SolidWorks Composer Tip: SolidWorks Composer ActiveX

How to embed 3DVIA Composer Player into Microsoft PowerPoint and build custom controls.

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Closed Caption:

in this podcast episode you will learn
how to embed the 3d video player activex
control into microsoft powerpoint and
then create some custom buttons to
control how you interact with the
content first in PowerPoint 2007 click
on the Developer tab and then click on
the option for more controls if you have
powerpoint 2003 you can simply choose to
insert object and then go ahead and
select 3d a player activex control draw
the window for where you would like to
embed the actual content itself and then
right-click on the window and go into
the properties option for the actual
player control here you have options to
determine if you want to do things like
automatically play the content when the
powerpoint presentation is shown or if
you want to control the rendering mode
that you that is initially displayed
when the user runs powerpoint slide you
can also control what toolbars and pains
are shown automatically when the
presentation is activated
let's leave all these as a default on
the actual general tab is where you
would tell the system what composer file
you would like to actually link to and
if i click this button here
this tells me tells the system to embed
the composer file directly inside the
powerpoint so the powerpoint file will
become a container that will include the
SMG file if it is unchecked that it will
simply be a pointer to the file on disk
and then that way as the SMG file
changes the powerpoint file will
automatically reference that change
composer file so if we run the slideshow
you'll see the player will be turned on
and the file will be loaded and
everything that was it enabled in those
settings will be will be there so the
ability to see the views pain and
navigate to different views
the ability to play the timeline or jump
to particular markers on the timeline
such as a step 3 marker and depending on
what rights have been enabled with 3d is
safe
you can have an additional tool bars
such as the the creating cutting planes
taking measurements labels and so on
now let's say I want to turn off all of
these and actually have a clean
interface i just turned off all the
menus but the problem now is without any
buttons or toolbars I can really
interact with this content so how do we
allow user to have a simplified
interface but have the controls that
they want in order to interact with the
content that's been created this is
where we can use buttons and macros to
control the activex content so first
create a button and we can go on the
properties that button and let's call
this button top view and if the user
clicks on this button what we'd like to
do is create a little macro to go to the
top view now the name of the activex
file is ds3 devia player active x and
then one because it's the first one
that's been embedded when I hit the .
this will then give me all the commands
that are available in the API for the
player
what would like to do is go to a
specific configuration or view and the
view I'd like to go to is top so if we
play
presentation and allow the viewer to
load a little bit cut off here but you
can see that i click on top view button
it will navigate us to the view called
top let's create another view will just
copy this button to link to another view
and the other view we can link to we can
call it markups and we can actually copy
the previous code and just change the
name of the view that will link us to
the markups you
let's also create a button that jumps to
a particular marker sequence so we'll
create a button put it over here on the
right and we'll call this button step
one and if someone were to select on
this button what we will do is play
marker sequence step one and now let's
create a couple more buttons off of this
so have step two step three step 4 i'm
going to change the names of each one of
these will call that one step to this
one will call step 3
this one will call step 4 and will
simply go in and modify the code that
one step two step three and that one
will be step 4
we go ahead and actually start to player
again with these extra buttons we have
our top view that we originally created
we have a markup view and of course i
click on step one and go ahead and run
the view run the marker sequence or step
two step three and so on but I don't
have here is the ability to stop and
start the animation so let's go ahead
and add a couple more of controls so
let's create a button will call this
buttons stopped
and we'll go in and make the command to
be stopped and will copy that button
will call it play and we'll do this one
and say play that's good let's also put
some buttons that will turn on a toolbar
so let's create this little checkbox and
we'll call this checkbox properties and
we can actually change the name of the
control itself and i'll just call it
properties if we go to the code for that
we can say if the properties control is
as a check being true meaning it's
someone's pressed it and the check is
now checked then we would like to have
the properties bar turned on true
otherwise we would like to have the
property bar turned off one other thing
I'd like to do is create another one of
these buttons over here and i'm going to
call it camera
what I want for that code is if camera
is true meaning has been turned on then
we would like the camera play mode to be
true else camera play mode it is false
what does that mean let me show you
let's also go ahead and change the size
of this and go and put one called border
mask around that let's look at the final
result so the player starts up you're
going to first see that there's a nice
border mask around it which is hard to
tell here because we have a everything
is white but if I move this to the top
you see it kind of fades around the
corners and the edges using a little bit
of a mask we see here I have my markup
view and my top view and if i go to step
2
I can stop that if i rotate this around
with the camera view turned on when I
hit play
it's going to play but go back to the
camera view that was made in for the
animation but let's say I want the user
to to be able to maybe oriented
differently and not play the camera that
was reported but turn that off so now
when I hit play
it's going to continue the animation
based on the camera view that i have
setup not what the author has set up or
maybe what I'd like to do is re-enabled
the cameras when I hit play again I get
the view that I was intended to be seen
now what else i can do is i made that
properties option and hit properties we
see the panel come up so i can now do
things like maybe change the color of
this make it red and then they can
continue my animation will see that it's
red
turn off that properties bar this is how
you can go in and build a set of
customized controls for your player
whether it's embedded in Word PowerPoint
Excel or anything else except accident
except and activex control including
internet explorer and this will give you
access to many many different types of
API controls for the player and if you
take a look at the composer help file
and look underneath
what's called the advanced activex you
see description for all the things that
you have access to for free using the 3d
video player API and create all of these
custom interfaces and custom buttons to
deliver the interactivity that you
desire for your end user