A Study Of AutoCAD Secondary Development Based On DataBase Application Technology

This paper discussed a study to design the application of AutoCAD secondary development based on Database technology. During the research, used some secondary development method in AutoCAD and Database application technology, the switch tank computer-aided system, an integrate CAD subsystem is designed base-on AutoCAD.It is well known that AutoCAD is most widely used CAD system software on PC. Depended on its powerful functions, AutoCAD has occupied a lot of market share. In China, it also has been more and more used in engineering design area. But it has limitation in some special areas. So, in order to use AutoCAD's powerful CAD function, it is important to develop subsystem on AutoCAD environment in those areas.The development of computer-aided design software is necessary for practical designers to improve the design quality and shorten the required design time. Based on this requirement, AutoDesk Corporation provided some AutoCAD's development tools, such as ObjectARX, Auto Lisp, Visual Lisp and ActiveX Automation, and so on. There had been already many of developments with AutoCAD system in China. But most of them have some shortcoming in software design approach. For example, they have less ability of communicated with others, and have only design functions in their system without data implement ability, etc. This paper is mainly targeted at establishing a new development method with Database technology in AutoCAD secondary development. Based on the new method, we realized an application system with production designing and pricing functions.In the paper, we programmed an application system using AutoCAD's ObjectARX and ActiveX Automation toolkits. This system is composed of three main subsystems, first drawing construct system, second drawing design system and calculation subsystem. In order to communicate with AutoCAD and Database system, we implemented an interface to exchange data between these different systems.At the realization in the first construct subsystem, in view of the kinds of circuit elements being relatively fixed, we regenerated the AutoCAD R2000's menus system and extended its image menus. Users can easily choose the element from the image menus. In second drawing design system, Database Technology is used to manage lots of data in circuit elements. At the same time, we used the UML to describe the attribute and method of elements. During the practical application in a company, it worked well.In local area network, we programmed with the MADIS -Borland Delphi 6.0 advanced Client/Server architecture model, implement data sharing. Not only are suitable algorithms for plotting schematic and switch tank's price calculation, but also the manufacturing requirements and user operation fully considered in this system.