.CancelError = False
If Not d.FileName = "" Then
Dim a() As String
a = Split(d.FileName, "|")

i = 0
For i = 0 To UBound(a)
Dim dwg As Inventor.DrawingDocument
Set dwg = Nothing
Set dwg = ThisApplication.Documents.Open(a(i))
ThisApplication.CommandManager.ControlDefinitions.Item("VaultCheckOut").Execute
Call dwg.SetThumbnailSaveOption(ThumbnailSaveOptionEnum.kActiveComponentIsoViewOnSave)
'ThisApplication.CommandManager.ControlDefinitions.Item("VaultCheckIn").Execute
dwg.Save
dwg.Close (True)
Next

End If
End Sub

[bradeneuropeArthur]

---

@Bryan-Kelley wrote:

No, I was one of the product designers for Inventor from 2004-2016, but never did any programming/development.  

---

I can create it for you!

[Bryan-Kelley]

That would be incredibly fantastic.

[bradeneuropeArthur]

so resume:

you can use from Task Sheduler

1. Default Build In Task Check Out files
2. New Custom Task that creates the Thumbnail for file
3. Default Build In Task Check In files

You need something only for 2 Correct?

Regards,

[Bryan-Kelley]

Yes, that's correct, just for task #2.

[bradeneuropeArthur]

can it run for a specific folder?

[Bryan-Kelley]

Ugh...  Yes.  My plan overall plan will not work since the files exist within an large amount of folders.

I would have to do them in clusters that grab just the DWG files from Vault in folders, then work on each folder and then check them back in.  But the folder location would vary, but for each task/step, it would remain the same.

[bradeneuropeArthur]

As you can see in the TS custom task you can give one parameter with it!

We could use the parameter "c:\your workspace" for it. 

Then I can do something like this

For Each file in folder

Do create thumbnail

For Each folder In folder loop...

Would this be an idea 

[Bryan-Kelley]

That seems very reasonable.  

[bradeneuropeArthur]

I have a CustomTask Ready for you!

Example of the Path:

[matt_jlt]

Any chance you could share the project files for that?

I haven't looked into creating a custom task before, I couldn't find much info on how to do it / visual studio templates.

My best guess is that's its just a standard .net executable file, you import inventor dll and have a main sub that passes the variable (directory string) through the task manager interface and it creates a new inventor object and runs the command etc.

Thanks, Matt.

[Bryan-Kelley]

Hello bradeneuropeArthur,

  I was finally able to try this out this morning, but it didn't seem to do anything.  Here is the process I used:

1. Within Autodesk Vault, I did a Get... w/Check Out on 100 Inventor DWG files which do not have their thumbnails
2. Placed the TaskShedulerThumbNail.exe in the C:\ADSK_VAULT folder.
3. Create Task, Custom Task..., then pointed to the following settings.

It runs for 4-5 seconds with no errors, then stops showing Complete - Successful, but there are no changes in the 100 files within the subfolders.

[bradeneuropeArthur]

What version of inventor.

It is made for 2022!

[Bryan-Kelley]

It is running Inventor 2022.1 and Vault 2022.1 Update.  

The DWG files are still in 2020.x.x format.  Is that the issue?

[Bryan-Kelley]

So just a simple folder with just 48 files in it.  4 of the DWG files had their thumbnails, but the majority do not.