Printing the Autocad drawing by Labview

[Alex_Muz]

My application should found the Autocad drawing and send it to one of the network printers/plotters. Is it possible to send the Autocad drawing to printer/plotter by Labview application?

[djadjok]

Not really an answer, but some ideas:
If by an Autocad drawing you mean an Autocad DWG file than the general answer will be negative (in any case the solution will not be easy). DWG is not a "printable" (directly) file, it contains many objects/views, etc. From the formal point of view, this is proprietary Autodesk file format with documentation unavailable for users (I'm not sure that trying to decode it will be a good solution as this at least will take awfull amount of your programming time).
If you run on Windows platform and autocad is installed on the same computer than there is a little hope that it is possible to do using automation approach (DDE, ActiveX). LabView have those abilities, the only question rests - I don't know if Autodesk supplies such kind
of services as working with autocad drawing trough DDE/Activex. To make it clear, it's better to contact AutoDesk specialists now.

[Greg_McKaskle2]

> My application should found the Autocad drawing and send it to one of
> the network printers/plotters. Is it possible to send the Autocad
> drawing to printer/plotter by Labview application?

Is there a way to do this from the command line? If there is a command
line option for autocad that supports loading a given file and printing,
or a utility application, then this might be the easiest. Another
approach is to use Automation. You can open a connection -- which will
launch autocad -- load the file, and send commands for things like
print. But these are only possible if the autocad has a decent
automation interface.

Greg McKaskle

[Alex_Muz]

Thank you for reply,

I want to print DWG files. The Autocad software is installed in the same computer under WIN-98.
I need that my labview application will open the Autocad software and set Autocad printing utility then will close the Autocad software.

[Alex_Muz]

Thank you for reply,

I will contact to Autocad to check if there posibility to load file and set printer/plotter by external application.

[Alex_Muz]

The AutoCad has automation interface. I opened the Autocad program by Labview “Automation Open”, but the Autocad OPEN file property does not work from some reason. I tried to set or get information from other Autocad properties without success.
Do you have any tips for work with the Labview "Automation" utility.

[Greg_McKaskle2]

> The AutoCad has automation interface. I opened the Autocad program by
> Labview “Automation Open”, but the Autocad OPEN file
> property does not work from some reason. I tried to set or get
> information from other Autocad properties without success.
> Do you have any tips for work with the Labview "Automation" utility.

First tip is to wire up error I/O and probe your outputs. If an earlier
step fails, the latter ones can't do much. Second would be to look for
some documentation on the AutoCad website -- mostly to make sure the
printing is offerred and to make sure it is worth the time to get this
working.

Greg McKaskle