source: The Treachery of Images, René Magritte, Wikipedia.org
Recently Shaan Hurley announced some training materials on how to create a plugin for AutoCAD:
Check out the self-paced guide "My First Plug-in"
The self-paced guide can definitely get you started. You can also get a leg up with the Autodesk Developer Network plugins of the month. These free nuggets of extra functionality are downloadable from Autodesk Labs and include the source code. This is not a joke. They really are. Even if you're not yet a programmer, you can peruse the lines of code and modify them to meet your needs.
This month's plugin is brought to you by Marat Mirgaleev. As the plugin's name suggests, this plugin can be used to create a 3D Polyline from a selected part of a Pipe Network for AutoCAD Civil 3D. To do this it asks the user to select the starting and ending Pipe or Structure, and then finds the shortest path between them.
// Download Pipe2Pline for AutoCAD Civil 3D via Autodesk Labs
In addition to the source code, the plugin comes precompiled so it's ready to use right away. It also includes a Read Me file with all the meaty details. Please give this a try and let us know your thoughts at [email protected].
Putting that in our pipes and smoking it is alive in the lab.