Trying and failing to set DataArray2D with JScript

Posted on March 21, 2013 by xsisupport

First, let’s use Python to set up two ICE attributes with DataArray2D.

si = Application
from win32com.client import constants as C            # win32com.client.constants

oObj = si.Selection(0)
a = oObj.ActivePrimitive.AddICEAttribute("MyString", C.siICENodeDataString, C.siICENodeStructureArray, C.siICENodeContextSingleton)
a.DataArray2D = [["a", "b", "c", "d", "e"]]

a1 = oObj.ActivePrimitive.AddICEAttribute("MyString2", C.siICENodeDataString, C.siICENodeStructureArray, C.siICENodeContextSingleton)
a1.DataArray2D = [["u", "v", "w" ]]

Now, let’s try to set DataArray2D with JScript. As a reminder, here’s how you access the DataArray2D in JScript:

o = Selection(0);
a = o.ActivePrimitive.ICEAttributes("MyString");
x = VBArray( a.DataArray2D ).toArray();
LogMessage( VBArray( x[0] ).toArray() );
// INFO : a,b,c,d,e

Seeing that, you would think that you could set DataArray2D using an array of arrays or maybe an array, but no:

a.DataArray2D =  [[ "a", "b", "c" ]];
// WARNING : 3390 - This ICEAttribute doesn't refer to a 2D array: <Attribute: MyString2>
// 

a.DataArray2D =  [ "a", "b", "c" ];
// WARNING : 3392 - Invalid offset specified while extracting data from this attribute: <Attribute: MyString2>
// <Offset: 110348408>
//

At this point, I started wondering if there was anyway at all to do it, so I tried to put back the same value:

a.DataArray2D = a.DataArray2D;
// WARNING : 3393 - The input array doesn't match this attribute's data type or structure type: <Attribute: MyString2>
//

Ack. Maybe if I converted it to a JScript array…well, at least something finally worked:

a.DataArray2D = VBArray( a.DataArray2D ).toArray();

Copying the DataArray2D from another attribute works too:

a = o.ActivePrimitive.ICEAttributes("MyString");
a1 = o.ActivePrimitive.ICEAttributes("MyString2");
a.DataArray2D = VBArray( a1.DataArray2D ).toArray();

So, based on that, I thought maybe I needed a safearray and things started getting a little hacky:

sa = getSafeArray( [ "a", "b", "c" ] );
jsa = new VBArray( sa ).toArray();

a.DataArray2D = sa;
// WARNING : 3392 - Invalid offset specified while extracting data from this attribute: <Attribute: MyString2>
// <Offset: 110348408>

a.DataArray2D = jsa;
// WARNING : 3392 - Invalid offset specified while extracting data from this attribute: <Attribute: MyString2>
// <Offset: 110348408>

//
// Get a safearray from a JScript array
//
function getSafeArray(jsArr) {
    var dict = new ActiveXObject("Scripting.Dictionary");
    for (var i = 0; i < jsArr.length; i++)
    dict.add(i, jsArr[i]);
    return dict.Items();
}

In summary, it doesn’t seem possible to set DataArray2D from JScript.

Saturday Snippet: Selecting a range of polygons by polygon index

Posted on February 23, 2013 by xsisupport

Given a selected polygon, add the next 5 polygons to the selection. For example, if polygon 22 is selected, then add polygons 23,24,25,26, and 27 to the selection.

You can do this without using any loops, by using a string expression for the polygon components.

Here’s some JScript that shows two ways to do it. Method 1 uses a string expression. Method 2 is a loop, which can either use the Polygons collection or a string expression.

var o = Selection(0).SubComponent.Parent3DObject
var p = Selection(0).SubComponent.ComponentCollection(0)
var LAST = o.ActivePrimitive.Geometry.Polygons.Count;

// Method 1
// SelectGeometryComponents("grid.poly[22-27]", null, null);

var sPoly = ".poly["+p.Index+"-"+Math.min( p.Index+5,LAST-1 )+"]"
//SelectGeometryComponents( o.FullName + sPoly );
//Selection.SetAsText( o.FullName + sPoly  );

// Method 2
//for ( var i = p.Index+1 ; i < Math.min( p.Index+5,LAST ) ; i++ )
//{
//	ToggleSelection( o.ActivePrimitive.Geometry.Polygons(i) );
// -or-
//	ToggleSelection( o.FullName + ".poly["+i+"]" )
//}

Here’s some Python that does something similar but different:

si = Application
o = si.Selection(0).SubComponent.Parent3DObject
p = si.Selection(0).SubComponent.ComponentCollection(0)
LAST = o.ActivePrimitive.Geometry.Polygons.Count

s = ".poly[%s-%s]" % ( p.Index, min( p.Index+5,LAST-1 ) )
si.SelectGeometryComponents( s )

Saturday snippet – Launching a command-line utility and viewing its output

Posted on January 5, 2013 by xsisupport

Here’s a snippet that shows how to launch a command-line program in a command prompt window, and keep the command prompt window open so you can see the output. Note that does not block Softimage.

#sKick = "C:/Users/SOLIDANGLE/Documents/Workgroups/sitoa-2.5.0-2013/Addons/SItoA/Application/bin/nt-x86-64/kick.exe"
sKick = XSIUtils.BuildPath( Application.InstallationPath( 2 ), "Addons", "SItoA", "Application", "bin", XSIUtils.Environment("XSI_CPU_OPT"), "kick.exe" )
XSIUtils.LaunchProcess( "cmd /C start cmd /K %s -licensecheck" % sKick )

Basically, what this does is launch a cmd.exe process, and in that process, run the command “start cmd /K kick -licensecheck”. The second “cmd” is required to open a command prompt, where you’ll see the output of “kick -licensecheck”.

In JScript, it would be something similar:

sKick = XSIUtils.BuildPath( Application.InstallationPath( 2 ), "Addons", "SItoA", "Application", "bin", XSIUtils.Environment("XSI_CPU_OPT"), "kick.exe" )
XSIUtils.LaunchProcess( "cmd /C start cmd /K " + sKick + " -licensecheck" )

In Python, you could also do this:

from subprocess import call
call(["cmd", "/K", sKick, "-licensecheck"])

The above would open a non-blocking command prompt window (eg you could go back to Softimage), but this next snippet would prevent Softmage from responding until you closed the command prompt:

import os
os.system("cmd /k %s -licensecheck" % sKick)

The case of McAfee antivirus, VBScript, and the Softimage startup crash

Posted on December 12, 2012 by xsisupport

As I’ve mentioned before, Softimage cannot run without VBScript. You won’t get any errors with xsi.exe, just a crash, usually sometime after the splash screen. But xsibatch will give you some errors that tell you what the problem is:

C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Softimage 2013\Application\bin>xsibatch -processing -script %TEST%\test.vbs
======================================================
Autodesk Softimage 11.0.525.0
======================================================

ERROR : 2000 - Failed creating scripting engine: VBScript.
ERROR : 2000 - Failed creating scripting engine: JScript.

It turns out the problem is related to McAfee antivirus, which for some reason has overwritten some important VBScript and JScript registry values.

To fix this, you need to get back the VBScript and JScript registry entries. I haven’t had to do this myself, but I think this page gives a good explanation of the problem and what to do:
http://windowsexplored.com/2012/01/04/the-case-of-the-disabled-script-engines/

You’ll find a number of other pages on the Web about this. For example, here’s a thread on sevenforums.com. Note that fixing just VBScript is probably sufficient to get Softimage to start, but you’d still be missing JScript.

Related post: The case of the missing vbscript

Custom wire colors in the palette revisited

Posted on July 9, 2012 by xsisupport

Here’s some updates to the wire frame color script I posted last week. See that post for info on how to add a button to the color palette.

First, I wanted to be able to pick multiple objects, one after the other. So I simplified the script by replacing most of the code with a single call to ColorizeObject, which does let you pick a sequence of objects.

CreateColorizeTool();
function CreateColorizeTool()
{
		var color_tool = XSIFactory.CreateObject( "CustomProperty" )
        if (color_tool)
        {
			var r = color_tool.AddParameter( "R", siDouble );
			var g = color_tool.AddParameter( "G", siDouble );
			var b = color_tool.AddParameter( "B", siDouble );
			var a = color_tool.AddParameter( "A", siDouble );
			
			var layout = color_tool.PPGLayout ;

			layout.AddGroup( "Color" );
			item = layout.AddColor( "R", "",true );
			item.SetAttribute( "NoLabel", true );
			layout.EndGroup();

			layout.AddRow();
			layout.AddButton( "ColorizeObject", "Colorize object" );
			layout.EndRow();

			layout.Language = "JScript" ;
			layout.Logic = ColorizeTool_ColorizeObject_OnClicked.toString();

			layout.SetAttribute( "LogicPrefix", "ColorizeTool_" ) ;
        }
        InspectObj( color_tool, "Colorize Tool", "", siLock ); 
}
function ColorizeTool_ColorizeObject_OnClicked()
{
		LogMessage( "v0.5" );
		ColorizeObject( PSet.R.Value,PSet.G.Value,PSet.B.Value );
}

But this code doesn’t let you change the color in-between picks. So I modified the original example script and put a while loop around the call to PickObject (line 62), and I changed the script to get the colors directly from the color widget (line 78). That way, you can set the wire color, pick an object to apply the wire color, set another wire color, pick another object, and so on…

CreateColorizeTool();
function CreateColorizeTool()
{
	var color_tool = XSIFactory.CreateObject( "CustomProperty" )
    if (color_tool)
    {
		var color_tool = ActiveSceneRoot.AddCustomProperty( "ColorizeTool" );
		var wirecolor = color_tool.AddParameter( "wirecolor", siInt4 );
		wirecolor.ReadOnly = true;
		var r = color_tool.AddParameter( "R", siDouble );
		var g = color_tool.AddParameter( "G", siDouble );
		var b = color_tool.AddParameter( "B", siDouble );
		var a = color_tool.AddParameter( "A", siDouble );
		var layout = color_tool.PPGLayout ;
		layout.AddRow();
		var item = layout.AddItem( "wirecolor", "wirecolor" );
		item.SetAttribute( "NoSlider", true );
		layout.AddButton( "ColorizeObject", "Colorize object" );
		layout.EndRow();
		layout.AddGroup( "Color" );
		item = layout.AddColor( "R", "",true );
		item.SetAttribute( "NoLabel", true );
		layout.EndGroup();
		layout.Language = "JScript" ;
		layout.Logic = 
				ColorizeTool_R_OnChanged.toString() + 
				ColorizeTool_G_OnChanged.toString() + 
				ColorizeTool_B_OnChanged.toString() + 
				RGBToWireframeColor.toString() + 
				ColorizeTool_ColorizeObject_OnClicked.toString();
		layout.SetAttribute( "LogicPrefix", "ColorizeTool_" ) ;
	}
	InspectObj( color_tool, "Colorize Tool", "", siLock ); 
}

function ColorizeTool_R_OnChanged()
{
        PSet.wirecolor.ReadOnly = false;
        PSet.wirecolor.Value = RGBToWireframeColor(PSet.R.Value,PSet.G.Value,PSet.B.Value);
        PSet.wirecolor.ReadOnly = true;
}
function ColorizeTool_G_OnChanged()
{
        PSet.wirecolor.ReadOnly = false;
        PSet.wirecolor.Value = RGBToWireframeColor(PSet.R.Value,PSet.G.Value,PSet.B.Value);
        PSet.wirecolor.ReadOnly = true;
}
function ColorizeTool_B_OnChanged()
{
        PSet.wirecolor.ReadOnly = false;
        PSet.wirecolor.Value = RGBToWireframeColor(PSet.R.Value,PSet.G.Value,PSet.B.Value);
        PSet.wirecolor.ReadOnly = true;
		PSet.Refresh();
}
function ColorizeTool_ColorizeObject_OnClicked()
{
		LogMessage( "v0.3" );
        var color = PSet.wirecolor.Value;
        var o = null;
        var siRMB = 0;
        var button = -1, modifier;
        while (button != siRMB )
        {
				LogMessage( button != siRMB );
                Application.StatusBar ="Pick object to colorize";
                var rtn = PickObject( "Select object", "");
				button = rtn.Value("ButtonPressed");
				modifier = rtn.Value("ModifierPressed");
				o = rtn.Value("PickedElement");
				
				if ( o != null )
				{
					var display = o.Properties("Display");
					if (display.isa(siSharedPSet))
					{
							display = MakeLocal( display, siNodePropagation )(0);
					}
					display.wirecol.Value = RGBToWireframeColor(PSet.R.Value,PSet.G.Value,PSet.B.Value);
				}
        }
        if ( button == siRMB )
                return;

        return color;
}
// Convert wireframe color index to double-precision RGB color
function WireframeColorToRGB(lWireframeColor)
{
        var aColor = new Array(3);
        aColor[0] = ((lWireframeColor >>> 1) & 0x7)/7;
        aColor[1] = ((lWireframeColor >>> 4) & 0x7)/7;
        aColor[2] = ((lWireframeColor >>> 7) & 0x7)/7;
        return aColor;
}
// Convert double-precision RGB color to wireframe color index
function RGBToWireframeColor(dR,dG,dB)
{
        // Convert RGB to wirecolor
        var wirecolR, wirecolG, wirecolB;
        wirecolR = (Math.round(dR * 7)) << 1
        wirecolG = (Math.round(dG * 7)) << 4
        wirecolB = (Math.round(dB * 7)) << 7
        return wirecolR | wirecolG | wirecolB;
}

#include statement in JScript

Posted on May 21, 2012 by xsisupport

JScript doesn’t include anything like the #include statement, or like modules in Python.

But what you can do is read the contents of a file into a string, and then eval() the string. For example:

var fso = ActiveXObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject");
var f = fso.OpenTextFile( "//server/scripts/toinclude.js", ForReading );
var s = f.ReadAll();
eval(s);
s.Close();

Note that if there’s any errors in the included code, you won’t get the right line numbers in the error messages.

In JScript, another approach would be to create a custom object that has all the helper functions as methods. For an example of that kind of thing, check out the WizardHelperObj object in

%XSI_HOME%\Addons\sdkui\Application\Plugins\SDKWizards.js

Then you just provide one custom command that returns an instance of the custom object to whatever code needs to use the helper functions.

More on getting the version of Softimage used to create a scene

Posted on May 15, 2012 by xsisupport

Whenever you open a scene, you’ll see a message like this logged to the script history:

# INFO : 4034 - Loaded scene was created with build number: 10.5.98.0 - compatibility version: 1000
Application.OpenScene("C:\\Users\\blairs\\MyProject\\Scenes\\2012SAP_Scene.scn", "", "")

# INFO : 4034 - Loaded scene was created with build number: 10.1.62.0 - compatibility version: 1000
Application.OpenScene("C:\\Users\\blairs\\MyProject\\Scenes\\2012SP1_Scene.scn", "", "")

If you want to know the version of Softimage that was used to create the scene, you need to check the specific build number (and there’s a couple of ways to do that, we’ll get to that in a second…).

The compatibility version is more a property of Softimage itself than of the scene. You can get the value of the project.CompatibilityVersion parameter, but it’s always going to be the compatibilty version of the current Softimage instance, not of the loaded scene.

p = Application.Dictionary.GetObject( "project.CompatibilityVersion" )
print Application.ClassName(p)
print p.Value

# OR

print Application.GetValue( "project.CompatibilityVersion" )

To find out the version of Softimage used to “build” a scene, you can use the printver utility, or look in the scntoc file. In this context, “build” means the version of Softimage that was last used to save the scene. I note that just opening a scene and saving it isn’t enough to bump up the build version. You need to do something to the scene, or at least do something and then undo it.

From Jeremie Passerin on the Softimage mailing list, here’s a Python snippet that reads the version from the scntoc:

# Python Code
import xml.etree.ElementTree as etree

ext = 'scntoc'
scn = 'C:\\Users\\blairs\\Project\\Scenes\\Test.%s' % ext

tree = etree.parse( scn )
root = tree.getroot()
version = root.get("xsi_version")

LogMessage(version)

Here’s a JScript snippet that reads the version from the scntoc:

var dom = new ActiveXObject("msxml2.DOMDocument.6.0");
dom.async = false;
dom.resolveExternals = false;

ext = 'scntoc';
scntoc = 'C:\\Users\\blairs\\Project\\Scenes\\Test.' + ext;

dom.load( scntoc );
var oNode = dom.selectSingleNode("xsi_file");
LogMessage( oNode.getAttribute( "xsi_version" ) );

If you don’t want to rely on the existence of a scntoc, you could use the printver.exe utility that ships with Softimage. Given a scene file, printver prints a message that looks like “This Scene was built with version: 11.0.525.0”.

Here’s a JScript snippet that runs printver and gets the version number from STDOUT:

// JScript
var WshShell = new ActiveXObject("WScript.Shell");

scn = "\\\\server\\Project\\Scenes\\Whatever.scn"

sExec = "printver " + scn

var oExec    = WshShell.Exec( sExec );

while ( !oExec.StdOut.AtEndOfStream )
{
	s = oExec.StdOut.ReadLine();
	if ( s.indexOf("This Scene was built with version") != -1 )
	{
		var version = s.split(":")[1].replace(/^\s\s*/, '').replace(/\s\s*$/, '');
	}
}

LogMessage( version )

And here’s a Python snippet:

import subprocess

scn = 'C:\\Users\\blairs\\Documents\\Support\\Project\\Scenes\\MySphere.scn'
p = subprocess.Popen( 'printver -l %s' % scn, stdout=subprocess.PIPE )
stdout = p.stdout.readlines()
print stdout
print stdout[-1].split(':')[1].lstrip().rstrip()

See the thread on the Softimage mailing list, which includes a VBScript snippet for getting the build version.

Finding and deleting ICETrees on an object

Posted on December 31, 2011 by xsisupport

Here’s a JScript snippet for deleting ICE trees from the objects in a group.

Note that the Primitive.ICETrees property returns all ICE trees that write to the object, including ICE trees on different objects (such as the italicized ICE tree in the screenshot below).

var o = Selection(0);
delICETrees(o, false );

function delICETrees( oGroup, bDelAll )
{

	var bFlag = ( bDelAll == null ) ? false : bDelAll;
	logmessage(bFlag);

	if ( oGroup != null && oGroup.type == "#Group" )
	{
		oGroupEnum = new Enumerator( oGroup.Members ) ;
		for (;!oGroupEnum.atEnd();oGroupEnum.moveNext() )
		{
			var o = oGroupEnum.item() ;
			var p = o.ActivePrimitive;

			oICETreeEnum = new Enumerator( p.ICETrees ) ;
			for (;!oICETreeEnum.atEnd();oICETreeEnum.moveNext() )
			{
				var oICETree = oICETreeEnum.item() ;
				if ( bFlag || oICETree.Parent3DObject.IsEqualTo( o ) )
				{
					LogMessage( oICETree.fullname );
					// DeleteObj( oICETree );
				}
			}
		}
	}
	else
	{
		LogMessage("Select a group" );
	}
}

Copying and pasting fcurve keys in a script

Posted on October 8, 2011 by xsisupport

To copy and paste keys in a script, you have to also call SelectKeysInTimespan() to select the keys you want to copy.

If you copy and paste keys in the fcurve editor, SelectKeysInTimespan() is not logged, so it’s easy to get fooled into thinking you don’t need it (SelectKeysInTimespan is logged by the Dopesheet, however). hat tip luceric

SelectKeysInTimespan("null.kine.local.posx", siSetKeySelection, 65, 93, siInputParameters);
CopyKeys("null.kine.local.posx", 65, 93, null, true, siInputParameters);
PasteKeys("null1.kine.local.posx", 55, 83, false, null, siInputParameters, null, null, false, false);

Here’s some OM code that does about the same thing:

var x = Dictionary.GetObject("Model.null.kine.local");
var fcv = x.roty.Source;
LogMessage(ClassName(fcv));

var y = Dictionary.GetObject("null.kine.local");
var fcv1 = y.roty.AddFcurve();
fcv1.Set(fcv);
// Keep keys from 20-50
fcv1.RemoveKeys(1,19);
fcv1.RemoveKeys(51,null);
// Move to 0-30
fcv1.OffsetKeys(fcv1.Keys, -20);

Checking the version of JScript available in Softimage

Posted on August 6, 2011 by xsisupport

LogMessage(GetJScriptVersionInfo());

function GetJScriptVersionInfo()
{
    var s;
    s = ""; // Build string with necessary info.
    s += ScriptEngine() + " Version: ";
    s += ScriptEngineMajorVersion() + ".";
    s += ScriptEngineMinorVersion() + ".";
    s += ScriptEngineBuildVersion();
    return(s);
}

On Linux:

// INFO : JScript Engine Version: 5.1.4411

On Windows:

// INFO : JScript Version: 5.8.16762

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ICE, scripting, and other tech stuff about Softimage aka XSI

Tag Archives: JScript