[CE U12] How to access parametric solid using EC Query?

Any coment or idea? Anybody? It seems my questions are hard-to-be-answered often (like also this one). ;-)

Paul Connelly or Mangesh.Shelar?

TIA Jan

Hi Jan,

I haven't explored parametric components much. May I know what exactly you want to achieve. There are good set of managed and native APIs for parametric. Accordingly, I can pull in concern developer.

Btw, you can try ECX ITEMS DUMP key-in to see how EC is laid over parametric. 

Thanks,

Mangesh

Hi Mangesh,

thanks for your answer.

Mangesh.Shelar said:

May I know what exactly you want to achieve.

Now it's more about thinking about concepts and API features than about specific requirement. Because I have used EC data in my applications for years, I like the standardized approach to design data provided by EC query. And from self-study perspective, it's good to know how different data structures are converted to e.g. i-model format.

Mangesh.Shelar said:

There are good set of managed and native APIs for parametric.

Yes, I agree, specialized API always provide better and more granular access than general formalized query. But in some scenarios to receive information about different elements (not to manipulate with them) using the same querying concept would be better than to write special code depending on the elements type.

At this moment, it would be nice to know in what detail parametric solids can be queried using EC query.

Mangesh.Shelar said:

Btw, you can try ECX ITEMS DUMP key-in to see how EC is laid over parametric. 

Thanks! I have not used this key-in for quite long time, so I forgot completely to check what data are reported.

Would you be so kind and to check a bug I found? When I try to dump empty model with just one solid (e.g. slab), the data are reported. But when I unite two blocks, the key-in leads to MicroStation crash. Tested on two different installations of Update 12 on different Windows 10 builds.

With regards,

  Jan

Hi Mangesh,

thanks for your answer.

Mangesh.Shelar said:

May I know what exactly you want to achieve.

Now it's more about thinking about concepts and API features than about specific requirement. Because I have used EC data in my applications for years, I like the standardized approach to design data provided by EC query. And from self-study perspective, it's good to know how different data structures are converted to e.g. i-model format.

Mangesh.Shelar said:

There are good set of managed and native APIs for parametric.

Yes, I agree, specialized API always provide better and more granular access than general formalized query. But in some scenarios to receive information about different elements (not to manipulate with them) using the same querying concept would be better than to write special code depending on the elements type.

At this moment, it would be nice to know in what detail parametric solids can be queried using EC query.

Mangesh.Shelar said:

Btw, you can try ECX ITEMS DUMP key-in to see how EC is laid over parametric. 

Thanks! I have not used this key-in for quite long time, so I forgot completely to check what data are reported.

Would you be so kind and to check a bug I found? When I try to dump empty model with just one solid (e.g. slab), the data are reported. But when I unite two blocks, the key-in leads to MicroStation crash. Tested on two different installations of Update 12 on different Windows 10 builds.

With regards,

  Jan

Hi Ian,

I am not able to simulate this problem on my developer environment. Can you please give me your file and exception log? I will have a look.

Thanks,

Mangesh   

Hi Mangesh,

the zipped files are attached.

I guess one from important difference between your and mine environment is I use Czech local setting, which uses e.g. different decimal numbers format (decimal comma instead of point etc.).

When I searched for the exception log, I found out xml dump was created partially in temp folder. The file is attached too.

With regards,

  Jan

ExceptionHistory-1.zip

Hi Ian,

This is not local issue. Btw, your file worked for me. The issue callstack is saying about, already handled in U13. Please try this again once U13 build is available.

Thanks,

Mangesh

Great, thanks for the check, I am waiting Update 13 impatiently ;-)

  Jan

Hi Mangesh,

one more comment: Even when the dump is not complete in Update 12, after short study it answered my question :-)

The parametric solid is saved as SmartFeatureContainer, defined in SmartFeatureSchema ... which seems to be not public as I did not find it in ECSchemas folder.

The rest of dumped data is not so clear (and is not complete), but I guess a general concept will be similar to parametric solid API, where solids are described as nodes of input solids or operations, which is expressed in EC world using classes and relationship classes.

Regards,

  Jan

Hi Mangesh,

I tested the discussed issue with MicroStation CE Update 13 and I confirms "ecx items dump" now works fine and complete xml file is created.

Regards,

  Jan