Metrics Visual Basic .NET Sample
Metrics is an .NET Windows Forms application, which demonstrates calculation 
of distances, and nearest points between two objects and usage of 
IMetrics.Dist method. 
Source code for Metrics sample is available in Samples\NET\VB folder of 
the installation directory. It is recommended to copy the folder to location 
outside of the installation folder.  
Description 
Implementation
All DG Kernel related functionality is implemented inside the MetricsForm 
class. The DG Kernel related data is initialized inside InitModelInfo() 
method, which uses GetModel
method of the DG Kernel control to obtain the root 
interface of the hierarchy. ISection
interfaces, representing generic DG Kernel object, are obtained for the first 
two top level objects of the model with the help of 
IModel.GetEntity and stored in 
m_iEntityFrom and m_iEntityTo member variables. 
Calculation of distance is performed in buttCalculate_Click handler, 
where IMetrics
interfaces are queried from relevant ISection 
and IMetrics.Dist is called. The result of 
the calculation is listed by returned IRelation
interface. 
In this application the calculated nearest points are displayed in 3D view 
with line segments and points. To improve performance of rendering
IRelation
is converted once to a .NET List and stored in m_pairList member. 
This work is done by CompileNearestData Sub, where pairs of the relation 
are iterated through, correspondent elements of the each per object list are 
retrieved and converted to the actual type of IVertex. 
The application uses ClientDraw
event, requested in OnFormLoad Sub, to add custom drawing of shortest 
segments and other elements to the scene. The drawing is performed inside 
OnClientDraw handler. In the OnClientDraw Sub the coordinates of each 
vertex are obtained via IVertex.GetVertexCoord. 
When rendering of normals, is requested they are obtained with a
IVertex.GetNormal call in 
DrawNormals. 
Work related to the "Is Closer than" group of controls is done in 
OnCalculateCloserThan handler with the help of
IMetrics.IsCloserThan method. 
Note that movements of the current object are performed in OnMoveObject 
via IFrame2
rather than IFrame
to make movements relative to the current axes. 
  
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