Thumbnails.....

[NachoShaw]

Should it really that hard to try and convert an iProperty thumbnail into an actual image? Its pretty much like Inventor developers are still back in the early 90's with methods that nothing from this day and age can or will use....

Microsoft.compatibility = obselete

iPictureDispConverter = Cannot use because axhost has a crap load of issues attached to it that just don't allow you to build

PictureDispConverter only converts to an iPictureDisp

pretty much any other method around doesn't work

[MechMachineMan]

Add a reference to "OLE Automation" to use stdole.

Sub Main()
     Dim Thumbnail As IPictureDisp
     Set Thumbnail = oDoc.PropertySets.Item("Inventor Summary Information").Item("Thumbnail").Value
     Call CreateThumbnail(Thumbnail, oThumbcol, oRow)
     Set Thumbnail = Nothing

End Sub


Public Sub CreateThumbnail(Thumbnail As IPictureDisp, oColumn As Integer, ByVal CellRowNum As Integer)
    'Changed to put N/A in same column as comments. if there is an error, check this first.
    On Error GoTo Handler
    Call stdole.SavePicture(Thumbnail, "C:\Temp\Thumb.jpg")
Handler:
    If Err.Number = 380 Then
        ws.Cells(CellRowNum, oColumn).Value = "N/A"
        Exit Sub
    End If
    
    With ws.Cells(CellRowNum, oColumn)
            .AddComment
            .Comment.Visible = False
            .Comment.Shape.Fill.UserPicture ("C:\Temp\Thumb.jpg")
            .Comment.Shape.Height = 75
            .Comment.Shape.Width = 75
    End With
End Sub

[NachoShaw]

Hi

Thanks for the reply. Does that solution work through VB.Net? I cant find any reference available that is or is similar to OLE automation

Cheers

Nacho

[MechMachineMan]

No. Just through vba as in excel. AFAIK, 64 bit windows utilizing vb.net
requires some interesting programing to make it work as it seems you have
discovered.

[NachoShaw]

Well...... I have it working on 64bit using Microsoft.VisualBasic.Compatibility.VB6 which is the obsolete method however, its the ONLY one that works....

AxHost - just crashes my PC

iPictureDispConverter - crashes Visual Studio

Apart from the now obsolete method, is there any other method? what was the Framework 4.5 equivalent to the framework 3 compatibility method? Seens there is nothing that comes close.

Nacho

[ekinsb]

Here's some test code I put together in a Visual Basic exe that is working.  It uses apprentice to extract a thumbnail from a document and then saves it back out as a png file, converting it from an IPictureDisp object to an Image in the process.  This should also work in an add-in.  This example won't work if it tries to connect to Inventor because Inventor and this program will be running in separate processes and COM doesn't support passing an IPictureDisp object between processes.

Imports Inventor
Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices

Public Class Form1
    Private Sub Button1_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
        Dim apprentice = New Inventor.ApprenticeServerComponent
        Dim doc As Inventor.ApprenticeServerDocument = apprentice.Open("C:\Temp\Part1.ipt")

        Dim picDispThumb As stdole.IPictureDisp = doc.Thumbnail
        Dim imageThumb As Image = AxHostConverter.PictureDispToImage(picDispThumb)
        imageThumb.Save("C:\Temp\testThumb.png")
    End Sub
End Class

Public Module Utilities
    Friend Class AxHostConverter
        Inherits AxHost
        Private Sub New()
            MyBase.New(GetType(stdole.IPictureDisp).GUID.ToString)
        End Sub

        Public Shared Function PictureDispToImage(pictureDisp As stdole.IPictureDisp) As Image
            Return GetPictureFromIPicture(pictureDisp)
        End Function

        Public Shared Function ImageToPictureDisp(image As Image) As stdole.IPictureDisp
            Return DirectCast(GetIPictureDispFromPicture(image), stdole.IPictureDisp)
        End Function
    End Class
End Module

[NachoShaw]

Hi Brian

Appreciate the reply and effort. I had been using Apprentice as I was aware of the Inventor issues. Odd though, Whenever I use anything that has a reference to AxHost, I get an error message stating that AxHost cannot be used because it is abstract which is shortly followed by an Inventor crash, a visual Studio crash and ultimately, a complete blue screen PC crash..

I will however try the code you have posted and see if I get the same behaviour 🙂

Thanks again

Nacho

[NachoShaw]

Hi Brian

UPDATE

Are you saying then that if Inventor was already open and I used the supplied code (even though the code exclusively uses Apprentice only), it wont work? I have tried the code this evening and I get an error:

And here is the full error

See the end of this message for details on invoking 
just-in-time (JIT) debugging instead of this dialog box.

************** Exception Text **************
System.NotImplementedException: Not implemented (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80004001 (E_NOTIMPL))
   at System.RuntimeType.ForwardCallToInvokeMember(String memberName, BindingFlags flags, Object target, Int32[] aWrapperTypes, MessageData& msgData)
   at Inventor.ApprenticeServerDocument.get_Thumbnail()
   at oSheets.pAssyStructure.LoadImage(String sPath) in C:\Users\Nige\Documents\Visual Studio Projects\Inventor\oSheets\oSheets\Pages\pAssyStructure.vb:line 110
   at oSheets.pAssyStructure.GridControl1_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e) in C:\Users\Nige\Documents\Visual Studio Projects\Inventor\oSheets\oSheets\Pages\pAssyStructure.vb:line 100
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.OnClick(EventArgs e)
   at DevExpress.XtraGrid.GridControl.OnClick(EventArgs ev)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
   at DevExpress.XtraEditors.Container.EditorContainer.WndProc(Message& m)
   at DevExpress.XtraGrid.GridControl.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

So, I added this to my click Event

Dim apprentice = New Inventor.ApprenticeServerComponent
        Dim doc As Inventor.ApprenticeServerDocument = apprentice.Open(sPath)

        Dim picDispThumb As stdole.IPictureDisp = doc.Thumbnail
        Dim imageThumb As Image = AxHostConverter.PictureDispToImage(picDispThumb)

I then added this after the form Class

Public Module Utilities
    Friend Class AxHostConverter
        Inherits AxHost
        Private Sub New()
            MyBase.New(GetType(stdole.IPictureDisp).GUID.ToString)
        End Sub

        Public Shared Function PictureDispToImage(pictureDisp As stdole.IPictureDisp) As Image
            Return GetPictureFromIPicture(pictureDisp)
        End Function

        Public Shared Function ImageToPictureDisp(image As Image) As stdole.IPictureDisp
            Return DirectCast(GetIPictureDispFromPicture(image), stdole.IPictureDisp)
        End Function
    End Class
End Module

I also tried in a separate Module and also a Class all of which, gave me the same error

Thanks

Nacho

[ekinsb]

I've attached my complete project, which is working for me.  It also contains another class that I had found a few years ago for converting between .NET images and IPictureDisp but I'm not using it here.

If you're using Apprentice, it should always work, as long as Apprentice can access and open the file.  What won't work is if you write an EXE that is trying to get the thumbnail from Inventor.  It's not possible to pass an image from one process (Inventor in this case) to another (your EXE).  An add-in will work because it's running within the Inventor process.

[NachoShaw]

Hi Brian

Thanks for the update. I am not making an EXE, I am working on an Addin. So,

My Addin loads with Inventor

I load a New Instance of my form

when  click an item in the list I generate, I want to get the thumbnail of that item.

I am saving the full path in the list and using the path with Apprentice to open in silently and get the thumbnail

Theoretically, this process is NOT using the Inventor connection directly to access the file, it is using Apprentice

Thanks

Nigel

[ekinsb]

You can't use Apprentice from within an add-in.  This isn't related to the IPictureDisp issue I explained before but is a limitation of Inventor.  Apprentice and Inventor use many of the DLL's so when you try to load Apprentice into Inventor there are problems.  You'll need to open the file in Inventor and then you should be able to use the Thumbnail property.

[frederic.vandenplas]

Hi,

It's an old post, but i stumbled upon the same problems, and none of the provided code/suggestions helped me until i found this one

http://www.c3mcad.com/ProductPages/MiscTools/ProductIvThumbs.aspx

To simple lines of code and a reference to a dll

Great solution for me, and hopefully for other people too!

[lukasz.klonica]

I know this is an old post, but I was also looking for a solution to this problem and in my case (Inventor add-in dll and Inventor 64bit) I use WindowsAPICodePack. The thumbnail is obtained directly from the file, not the Inventor document.

Dim shFile As Microsoft.WindowsAPICodePack.Shell.ShellFile = Microsoft.WindowsAPICodePack.Shell.ShellFile.FromFilePath(doc.FullFileName)
Dim shFileBitmap As Bitmap = shFile.Thumbnail.Bitmap
Dim shFileLargeBitmap As Bitmap = shFile.Thumbnail.ExtraLargeBitmap

It is used in the .dll library and does not cause problems even with the BackgroundWorker.RunWorkerAsync () thread. In addition, it allows you to receive thumbnails and icons of other file formats.

This can also be helpful:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1439719/c-sharp-get-thumbnail-from-file-via-windows-api 

Size of Thumbnail (Width/Height)

Bitmap 256 / 256
ExtraLargeBitmap 1024 / 1024
LargeBitmap 256 / 256
MediumBitmap 96 / 96
SmallBitmap 32 / 32