Over the coming weeks I’m going to be exploring – and blogging about – the ability to run custom .NET code inside AutoCAD I/O. After all, I’ve submitted an AU class on the topic, so I really do need to get my head around it. :-)
I see this series being made up of the following high-level tasks, although each of these may end up requiring multiple posts to cover (and conversely there may be some that can be covered in a single post):
- Writing a CRX module that’s I/O-ready
- Building an Autoloader bundle for the CRX module
- Defining an Activity in AutoCAD I/O that uses a custom AppPackage
- Implementing a web-service (in our case using Node.js) that creates and executes WorkItems using our custom Activity
As mentioned previously, the plan is to use AutoCAD I/O to power Jigsawify.com, a web-site that lets you upload images and create custom, laser-cut jigsaw puzzles. We’ll start with the C# code in this post, but it will certainly need extending with additional capabilities (irrespective of any plumbing-related changes it needs to work with AutoCAD I/O).
I haven’t yet tackled all of the above bullets, so the list may end up morphing over the course of the series. So I’d say the above is really a “statement of intent”, for now.
In the next post we’ll start by looking at the changes needed to an existing CRX module – in our case one implemented using .NET – to make it useable with AutoCAD I/O.
photo credit: Undulatus - 01 via photopin (license)
