Is Multithreading Possible in ObjectARX? Does AutoCAD Support It?

[ashutosh_laley_109]

I’m working with ObjectARX to process large DWG files and am exploring ways to improve performance with multithreading.

• Is multithreading possible in ObjectARX?
• Does AutoCAD support it, or are there specific limitations?

If anyone has experience with this or best practices to share, I’d appreciate it. Thank you!

[tbrammer · Accepted solution]

Short answer: No. According to the docs all ObjectARX API functions must be called from the main thread.

You can use multithreading in an ARX application as long as all other threads only call non-ARX functions.

For certain tasks it can make sense to run multiple instances of the AutoCAD core console (accoreconsole.exe) and let it process data. For instance you could do things like parallel plotting of DWGs to PDF or parallel processing of multiple DWGs.

[daniel_cadext]

I use POD classes like AcGePoint3d in parallel foreach or std::execution::par.

You can move data from DbObjects into your own POD classes.

would be nice if there was a kParallelForRead option for dbobjects