Introduction: A New Era for Embedded CAD Development For over two decades, developers in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) as well as Geographic Information Systems (GIS) sectors have faced a recurring dilemma: How do you integrate powerful Computer-Aided Design (CAD) capabilities into your application without spending years building a rendering engine from scratch?
It is not a lightweight "viewer only" tool, nor is it an unaffordable behemoth like RealDWG. It is the professional's middle ground—a framework that respects the engineer's time and the end-user's need for speed.
using VectorDraw.Professional.vdFigures; using VectorDraw.Professional.vdObjects; using VectorDraw.Geometry; public class SitePlanner Introduction: A New Era for Embedded CAD Development
// 2. Access the layout and add a custom boundary layer vdLayer boundaryLayer = new vdLayer(); boundaryLayer.Name = "Property_Boundaries"; boundaryLayer.Color = System.Drawing.Color.Red; doc.Layers.Add(boundaryLayer); // 3. Create a complex Polyline (The "CAD" power upgrade) vdPolyline fence = new vdPolyline(); fence.SetDocumentDefaults(doc); fence.Layer = boundaryLayer; // Add vertices (Lot corners) fence.VertexList = new Vertexes(new gPoint[] new gPoint(0, 0, 0), new gPoint(50, 0, 0), new gPoint(50, 30, 0), new gPoint(25, 45, 0), new gPoint(0, 30, 0) ); fence.Flag = LineFlags.Closed; fence.LineWeight = VdConstLineWeight.LineWeight025; // 4. Add to the model doc.Model.Entities.AddItem(fence); // 5. Zoom to extents and refresh doc.Zoom(EZoomAction.eZoomExtents); doc.Redraw(true);
If you are a software engineer looking to embed a native CAD solution into a .NET, ActiveX, or web environment, this article is your definitive deep dive into the VectorDraw Developer Framework. To understand the power of the current framework, one must look at its lineage. The previous naming, VectorDraw Standard , suggested a baseline set of features—mostly viewing and light editing. using VectorDraw
Enter the . This rebranding is more than just a name change; it represents a significant evolution in functionality, performance, and versatility. What started as a reliable control for viewing standard CAD files has matured into a full-fledged development framework capable of creating, editing, plotting, and managing complex 2D and 3D designs.
public void ProcessSurvey(vdDocument doc, string dwgPath) Add to the model doc
// 1. Load the existing survey map (formerly Standard functionality) doc.ReadFile(dwgPath);