Standrd check automation and use from standalone .net application

[Anonymous]

Hi,

What I want to achieve is allowing users to upload DWG/DWF files to my web application and check them for standards violations (based on a predefined standards .DWS file). If the file has violations, I shall display the list of violations to the user. How can I achieve that? I am totally new to the subject and I am reading more about AutoCAD and its APIs, I could  come up with the following ideas:

1. Develop an AutoCAD plugin and let it send a CheckStandards command to AutoCAD. I would need to configure the plugin to run on AutoCAD startup and develop my web app code to launch AutoCAD and pass it the path to the drawing file I want to check.
2. Try to find a 3rd party library which does just that. I searched here but found nothing relevant.
3. Try to run AutoCAD or the Batch Checker using command line and let it write output to a file which I shall monitor from my web app and read/parse it when it is fully written
4. Run AutoCAD desktop from my web application using its command line switch and pass it a script file which shall run the required command and what would be next?

Which one would succeed? Would you take a different approach? Can you please provide much details about how to go about the selected approach?

Thanks

[Norman_Yuan · Accepted solution]

Firstly, DWS can only be used in AutoCAD to do standard checking for *.DWG files, not *.DWF files. If DWF file is required target, you may have to look for something else other than AutoCAD, which can generate DWF but cannot actually open DWF (except for insert DWF file as overlay).

Secondly, since your are doing web application, using AutoCAD at non-attended server side is bad idea in most cases, because AutoCAD is designed as desktop app that requires constant user interaction. For example, simply opening a drawing could cause AutoCAD to pop up numeral messages that need user to respond. There are a lot of other issues, like concurrent user accesses, AutoCAD process causing memory fragment on the server...

If your solution has to be web application, you can consider to use AutoCAD's core console EXE to process drawing; or use Autodesk's cloud services (accessing core console hosted by Autodesk's cloud with some assistant web API, basically); or license RealDwg to directly manipulate DWG file with AutoCAD involvement. However, all these approaches would require you to come up with your own "Standard Check" logics, which could be even harder than the web application itself, and you must have deep/thorough understanding of AutoCAD drawing database. If the web app's difficulty index is 1, doing your own effective "standard check" would have difficulty index of 10, IMO.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the advice, so I got some questions based on your feedback:
1. If I go with the RealDWG option, that means I will need to think of a DWG file like a database (logically) and loop through the records or objects inside it and do the checking logic I need in my own .exe? This means I can have my rules in whatever place like a XML file or a database and check the drawing elements against them. Right?

2. If I go with the core console or cloud, how that custom checking logic could be implemented? Please provide directions.

Thanks

[Norman_Yuan]

1. Yes. 

2. I've never attempted using *.dws programmatically, thus not sure if it can be used with AutoCAD core console programmatically. If not, you would need to do the same as you would with RealDwg. But you are spared from implementing HostApplication required by RealDwg (because the core console/cloud server is the host application

[Anonymous]

Perfect, this confirms my understanding. Appreciated.

[dgorsman]

You'll also want to have a look at the Autodesk Forge platform: https://forge.autodesk.com/platform