Mod the Machine

Debug new Inventor 2025 add-in

When creating a new add-in you can take advantage of the Visual Studio 2022 templates that are installed as part of the developertools.msi installer found in C:\Users\Public\Documents\Autodesk\Inventor 2025\SDK
More info on it: https://help.autodesk.com/view/INVNTOR/2025/ENU/?guid=GUID-52422162-1784-4E8F-B495-CDB7BE9987AB 

You can simply create a folder for your app under C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\Inventor Addins\

and set the Base output path of your project to this in the Project Properties panel so that both the *.addin file and the dll will end up at the right location, i.e. where Inventor can find them.

One more thing to do is set the Copy to Output Directory property of the *.addin file to Copy if newer so it does get copied into the folder we created.

Usually, when you want to debug your add-in, you want Visual Studio to start up Inventor which will then load your add-in.
In the case of .NET Framework add-ins (like the one for Inventor 2024) that was an option using Start external program:

In the case of an Inventor 2025 .NET 8.0 add-in that option is not exposed directly in the Visual Studio UI. What you can do is modify e.g. the Command line arguments of the Launch Profile which will then generate a launchSettings.json file under the Properties folder - just make sure Show All Files option is enabled in the Solution Explorer so that you can see the file.  

Now you can just open the launchSettings.json file and modify the content of the profile so that it's using the highlighted parts:

{
  "profiles": {
    "InventorAddIn2025": {
      "commandName": "Executable",
      "executablePath": "C:\\Program Files\\Autodesk\\Inventor 2025\\Bin\\Inventor.exe"
    }
  }
}

Now when you click the Debug button Inventor will start up

A developer just told me that there is another way to run Inventor when debugging - you just have to create a new Executable profile that allows you to specify the path of an Executable (I also renamed it to Start Inventor to make it clear what it does)

As usual, the first time Inventor encounters your add-in it will block it (unless it's been signed) and warn you about it, so you just have to go to the Add-In Manager, unblock it and load it

If you placed a break point inside the Activate method, that should be hit 🥳

3rd party libraries used by Inventor 2025

Here is a list of the various 3rd parties libraries and their versions that Inventor 2025 is using - i.e. they are used by the core product, and some of them are also used by certain add-ins.

If you are using any of them from your add-in then the best is to make sure you are using the same version to avoid version conflict:

Component Name	Version
.NET Code	8.0
DevExpress	22.2.7
7z	22.00.0.0
SQLite	3.40.0
Qt	6.5.10
QtMFCBridge	651.280.0
TBB	6.1.30
OneTBB	7.0.100
NLog	4.7.10
WebView2 SDK	1.0.1210.39
WebView2 RUNTIME	1.3.165.21

 

Communicate with add-in from custom web page

This does not have much to do with Inventor, it's simply about using a web browser component (CefSharp, WebView2 or something else) and send messages from the displayed website to the app.

I created a very basic sample to prove this works and used WebView2 just like my colleague for the Vault add-in sample.

Took the SimpleAddIn sample available in the Inventor SDK under "DeveloperTools\Samples\VCSharp.NET\AddIns\SimpleAddIn", added a Form to it that includes a WebView2 component.

using System.Windows.Forms;

namespace SimpleAddIn
{
    public partial class MyBrowserForm : Form
    {
        Inventor.Application _app;

        public MyBrowserForm(Inventor.Application app)
        {
            _app = app;

            // This seems to be needed
            string path = System.Environment.GetFolderPath(System.Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData);
            System.Environment.SetEnvironmentVariable("WEBVIEW2_USER_DATA_FOLDER", path);

            InitializeComponent();

            myWebView2.WebMessageReceived += MyWebView2_WebMessageReceived;
            myWebView2.CoreWebView2InitializationCompleted += MyWebView2_CoreWebView2InitializationCompleted;
            myWebView2.EnsureCoreWebView2Async();
        }

        private void MyWebView2_CoreWebView2InitializationCompleted(object sender, Microsoft.Web.WebView2.Core.CoreWebView2InitializationCompletedEventArgs e)
        {
            var htmlContent = @"
<html>
<body>
<script>
function onClick() {
  window.chrome.webview.postMessage('Hello from web page');
}
</script>
<button onclick=""onClick()"">Hello</button>
</body>
</html>
            ";
            myWebView2.NavigateToString(htmlContent);
        }

        private void MyWebView2_WebMessageReceived(object sender, Microsoft.Web.WebView2.Core.CoreWebView2WebMessageReceivedEventArgs e)
        {
            var text = e.TryGetWebMessageAsString();
            var docName = _app.ActiveDocument.DisplayName;
            MessageBox.Show(text + " for " + docName);
        }
    }
}

Then show that Form when the "Draw Slot" button is clicked.

override protected void ButtonDefinition_OnExecute(NameValueMap context)
{
    var myBrowserForm = new MyBrowserForm(InventorApplication);
    myBrowserForm.Show();
}

When the user clicks the "Hello" button of the web page that will send a message back to the container.
The message can be caught using the WebMessageReceived event handler.

See it in action:

Source code: https://github.com/adamenagy/InventorWebView2

Check if external iLogic rules are used

It might not be easy to check manually if a document and its referenced documents are relying on external iLogic rules or not.

They might be used from "Event Triggers" or called from other rules using the "RunExternalRule" function.

Here is a utility rule that can be used to help with this. The results will be printed in the "iLogic Log" panel.

Imports System.Text.RegularExpressions
Sub Main()
  Dim doc As Inventor.Document
  doc = ThisDoc.Document

  CheckDocument(doc)
  For Each doc In doc.AllReferencedDocuments
    CheckDocument(doc)
  Next
End Sub

Sub CheckDocument(doc As Document)
  Logger.Debug("Checking document " + doc.FullDocumentName)
  CheckEventTriggers(doc)
  CheckRules(doc)
End Sub

' Check if any Event Trigger use an external rule
Sub CheckEventTriggers(doc As Document)
  Dim propSets As PropertySets = doc.PropertySets
  Dim iLogicPropSet As PropertySet

  Try
    iLogicPropSet = propSets.Item("{2C540830-0723-455E-A8E2-891722EB4C3E}")
  Catch
    Exit Sub
  End Try

  For Each prop As Inventor.Property In iLogicPropSet
    If Not prop.Value.StartsWith("file://") Then Continue For

    Logger.Debug(prop.Name + " uses " + prop.Value)
  Next
End Sub

' Check if any rules try to execute an external rule
Sub CheckRules(doc As Document)
  Dim iLogicAuto = iLogicVb.Automation

  Dim rules = iLogicAuto.Rules(doc)
  If (rules Is Nothing) Then Exit Sub

  For Each rule In rules
    CheckRuleText(rule.Name, rule.Text)
  Next
End Sub

Sub CheckRuleText(ruleName As String, ruleText As String)
  ' Used https://regexr.com/ to figure out the Regex string
  Dim res = Regex.Matches(ruleText, "(RunExternalRule\s*\(\s*"")(.+)(\"")")

  Dim externalRules = New List(Of String)
  For Each match As Match In res
    Try
      Dim name = match.Groups(2).Value
      If Not externalRules.Contains(name) Then
        externalRules.Add(name)
      End If
    Catch

    End Try
  Next

  If externalRules.Count > 0 Then
    Dim str = String.Join(", ", externalRules)
    Logger.Debug(ruleName + " uses these external rules: " + str)
  End If
End Sub

And the result when running it on my assembly:

Get object type when using "Embed Interop Types" False

There is a blog post on why it's better to have Embed Interop Types of the autodesk.inventor.interop assembly set to False

However, in this case some properties might not show up when typing your code, but they can still be accessed if you are using late binding - in case of C# you can do that by declaring a variable as dynamic

Also, GetType() will not provide the exact com type, but just a generic __ComObject

Having the Type property should be enough to identify the type of the object, but if you really need the actual COM name of it, then you can use the Microsoft.VisualBasic assembly for that.

3rd party libraries used by Inventor 2023

Here is a list of the various 3rd parties libraries and their versions that Inventor 2023 is using - i.e. they are used by the core product, and some of them are also used by certain add-ins.

If you are using any of them from your add-in then the best is to make sure you are using the same version to avoid version conflict:

Component Name	Version
DevExpress	21.1.5
7z	18.06.0.0
CEFSharp	91.1.230
SQLite	3.30.1
Qt	5.150.40
QtMFCBridge	5150.280.1
TBB	6.1.30
NLog	4.7.10

 

Import Data Exchange model

There is a new feature called Data Exchange that also has an API now available in public beta - see Data Exchange Released! Forge Data Exchange APIs now available in Public Beta

Through the user interface you can import such models in Inventor and you can also automate that process using the Inventor API.

For testing purposes, the easiest thing is to find a previously created Data Exchange model in your Autodesk Construction Cloud account, check its id available under entityId in the URL, and assign that in the below code to the sUrn variable.

Sub ImportDataExchangeComponentSample()
    Dim oDoc As AssemblyDocument
    Set oDoc = ThisApplication.ActiveDocument
    
    Dim sFdx As String
    sFdx = "https://developer.api.autodesk.com/exchange/v1/exchanges"
    
    Dim sUrn As String
    sUrn = "urn:adsk.wipprod:dm.lineage:sTpS6wv0ROS_QQglZOXReQ"
    
    Dim sUrl As String
    sUrl = sFdx + "?filters=attribute.exchangeFileUrn==" + sUrn
    
    Dim oDEDef As ImportedDataExchangeComponentDefinition
    Set oDEDef = oDoc.ComponentDefinition.ImportedComponents.CreateDataExchangeDefinition(sUrl)
    
    Dim oDEComp As ImportedDataExchangeComponent
    Set oDEComp = oDoc.ComponentDefinition.ImportedComponents.Add(oDEDef)
End Sub

 

-Adam

Migrate Inventor templates

There is a difference between using a document as a template or just simply opening it. Especially in the case of drawing templates.

Inventor can open older documents created in previous versions of the software and then save them. That's what document migration is: opening an old document and saving it in the latest version of the software. You can find more information about it here.

Inventor documents have a property called NeedsMigrating, but it only tells you if the document needs to be saved before modifying its content. It does not say if it can be used as a template or not.

Just to be on the safe side, the best thing is to migrate an older document before trying to use it as a template - especially a drawing template. 

You can do all this in advance e.g. using Task Scheduler, or just-in-time as well - here's how.

You can check programmatically the Inventor version the drawing was last saved in. If it has not been migrated yet then you can just open, save and close it before using it as a template.

Here is a VBA sample:

Sub UseTemplate()
  Const templatePath = "C:\Temp\Template2021\Standard.idw"

  Dim templateVersion As SoftwareVersion
  Set templateVersion = ThisApplication.FileManager.SoftwareVersionSaved(templatePath)

  Dim inventorVersion As SoftwareVersion
  Set inventorVersion = ThisApplication.SoftwareVersion

  If inventorVersion.Major > templateVersion.Major Then
    ' Migrate drawing template before using it
    Dim t As DrawingDocument
    Set t = ThisApplication.Documents.Open(templatePath, False)

    t.Save

    t.Close
  End If

  Dim doc As Document
  Set doc = ThisApplication.Documents.Add(kDrawingDocumentObject, templatePath, True)
End Sub

3rd party libraries used by Inventor 2022

Here is a list of the various 3rd parties libraries and their versions that Inventor 2022 is using - i.e. they are used by the core product, and some of them are also used by certain add-ins.

If you are using any of them from your add-in then the best is to make sure you are using the same version to avoid version conflict:

Component Name	Version
DevExpress	19.1.5
7z	18.06.0.0
CEFSharp	75.1.141
SQLite	3.30.1
Qt	5.150.10
QtMFCBridge	5150.280.1
TBB	6.1.20

 

"Member not found" error in C# add-in

As mentioned in other blog posts (e.g. here and here) as well, using Embed Interop Types = True with the Inventor interop assembly does not work well. 

Apart from some events not firing, you might not find all the properties either. E.g. in the case of a Parameter object, when doing this: 

var unitType = param.get_Units();

I get this error:

{"Member not found. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80020003 (DISP_E_MEMBERNOTFOUND))"}

So just set Embed Interop Types to False:

Just for completeness' sake (though the above solution should solve the problem), there could be another way as well to avoid this error.
You could declare a dynamic variable for the parameter (in order to use late-binding) and access the property through that:  

dynamic p = param;
var unitType = p.Units;

- Adam