I am new to autocad. I am a software engineer and researching how to integrate autocad with our application. I would like to check with the AutoCAD expert here whether can forge API / any API achieve the objectives below.
The scenario is described as below:
We have an application which can configure price quote.
For example, a user can use our application to add line item (Eg: cabinet) and each cabinet can configure to add different types of rack. The number of rack can fit in will be based on size of the rack.
The application can display the cabinet & rack in 2D view based on what have been configured. We are just thinking the cabinet and rack are like a component which can configure and plug together.
The dwg file can be provided by other party to us, but can we use forge API to edit/combine/produce a new dwg (assuming dwg as a component) with all the items selected? The new dwg file will be used as an input for manufacturing purpose.
What is the term to describe the activity to edit/combine/produce a new dwg with all the items selected? Please advise so that I can find a more relevant topic.
I do not know which topic to post my question but any advise given will be appreciated.
Thanks
Forge exposes a Web Service called Design Automation API, it is basically AutoCAD running in the Cloud with a REST communication layer that enables any client (web applications, mobile, desktop) to send jobs and potentially modify, create and download dwg's.
You have the possibility to execute existing AutoCAD commands against a specific dwg that you uploaded to a Cloud storage, or also to use the AutoCAD C++ or .Net APIs to package a zip file containing a custom dll defining more powerful and custom commands. It can do everything the desktop APIs can, but obviously requires your command to execute with a set of inputs and no human interaction (no popup dialog prompting the user to input values), which is rather obvious but worth mentioning as some samples you may find assume you are using them with a UI.
You can easily find desktop samples to achieve nearly all the tasks you may want to accomplish with the API on the ADN devblog, like this one for example: Insert Block from a different DWG using .NET
You can also insert an existing dwg into another one with the Database.insert API: How to mimic the AutoCAD insert command in ARX without acedCommand call
You will have to build skills with the AutoCAD API in order to use efficiently Design Automation.
Hope that helps