Loading an Icon in Inventor 2025

[pfk]

Hi

My Inventor 2024 addin uses the following to put a button with an icon on the toolbar.

            stdole.IPictureDisp standardIconIPictureDisp = null;
            stdole.IPictureDisp largeIconIPictureDisp = null;
            if (standardIcon != null)
            {
#pragma warning disable CS0618 // Type or member is obsolete
                standardIconIPictureDisp = Support.IconToIPicture(standardIcon) as stdole.IPictureDisp;
                largeIconIPictureDisp = (stdole.IPictureDisp)Support.IconToIPicture(largeIcon);
#pragma warning restore CS0618 // Type or member is obsolete
            }

            mButtonDef = AddinGlobal.InventorApp.CommandManager.ControlDefinitions.AddButtonDefinition(
                displayName, internalName, commandType,
                clientId, description, tooltip,
                standardIconIPictureDisp, largeIconIPictureDisp, buttonDisplayType);

However this does not work with Inventor 2025 as .NET no longer supports Microsoft.VisualBasic.Compatibility.VB6 which provides the Support.IconToIPicture function.

Thanks

Paul

[WCrihfield]

Hi @pfk.  I do not currently create Inventor add-ins, or code with C#, but I may be able to help with this specific issue.  There has been a newer way to convert between the 'IPictureDisp' type and the 'Image' type for further processing/conversion.  It uses the System.Windows.Forms.AxHost Class, or at least a sub class that utilizes that class.  Below are a few links you can look into.  The first is the oldest.

https://modthemachine.typepad.com/my_weblog/2012/05/thumbnail-viewer-component-on-a-64-bit-system.ht... 

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-programming-ilogic/ilogicmini-toolbar-combo-box-list-item-ic... 

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.windows.forms.axhost 

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.windows.forms.axhost.getipicturedispfrompicture 

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.windows.forms.axhost.getpicturefromipicturedisp 

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.drawing.image 

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.drawing.image.save 

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.drawing.image.getthumbnailimage 

[Michael.Navara · Accepted solution]

See the Inventor 2025 SDK. There is a sample how to convert Icon to IPictureDisp

...\DeveloperTools\Samples\VCSharp.NET\AddIns\SimpleAddIn\PictureDispConverter.cs

[JelteDeJong]

There is an alternative to the "Microsoft.VisualBasic.Compatibility.VB6 ". You can create your own utility class that lets you get rid of that namespace functionality.

You can find the code for the utility class here:

https://adndevblog.typepad.com/manufacturing/2012/06/how-to-convert-iconbitmap-to-ipicturedisp-witho...

In my tutorial post "Adding icons to your buttons" you can see how to use the utility class. However, it's written in vb.net

[pfk]

...\DeveloperTools\Samples\VCSharp.NET\AddIns\SimpleAddIn\PictureDispConverter.cs worked nicely - thank you.

Paul

[gilsdorf_e]

Honestly, it seems very cumbersome just to have icons loaded in Inventor addons. And it did not get better with .NET 8.0. Is this something that could be tackled by the Autodesk developers in the Inventor API?