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Currently, I'm using the thumbnail of an assembly generated on the design automation API. I'm looking for a method to generate images of various views, including iso, top, front and side images of my assembly. What are the options for generating images in both the design automation API and the model derivative API? Also, hoping the images generated can be a higher quality than the thumbnail - preferably something that looks as nice in the viewer, although I could settle for a line drawing.

Edit re: answer from Adam Nagy

namespace UpdateUserParametersPlugin
{
    [ComVisible(true)]
    public class SampleAutomation
    {
        private readonly InventorServer inventorApplication;

        public SampleAutomation(InventorServer inventorApp)
        {
            inventorApplication = inventorApp;
        }
Kate
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1 Answers1

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Have just written an article on this topic: Generate images for Inventor models

1) The Model Derivative API can only provide you with different sizes of Thumbnails, so it would not enable you to get images of the model with different orientations

2) Design Automation API for Inventor can be used to generate such images using the Camera object and its SaveAsBitmap function provided by the Inventor API

Adam Nagy
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  • Thanks Adam! Regarding number 2, I think in the example I started working from the instance of inventor was inventor server, and the reason I asked the question was because certain classes needed, including the camera and views aren't available. Does the DA API run Inventor or Inventor Server? Added the code to the original question. – Kate Apr 02 '20 at 21:26
  • The sample is specifically for Design Automation API which can only run Inventor Server and not desktop Inventor. I also point out in the article the difference between Inventor.Application and InventorServer, and how you can do the same thing in both. – Adam Nagy Apr 03 '20 at 09:55
  • I updated now the text in the article to further clarify the above points. – Adam Nagy Apr 03 '20 at 10:07
  • Sorry, my brain skipped over the link! That's perfect, thanks Adam. On another note, I was playing with the 3D pdf export addin and that seemed pretty interesting, but it seems like it's not available on Forge. Any plans to add that in, or is there a way to add it to an activity? – Kate Apr 03 '20 at 15:13
  • It's not possible at the moment :( and I don't have info about any the plans concerning this. If anything comes up we'll reach out to you directly. – Adam Nagy Apr 06 '20 at 17:40
  • One more question! Is it possible to control some of the settings? Specifically hoping to make the user coordinate system invisible. It would also be nice to be able to turn on ray tracing or change the visual style to wireframe. I think these things are linked to the view, but I thought I'd check. Thanks for all the help, Adam! – Kate Apr 07 '20 at 19:12
  • You can hide the coordinate system using inventorApplication.DisplayOptions.Show3DIndicator = false; I did not find a way yet to change the visual style to wireframe yet. Still checking. – Adam Nagy Apr 10 '20 at 23:59
  • I was told that's not currently possible. I logged a change-request for that INVGEN-3688 I also updated the article to talk about this. – Adam Nagy Apr 13 '20 at 12:07
  • Thanks for following up. If you can log change requests, can you possible also add ray tracing to the list? It's hard to impress with the image quality we can currently get out. – Kate Apr 14 '20 at 14:25