Add Point to Point Group – Part III

The last item do in this series of posts is to add the command to the right click menu. The first step is to get the dll file to be loaded or be demand loaded when Civil 3D is run. One way to do this is to add the dll to the registry. I got most of the information from Through the Interface blog. The completed text that I used on my machine is below:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Autodesk\AutoCAD\R18.0\ACAD-8000:409\Applications\C3DRemindersPack]
"DESCRIPTION"="Civil3DRemindersPack"
"LOADCTRLS"=dword:0000000c
"MANAGED"=dword:00000001
"LOADER"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010\\C3DRemindersPack.dll"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Autodesk\AutoCAD\R18.0\ACAD-8000:409\Applications\C3DRemindersPack\Commands]
"TIN"="TIN"
"CreateEGSurface"="CreateEGSurface"
"AddPointToPointGroup" = "AddPointToPointGroup"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Autodesk\AutoCAD\R18.0\ACAD-8000:409\Applications\C3DRemindersPack\Groups]
"ASDK_CMDS"="ASDK_CMDS"

Add the text to a text file and give it an extension of “.reg”. Change the “LOADER” location to match where you put the dll file, making sure to the path has the “\\” instead of “\”. Double click the file and it will add it to the registry. Editing the Windows registry can be dangerous, so beware. I did something wrong when testing it out and had to reinstall the Civil 3D.

Next we need to modify the cui to add the command to the shortcut menu. I unfortunately couldn’t find where to do that in a fresh install. So I downloaded David Garrigues Double and Right Click CUI on the Civil Engineering Community site (additional comments canned regarding this site) and added the right click customization. Follow the directions in the download to add the right click items. David did an excellent job creating them for Civil 3D objects. I believe he did this for Civil 3D 2007, so some of the commands won’t work in Civil 3D 2010.

Once completed go in and add a command to the CUI and it to the Shortcut Menu for the AECC_COGO_POINT.

I’ve added some of the other vb.NET posts to the dll file and gave the Pack it’s own webpage:

http://style.civil3dreminders.com/civil3dreminderspack

You can do the same steps above for the Surface Right Click Shortcut Menu, using the TIN and AECC_TIN_SURFACE shortcut. I didn’t set it up for the first pick option, so unfortunately the user will have to reselect the surface.