Drop Element

As a MicroStation user, you're probably familiar with the Drop Element tool. It's used to break up one or more elements into simpler components. Tool settings are used to specify the element types on which the tool operates.

Python Drop Element API

As a MicroStation programmer, you may want to replicate part of that tool for your own purposes. The route to dropping is via a graphic element's display handler. DisplayHandler provides method Drop(), which takes a complex element and copies its components to a list of elements in an ElementAgenda

You decide what to do with the original complex element and the list in that ElementAgenda. To emulate MicroStation's tool, you would add each element in the ElementAgenda to the active mode, then delete the original.

Here's an example written by Bentley Systems Python advocate Leonard Jones.

DropOptions

That example shows how to write your Drop code …

• Create your DropOptions
• Call DisplayHandler.Drop(), passing your options

# Get an ElementHandle from somewhere, and get its DisplayHandler
disp_handler = eh.DisplayHandler
# Create an empty ElementAgenda instance
elm_agenda = ElementAgenda ()
# Create an empty DropGeometry instance
drop_options = DropGeometry()
# Specify the DropOptions you want
drop_options.SetOptions (DropGeometry.eOPTION_Complex)
# Call DisplayHandler.Drop
status = disp_handler.Drop (eh, elm_agenda, drop_options)

The ElementAgenda is a list of the component elements.

Drop Options Enumeration

You probably noticed the statement drop_options.SetOptions (DropGeometry.eOPTION_Complex) uses the DropGeometry enumeration. It's there — but you won't find it in the Python documentation. It is described in the C++ MicroStationAPI help, but that didn't make it into the Python documentation.

Here it is …

Drop Geometry Options Enumeration

Enumerator	Description
DropGeometry.eOPTION_None	No type/geometry specific drop options
DropGeometry.eOPTION_Text	To drop text to geometry
DropGeometry.eOPTION_Dimensions	To drop dimensions. (DIMENSION_Geometry)
DropGeometry.eOPTION_Mlines	To drop multi-lines to geometry
DropGeometry.eOPTION_Complex	To drop complex elements. (ex. normal cells, complex shapes, complex chains, grouped holes, text nodes)
DropGeometry.eOPTION_LinearSegments	To drop shapes/linestrings to individual segments
DropGeometry.eOPTION_SharedCells	To drop shared cells. (SHAREDCELL_NormalCell)
DropGeometry.eOPTION_Solids	To drop solids/surfaces. (SOLID_Wireframe)
DropGeometry.eOPTION_AppData	To drop application elements to geometry.

Questions

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