From a previous question here on StackOverflow, i know that in order to use Civil 3D on the Design Automation:
“you need to use engine version 24 or higher, then it should work.
Also, you need to start the workitem with a drawing that uses Civil 3D
entities"
My script uses the Civil 3D API to loop through the CorridorCollection object. If there are any Civil 3D corridors in the drawing, then it will loop through each corridor in the collection and do some checks on them. If there are no corridors, then that collection would be empty so I just continue to the next set of checks.
If I supply a DWG file that contains some Civil 3D objects, then my script works. But if i supply a drawing without any Civil 3D entities, then my script throws an error stating that it cannot find the AeccDbMgd.dll file
My problem is that I don't know in advance if a drawing will include an Civil 3D entities or not.
Ideally, I would like Design Automation to always load in the Civil 3D DLL files, regardless of if the drawing contains any Civil 3D objects or not.
Is there any way this can be done?
Otherwise - I know I can re-write my script to use reflection to try and work out if the AeccDbMgd.dll file has been loaded or not, but that's my last resort option...
Related
I'm looking for best practices and performance-guided recommendations for recomputing a model's volume when it's missing from the source file. This is in the context of a web application I am working to build that enables:
Uploading 3D models in a variety of file formats
Interacting with these models using the AutoDesk Viewer
Displaying mass properties, eg volume and surface area, alongside the viewer (subject of this post)
Background
Some file formats have very reliable volume information that is computed and written to the file by the authoring application. For these files, we can access volume as a property via AutoDesk Viewer.
Other formats, however, do not carry volume information - at least not in a manner that is openly accessible using tools other than the authoring application (prime example here is SolidWorks). This leaves us with a giant gap to fill - we need to recompute the model's volume using what's in the file.
Known Workarounds and Options
AutoDesk published a blog post detailing an approach for approximating model volume using triangles of the model inside the viewer. I think it's an ideal solution for use cases that can afford to trade accuracy for a bump in performance - and it centers everything in the viewer making development and subsequent maintenance simpler. This application, however, cannot rely on such approximations. I'm left reviewing options for leveraging the AutoDesk Design Automation API to:
Spin up an instance of Inventor
Load the model file
Rely on iLogic to trigger a re-computation of the model's part properties (perhaps like this?)
Push that data back to my web application
Where I Need Help
My understanding is that an AppBundle and Activity are defined ahead of time and then every uploaded model would be submitted as a work item.
I am hoping for guidance in:
whether this is the only approach or whether there are other options worth considering
how best to orchestrate the end-to-end process from an order of operations/workflow standpoint to maximize performance
Current Thinking
For example, I'm thinking that my first step after the source file is uploaded is to immediately initialize two parallel processes: the first to translate the source file for the viewer, the second to spin up Inventor and trigger the related downstream process to get volume.
The other option I'm considering is handling all of the work in Inventor - and pushing out an SVF file to the viewer that's enriched with volume data. The advantage of this approach is that my frontend will have only one source for volume data, (it will be in the enriched SVF no matter whether it was supplied in the original file or not).
In an ideal world I'd be able to only invoke the Design Automation API when volume data is missing from the source file - but I'd only know that after translating the file and bringing it back to the viewer. Given that many of our files are created in SolidWorks and other high-end proprietary CAD platforms, my working hypothesis is that we'll be needing to fill in volume gaps more often than not.
Your understanding is correct:
appbundle is simply a collection of files (binaries, data) encapsulating a specific Inventor/Revit/3dsMax/AutoCad plugin
activity is a kind of a job template specifying which application should be invoked, which appbundle should be loaded into the application, what inputs will be provided to the job, and what outputs will be generated
work item is then a specific instance of a job, binding the activity inputs and outputs to specific URLs
There is currently no other way to access the Design Automation functionality other then using these 3 types of entities.
I would suggest the following:
wherever possible, use the Design Automation for Inventor to compute the precise areas/volumes
for file formats that cannot be imported into Inventor or any other Design Automation engine, you could use tools like https://github.com/petrbroz/forge-convert-utils to parse the SVF and compute (a very rough estimate of) the area/surface from the triangular meshes; however, this will be quite computationally expensive, and imprecise
I have a multiplayer cooperative game project in mind and my main concern is the game map.
A bit of context
The players interact with a world map. This map is a first pre generated. This map should be tiled based (each tile representing a part of the world). However, the players should have the capacity to change the map (build something here, destroy another thing here). These modifications of the map should be visible for all other players.
Question
What is an efficient way of doing this ?
Classic array stored server side and update this array when a user does an action? Wouldn't it be quite CPU consuming on client side when building the map from that array? (image maps? <map></map>)
Use a game "engine" such as gdevelop or babylonjs?
From my point of view, for me to be able to fully customize my map, the array solution seems an easy way to get it done. But I don't have any experience on this topic.
I have recently hade a look on this map generator and tried to build a map on it (<map></map>), but this does not allow me to customize the map after it has been generated.
I think your best option would be to:
Store the map data in a simple serializable data structure. For example a double array of objects with some integers - a Tile Type enum, a Building Type, state data if you need it, etc. That will allow you to easily serialize and send the data between the server and the clients.
Use a game engine / canvas renderer / webgl renderer to render a view to the client by using the data array. I have experience with PIXI.js (a 2D rendering framework using either WebGL or Canvas) and Phaser (a 2D game engine, build on top of PIXI). So i can recommend you those two if your game is 2D. PIXI is used just for rendering, there is no game logic in it and you will have to implement it. It's good if the game is not that complex or if you want to learn how to do stuff on your own. Phaser on the other hand is a full game engine that has all sorts of game development functionality, but that also means that it's more bloated with things that you might not need.
When a user clicks something send to the server that "user x clicked tile x,y", process the input, edit the main data array and send it back to all clients. You can use Web sockets for that or just plain HTTP requests
Alternatively you can use one of the "big" game engines and just compile it down to js and html from there - Unity, Godot, Cocos creator (in this one you actually write in JS)
I'm interested in implementing some data visualizations as map layers. But I'm interested in generating data layers only above land area (land cover). A good example would be to plot population density over a coastal city. What is a good approach for this, when it comes to the data source and how to actually display layers with such detailed boundaries?
Technically, so far I'm using Leaflet.js and tiles based on OpenStreetMaps, but the question is not necessary technology specific. Also, I'm not interested in plotting this for the whole planet, but for areas of a few hundreds square kilometers (for e.g. a coastal city).
To better give an idea of what I'm interested in, this Koordinates map is something that is similar to what I'm interested in. However, I need something a bit more detailed on the borders.
Usually you need a desktop or server based GIS such coverage, but not JS to do the processing on the client side.
How you do the mapping (here: linking statistical data and land areas) depends on your data itself. You can load OSM based shape files into QGIS and do some python scripting or using the PostGIS commands to link your data and choose a map style.
Another idea would be http://geocommons.com that allow easy visualization if you upload CSV files.
Depending on your area of interest, you can obtain some highly detailed shapefiles from numerous sources. Especially if the local area provides GIS data to the public (many larger coastal cities do, e.g. New York, London). From there, you can create a GeoJSON text of the geometries (here's a free tool for that). Parsing the JSON is very simple and it's very easy to add it to leaflet maps. You can even get creative and add more keys to each geometry object with the data you want to visualize.
I need to create an application to get input from a webcam or camera connected to a computer and detect certain 3d objects.
I could do this from a .3ds file or something else? I'm not quite sure.
I am pretty sure it is possible with flash as3? I have been looking into openCV but i can't find any examples of this kind of thing.
Any help would be great, and if you have any further questions to understand more. please ask.
Thanks
Frank
EDIT: Ow and i need this to be a web based solution. so i was thinking of python, AS3 something along those lines.
To detect a "3D object" through an inherently 2D medium (a bitmap captured by a camera) is a very complex thing, and requires the detection of lit and shaded areas and how they move in respect to an often known light source. What you likely want to do instead (unless you have access to hardware with a depth buffer, e.g. the Kinect) is to analyze the 2D picture for 2D shapes, i.e. the silhouette of the object that you're looking for.
Have a look at ASFEAT and IN2AR, which are made by the same russian wunderkind as ASSURF, but actively developed an not using patented algorithms.
OpenCV (the port of which to Flash/AS3 is called Marilena) might do the trick, but it's not as optimized for Flash, and requires fairly complex descriptor files. I believe the only ones that are readily available are for face detection.
Your best bet is probably ASSURF, it won't do detection of 3D models but it will do 2D shapes.
Is there a way I can build terrain data in a simple way from sources like Google Maps. I am not interested in heights but a simple 2D representation will be good enough.
For instance, I am trying to represent a terrain using the roads and buildings inside a map to model a traffic simulation. Representing objects like buildings is necessary so that when my cars are moving on a road, they should know when to take a turn etc. Are there any standards for representing these?
There are dozens of map standards. also map data tends to be very expensive, although there are some low cost and open source map sources. Eg. OpenStreetMap, and for the US, Tiger/Line.
I would also read up on, at least, some introductory GIS - I think you'll find the field is much bigger and more complex that you are initially thinking.