Shape Design & Styling

Generative Shape Design

Inserting a Shape Design Feature in the Procedural View

Insert GSD feature in the procedural view: attach it to an Open Body in the graph
Technical Article

Abstract

This article discusses the CAAGsiUserTools Object. This use case explains how to insert a feature in an open body.

What means inserting in the procedural view

The procedural view is the representation of the associative feature creation in the CATIA V5 frame.

Once the feature is created , its representation is generated (build, update) and it is visualized in CATIA in the 3D window and in graph

This article is intended to help you make your first steps in programming with CATIA Shape Design [1]. Its main intent is to show you how to insert a feature in procedural view.

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The CAAGsiUserTools Object - Inserting Wireframe and Shape Design Feature in the procedural view

CAAGsiUserTools is a usefull class in CAAGsiToolkit.m module of the CAAGSMInterfaces.edu framework that illustrates GSMInterfaces framework object standard use.

CAAGsiUserTools is a toolkit object that encapsulate three aspects of CAA development in Wireframe and Shape Design

Two first aspects are general behaviors to re-use to instanciate any GSD features of GSMInterfaces in CATIA V5 frame.

The second aspect is presented in this article

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What Does CAAGsiUserTools Do

The goal of CAAGsiUserTools Object is to show how to insert a feature in an open body feature, which is a basic task when you create shape design features in a part document. CAAGsiUserTools illustrates some backbone concepts that are shared by all mechanical applications.

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Where to Find the CAAGsiUserTools Code

The CAAGsiUserTools Object is made of a single class named CAAGsiUserTools located in the CAAGsiToolkit.m module of the CAAGSMInterfaces.edu framework:

Windows InstallRootDirectory\CAAGSMInterfaces.edu\CAAGsiToolkit.m\
Unix InstallRootDirectory/CAAGSMInterfaces.edu/CAAGsiToolkit.m/

where InstallRootDirectory is the directory where the CAA CD-ROM is installed.

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Step-by-Step

There are two logical steps in CAAGsiUserTools:

Since release V5R12

  1. Use of CATIGSMInsertInProceduralView interface

Before release CATIA V5R12

  1. Retrieving the Open Body from the Part Feature
  2. Aggregating the Feature to This Open Body

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Use of CATIGSMInsertInProceduralView interface

HRESULT 
CAAGsiUserTools::InsertInProceduralView(const CATISpecObject_var& ispObjectToAppend,
                                        const CATISpecObject_var& ispInputParent)
{
   
    
    // V5R12 AND FOLLOWING VERSIONS: Tool to Insert into the procedural view 
    //   ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    
    HRESULT rc = E_FAIL; 
    CATIGSMProceduralView_var curobj = ispObjectToAppend;
    if (NULL_var != curobj ) {
        rc = curobj->InsertInProceduralView(ispInputParent);
    }
    return rc ;
    
}

The interface is implemented for all GSD feature and it allows to directly insert the current feature in the procedural view
It encapsulates the previous proposed methodology to insert a feature in an Open Body
If the input father feature is not set (NULL_var) then the current feature is used as reference for inserting.
Note: If object is already inserted, nothing is done.

Some additionnal arguments can be setted (which values are default defined)

The interface is much more straight forward for inserting GSD feature and it is recommended to use it since V5R12.

Retrieving the Open Body from the Part Feature

HRESULT
 CAAGsiUserTools::InsertInProceduralView(const CATISpecObject_var &ispObjectToAppend,
                                         const CATISpecObject_var &ispInputParent)
{
  CATIGSMTool_var spTool = ispInputParent;

  if (NULL_var == spTool)
    spTool = GetCurrentGSMTool("",1);
  ...

We first get a CATIGSMTool smart pointer from the ispInputParent smart pointer. If the given CATISpecObject Smart Pointer ispInputParent equals NULL_var then we call the GetCurrentGSMTool method to retrieve a GMTool. If we call InsertInProceduralView with a null ispInputParent then we will retrieve the GSMTool automatically.

We have stored the _pFact pointer in the CAAGsiUserTools class in the method Init that has to be called before doing anything, we call the GetCurrentGSMTool() method to retrieve a Current GSMTool or create one and set it current. This enable the user to directly call InsertInProceduralView() without calling CreateGSMTool() before.

The main drawback of this, is that we will make a lot of unuseful calls to retrieve the Part, the current Tool and finally insert a feature in the GSMTool.

CATIGSMTool_var
  CAAGsiUserTools::GetCurrentGSMTool(const CATUnicodeString &iName,
                                     int iSetAsCurrent)
{
  CATIContainer_var    spCont      = _pFact;
  CATIPrtContainer_var spPartCont  = spCont;
  CATIPrtPart_var      spPart      = spPartCont -> GetPart();

  CATIGSMTool_var spTool = NULL_var;
  if (NULL_var != spPart)
  { 
    CATIBasicTool_var spCurrentTool = spPart->GetCurrentTool();
    spTool = spCurrentTool;
    if (NULL_var != spTool)
    {
      CATISpecObject_var spExternalRef = spPart->GetBodyForExternalReferences();
      if (NULL_var != spExternalRef && spTool == spExternalRef)
             spTool = NULL_var;
    }
    if (NULL_var == spTool)
    {
      spTool = CreateGSMTool(iName);
    }
  }
  return spTool;
}

The smart pointer spPart to the CATIPrtPart interface enables us to retrieve the active Tool (One always one.) Then, we try to get a CATIGSMTool smart pointer on the spCurrentTool CATIBasicTool smart pointer, if spCurrentTool is a GSMTool then spTool is not null.

At this stage, we have to check that the tool retrieved is not the open body dedicated to store external references (Multi-model links). If it is the case, we set spTool to NULL_var which means that we need to create another GSMTool feature for our need. We finally call the CreateGSMTool method [3]. We will create this open body with the default argument (iSetAsCurrent = 1 and iTopLevel = 0). This open body will appear after the current open body in procedural view.

In some case, we will insert two features at a time in the procedural view: a feature and an open body.

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Aggregating the Feature to This Open Body

Now that we have retrieved (or created) an open body, we can aggregate the shape design feature inside it.

HRESULT CAAGsiUserTools::InsertInProceduralView()
  {
  ...
  if ( NULL_var != ispObjectToAppend && NULL_var != spTool)
  {
    CATIDescendants_var spParent = spTool;
    if ( NULL_var != spParent)
      spParent->Append ( ispObjectToAppend );
    else
      return E_FAIL;
  }
  else
    return E_FAIL;
  return S_OK;

We get a CATIDescendants interface smart pointer from the spTool smart pointer, in order to aggregate the ispObjectToAppend in the GSMTool.

A shape design feature is created without any parent, but in order to see them in 3D and to manipulate them in the CATIA V5 applications, we have to aggregate them in open bodies.

We call the Append method of spParent in order to add to its descendant the ispObjectToAppend feature.

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In Short

This use case has demonstrated the way to insert a shape design feature in procedural view. We illustrate the way we can automatically insert an open body in the procedural view if no active open body exists. We also show how to aggregate a feature in an open body using CATIDescendants interface.

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References

[1] About Generative Shape Design Features
[2] Building and Launching a CAA V5 Use Case
[3] Creating an Open Body
[4] CAAGsiNozzle Use case
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History

Version: 1 [Apr 2000] Document created
Version: 2 [Apr 2003] Documentset as Technical Article
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Copyright © 2000, Dassault Systèmes. All rights reserved.