Let’s take a look at a question that was posted recently on the Softimage mailing list:

From: softimage-bounces@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-bounces@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Adam Sale
Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2013 3:40 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Force ppg to open on script launch

I’m a little confused as to why the following does not work:
– Get a sphere
– Run Deform > Smooth
– PPG appears and all is good.

Now, take the generated command and run it through the script editor

ApplyOp(“Smooth”, “torus”, 3, siPersistentOperation, null, 0);

This time, no PPG appears.

Any idea why? And is there a way to force a ppg launch when I tun the command from a button or from the script editor?

Thanks 🙂
Adam

Matt Lind explained why on the list, but I’ll take a little more detailed look into how commands like Smooth work.

Deforms like Smooth (and Relax and Push and Bend and others) are commands that are mapped to a special handler function in $XSI_HOME\Application\DSScripts\operators.vbs.

The ApplyOpProc provides special-case handling for applying operators, and also takes care of popping up a PPG after the operator is applied.

Don’t try to run “Smooth”; you’ll just get an error. It’s scripting name is actually ApplyOp.

ApplyOp is also implemented by a VBScript handler in operator.vbs. This time, it’s ApplyOpFunc, and ApplyOpFunc does not inspect the created operators.

If you want to apply a Smooth operator from your script, and pop up the PPG after, here’s one way to do it:

si = Application
si.AutoInspect( si.ApplyOp("Smooth", si.Selection, 3, "siPersistentOperation", "", 0) )