Category: Navisworks

By Xiaodong Liang TimelinerSelection.CopyFrom allows you copy explicit selected items, a Search, a Selection, SelectionSourceCollection. SelectionSourceCollection is a collection of SelectionSources, while SelectionSource represents a reference to a source that can generate a selection on demand, generally a kind of middleware when you want to attach SelectionSet to Timeliner task. The following code demos the two scenarios. It assumes the…

By Xiaodong Liang From help of product:  The task type defines how the items attached to the task will be displayed during simulation. For example, a default construction sequence would start with all items hidden, as the task starts the attached items will be displayed in transparent green, then as the task ends the attached…

By Xiaodong Liang Question: I have an application in Excel VBA which did some jobs related with Navisworks model by COM API. Now I wanted to save the model to lower version, but I do not find an API in COM. Solution: .NET API allows Document.SaveFile allows you to save the file to specific version.…

By Xiaodong Liang We have introduced how to add hyperlink in this blog. A further requirement is to open the hyperlink when the user double clicks the object. This will need a couple of APIs: InputPlugin to interact with UI for mouse clicking A common plugin (say AddInPlugin) to provide a button to invoke InputPlugin…

By Xiaodong Liang We have some articles on how to add  new SelectionSet. I got a question how to update a SelectionSet. The customer said this object (from the collection of DocumentSelectionSets) is read-only. In general, to modify a .NET object of Navisworks, you would need to make a copy of the original object (CreateCopy…

By Xiaodong Liang SelectionSets is a collection. It can contain Folder and common SelectionSet. A Folder is a GroupItem that can include common SelectionSet as well. The code below is a demo on how to create a common SelectionSet and a Folder, and how to move the common set to the folder. public void testSelectionSet()…

By Xiaodong Liang The process to create a saved viewpoint in COM API is: make a copy of the current view. It is the anonymous viewpoint. 2. create a new object with the type InwOpView 3. attach the anonymous viewpoint to the new view. 4. add the new view to the saved viewpoints collection The…

By Xiaodong Liang Question: I wanted to modify the title of the buinlt-in ribbon tab and panel, such as [Tool Add-ins 1], [Tool Add-ins 2], [Tool Add-ins 3]. Solution Navisworks also uses the same library to present a Ribbon: AdWindows.dll This provides a public API under the namespace Autodesk.Windows Here is the examples of using…

By Xiaodong Liang I do not see Navisworks 2015 API has not yet exposed the ability to draw text with Renderplugin and ToolPlugin. This reminds me of the workaround I shared with my colleague Miro in consulting team early this year. We can draw the text ourselves. The challenge is to get the strokes of…

By Xiaodong Liang Question: I am trying to apply a series of moves with time delay to an object in Navisworks using OverridePermanentTransform and System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(), but Navisworks delays first then applies the moves at the same time. Solution: This is similar to the behavior discussed in the other article. The Navisworks screen refresh happens when…