Getting started with SOLIDWORKS eDrawings API

eDrawings application { width=350 }

eDrawings API can be utilized by hosting the eDrawings ActiveX control and calling its methods.

Control implements IEModelViewControl interface and represents the top most object in API objects model.

IEModelMarkupControl enables API access to markup functionality of eDrawings. Follow Utilizing markup functionality using SOLIDWORKS eDrawings API for more information about eDrawings markup API.

eDrawings control can be hosted in unmanaged applications as ActiveX control as well as .NET applications on User Forms, WPF application and HTML pages.

Interop dll can be located in the installation folder of the eDrawings. Usually %commonprogramfiles%\eDrawings[Version]\eDrawings.Interop.EModelViewControl.dll

In .NET applications eDrawings host control can be created by implementing AxHost.

public class EDrawingHost : AxHost
{
    public EDrawingHost() : base("22945A69-1191-4DCF-9E6F-409BDE94D101")
    {
        m_IsLoaded = false;
    }
}

The guid of the control can be located in the registry.

Version independent guid can be found at HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\EModelView.EModelNonVersionSpecificViewControl\CLSID registry key and equal to {22945A69-1191-4DCF-9E6F-409BDE94D101}

Version independent GUID of eDrawings control

If multiple versions of the eDrawings control installed the version independent GUID would correspond the to current version which is set in the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\EModelView.EModelViewControl\CurVer registry key:

Current version of eDrawings control

In order to enable specific version of eDrawings it is required to use the specific guid. For example for the eDrawings 2018 guid can be found at HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\EModelView.EModelViewControl.18\CLSID registry key and equal to {a338ddd7-0c6c-43c9-8d1c-c2825ca9ac7c}.

Version specific guid of eDrawings control

eDrawings interfaces from the eDrawings.Interop.EModelViewControl.dll are neither backwards nor forward compatible. It means OCX control can only be cast to the corresponding interop version as all interfaces have different GUIDs in different versions. As a workaround it is possible to use late binding and ComEventsHelper to access eDrawings API. See this implementation.