vb controlling other software from grasshopper

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on October 15, 2012 at 10:21am

If you're looking to do some basic bitmap stuff, wouldn't it be much easier to use GDI+ to do it?

If you want to draw a line in a bitmap, how about the following:

Dim bmp As New Bitmap("C:\somewhere\blahblah\image.bmp")

Dim G As Graphics = Graphics.FromImage(bmp)

G.DrawLine(Pens.Black, 10, 10, 100, 70)

bmp.Save("C:\somewhere\blahblah\image.bmp")

bmp.Dispose()

G.Dispose()

Different applications have different APIs, so I can definitely see the point of remoting into Photoshop, but Paint.exe.... 

--

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

Permalink Reply by Chenqi Jia on October 15, 2012 at 11:27am

Thx for the answer.

Paint is light and simple to run - has its potentials :P.

It's not for some basic bitmap stuff. I'm trying to connect grashopper with other parts of software so the geometry controls the rest of the computer.

Lets say if u move one point down z>1000 units, the computer shuts down.

I could imagine this could be coded through VB net (preferebly) or C:

1: make connection to the other software

2: add command

3: read some of the data

Maybe there is some basic connection scripts i can find somewhere to get some inspiration? Or some experts who has done this before?

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on October 15, 2012 at 11:40am

There are many different ways in which application can choose to expose themselves to the outside world. Some provide C++ SDKs, which can be compiled against. Some provide .NET SDKs, sometimes it's COM, sometimes its AJAX or ...... Some applications do not allow external access at all. 

We'll need to know exactly which program you want to access and what it is you want to do with it. And even then you're probably better off asking on the forums of those applications whether they can be invoked from .NET

--

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia