Title: Using Delphi with Autocad II
Question: I have an application and I need to show some Autocad drawings in my help files. Plant layout, Process Flow diagrams, equipment arangments, etc.
The users do not know autocad, and you certainly want them to alter company documents (See my previous Article).
In this example we will build an "Acad Reader"
Answer:
We will need several things:
1) Autodesk Whip 4.0 ActiveX. Download it from Autodesk. If you have Acad2000 it is probably allready registered on your computer.
If not check out
http://www3.autodesk.com/adsk/section/0,,163301-123112,00.html
2) Install it on your computer, and use Import ActiveX to make it available to delphi. You also will be able to see the Acad DWF files in Explorer or Netscape.
3) If you have Autocad14 or 2000, make 3 sample Drawing Web Files (dwf). Define some views in your files, like top view, east view, boilerhouse etc.
If you do not have, borrow some files.
For delphi we need a form, a TTreeview, a TSplitter and a TWhip object.
Also a global pointer variable (MyRecPtr) to link the Acad dwf files to the nodes in the treeview component.
Drop a Treeview component on the form, align it to the left.
Drop a splitter, align it to the left
Drop a Whip component align it all client
On the Form OnShow event, we will create 3 nodes.
I defined the nodes:
Overall Map
Pumps
Boilers
On the OnChangeEvent of the treeview component key the following code:
Whip1.StreamName := PMyRec(TreeView1.Selected.Data)^.FName
When you run the program, right clicking the draw area, will enable you to zoom, print, turn off layers, change views, etc.
Good luck
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
unit main;
interface
uses
Windows, Messages, SysUtils, Classes, Graphics, Controls, Forms, Dialogs,
ExtCtrls, ComCtrls, OleCtrls, WHIPLib_TLB;
type
TForm1 = class(TForm)
TreeView1: TTreeView;
Splitter1: TSplitter;
Whip1: TWhip;
procedure FormShow(Sender: TObject);
procedure TreeView1Change(Sender: TObject; Node: TTreeNode);
private
{ Private declarations }
public
{ Public declarations }
end;
var
Form1: TForm1;
type
PMyRec = ^TMyRec;
TMyRec = record
FName: string;
end;
var MyRecPtr: PMyRec; //File to be loaded
TreeViewIndex: LongInt;
implementation
{$R *.DFM}
procedure TForm1.FormShow(Sender: TObject);
begin
New(MyRecPtr); //define first node
MyRecPtr^.FName := 'D:\Articles\RefMap.dwf';
if TreeView1.Items.Count = 0 then
TreeView1.Items.AddObject(nil, 'Overall Map' , MyRecPtr);
//define second node
TreeViewIndex := 0;
New(MyRecPtr);
MyRecPtr^.FName := 'D:\Articles\Moyno-Model.dwf';
with treeview1 do
Items.AddObject(Items[TreeViewIndex], 'Pumps' , MyRecPtr);
//define last node
inc(TreeViewIndex);
New (MyRecPtr);
MyRecPtr^.FName := 'D:\Articles\Boilers Schematic-Model.dwf';
with treeview1 do
Items.AddObject(Items[TreeViewIndex], 'Boilers' , MyRecPtr);
end;
procedure TForm1.TreeView1Change(Sender: TObject; Node: TTreeNode);
begin
Whip1.StreamName := PMyRec(TreeView1.Selected.Data)^.FName
end;
end.