topic Re: Replacing Surface Materials based on MaterialName. in Archicad C++ API

Replacing Surface Materials based on MaterialName.

KirthikaSrinivasan-L — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 22:44:01 GMT

Hi! I'm looking into ways to replace Surface Material (API_MaterialID), based on the name of the Material (after downloading the Material into the project). If I already know that my project has a material A applied to a window/door/wall/slab, and I want to download and import a material say B into the Project and replace all the instances of A in the project, with B, I'm unsure how to replace the instances.

I tried getting the Attribute Indices of A and B and replacing B's

Attr.header.typeID, Attr.header.index, Attr.material and Attr.material.texture.fileLoc values with A's corresponding values and deleting the A Attribute fully. But this doesn't seem to work.

Please let me know if there is any other way to make this replacement work, on surface material level.

Edit: Let me rename the elements as plain A and B, as I think A1 and B1 is creating some confusions.

Thank you in Advance.

API_AttributeIndex FindSurfaceMaterialIndex(const char* MaterialName) { API_AttrTypeID typeID; GSErrCode err = NoError; API_AttributeIndex test; for (typeID = API_FirstAttributeID; typeID <= API_LastAttributeID; ((Int32&)typeID)++) { GS::Array<API_Attribute> attributes; err = ACAPI_Attribute_GetAttributesByType(typeID, attributes); if (err != NoError) { DBPrintf("Error in ACAPI_Attribute_GetAttributesByType", err); continue; } if (typeID == API_MaterialID) { short count = 1; for (API_Attribute& attrib : attributes) { char guidStr[64]; APIGuid2GSGuid(attrib.header.guid).ConvertToString(guidStr); if (strcmp(attrib.header.name, MaterialName) == 0) { // Match found test = attrib.header.index; return test; } count++; //index loc for reference } } } return ACAPI_CreateAttributeIndex(0); } // Function to replace a surface material GSErrCode ReplaceSurfaceMaterial(const char* oldMaterialName, const char* newMaterialName) { API_AttributeIndex oldAttribute = FindSurfaceMaterialIndex(oldMaterialName); API_AttributeIndex newAttribute = FindSurfaceMaterialIndex(newMaterialName); API_Attribute oldAttr, newAttr; BNZeroMemory(&oldAttr, sizeof(API_Attribute)); BNZeroMemory(&newAttr, sizeof(API_Attribute)); oldAttr.header.typeID = API_MaterialID; oldAttr.header.index = oldAttribute; newAttr.header.typeID = API_MaterialID; newAttr.header.index = newAttribute; if (ACAPI_Attribute_Get(&oldAttr) != NoError) { return 0; } // Copy all properties from the new material to the old material newAttr.material = oldAttr.material; newAttr.material.texture.fileLoc = oldAttr.material.texture.fileLoc; char guidStr[64]; APIGuid2GSGuid(newAttr.header.guid).ConvertToString(guidStr); DBPrintf("\n"); DBPrintf(" [%3s] {%s} \"%s\"", newAttr.header.index.ToUniString().ToCStr().Get(), guidStr, newAttr.header.name); GSErrCode err2 = ACAPI_Attribute_Delete(oldAttr.header); newAttr.header.index = oldAttr.header.index; GSErrCode err = ACAPI_Attribute_Modify(&newAttr, nullptr); if (err != NoError) { return err; } if (ACAPI_Attribute_Get(&newAttr) != NoError) { return 0; } return NoError; }

Re: Replacing Surface Materials based on MaterialName.

Lingwisyer — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 07:33:26 GMT

The API sub can be found here for future reference.

@Barry Kelly or someone can move this thread for you when they see it.

Re: Replacing Surface Materials based on MaterialName.

Lingwisyer — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 08:28:08 GMT

I am no C++ coder, but are you replacing the information within each material with that of your desired one? Would you not just completely replace the material;

parse material library for "const char", write result to A1 to An
find index of A1 to An
store string Prior to "const char" for A1 to An
store string After "const char" for A1 to An
delete A1 to An from material library
duplicate B1 => B2 to Bn
replace the index of B2 to Bn with the stored values from A1 to An?
ammend name B2 to Bn with Prior "const char" After

Or is that just really memory inefficient?

Or maybe that is what you have done, I am no C++ coder...

Re: Replacing Surface Materials based on MaterialName.

Hiromichi Shinkawa — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 03:29:02 GMT

Hi, Your code shows me that you deleted the oldAttr, then you try to use the oldAttr index to modify...

newAttr.header.index = oldAttr.header.index;
ACAPI_Attribute_Modify(&newAttr,...

If you'd modify a material attribute, the material should not be removed.
HTH.

Re: Replacing Surface Materials based on MaterialName.

KirthikaSrinivasan-L — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 22:49:25 GMT

@Hiromichi Shinkawa

Thank you for your reply!

That doesn't fix the problem. The replacement of the Surface Material still doesn't seem to work.

For example, I want the Surface Material used in the API_WindowID and API_DoorID to be overwritten with a new Surface Material, based on the Material Name.

Please let me know how to do this.

Re: Replacing Surface Materials based on MaterialName.

KirthikaSrinivasan-L — Wed, 14 May 2025 00:20:44 GMT

Hi @Hiromichi Shinkawa @Ralph Wessel,

Can you please help?

ACAPI_Attribute_Delete has been removed as per @Hiromichi Shinkawa's suggestion. It didn't seem to fix the issue. I want to replace the old surface material with new surface material, in archicad, based on the surface material's name.

I have got the attribute's index using FindSurfaceMaterialIndex().

Can you please let me know how I can perform the replacement of one surface material with another surface material?

API_AttributeIndex FindSurfaceMaterialIndex(const char* MaterialName) { API_AttrTypeID typeID; GSErrCode err = NoError; API_AttributeIndex test; for (typeID = API_FirstAttributeID; typeID <= API_LastAttributeID; ((Int32&)typeID)++) { GS::Array<API_Attribute> attributes; err = ACAPI_Attribute_GetAttributesByType(typeID, attributes); if (err != NoError) { DBPrintf("Error in ACAPI_Attribute_GetAttributesByType", err); continue; } if (typeID == API_MaterialID) { short count = 1; for (API_Attribute& attrib : attributes) { char guidStr[64]; APIGuid2GSGuid(attrib.header.guid).ConvertToString(guidStr); if (strcmp(attrib.header.name, MaterialName) == 0) { // Match found test = attrib.header.index; return test; } count++; //index loc for reference } } } return ACAPI_CreateAttributeIndex(0); } // Function to replace a surface material GSErrCode ReplaceSurfaceMaterial(const char* oldMaterialName, const char* newMaterialName) { API_AttributeIndex oldAttribute = FindSurfaceMaterialIndex(oldMaterialName); API_AttributeIndex newAttribute = FindSurfaceMaterialIndex(newMaterialName); API_Attribute oldAttr, newAttr; BNZeroMemory(&oldAttr, sizeof(API_Attribute)); BNZeroMemory(&newAttr, sizeof(API_Attribute)); oldAttr.header.typeID = API_MaterialID; oldAttr.header.index = oldAttribute; newAttr.header.typeID = API_MaterialID; newAttr.header.index = newAttribute; if (ACAPI_Attribute_Get(&oldAttr) != NoError) { return 0; } // Copy all properties from the new material to the old material newAttr.material = oldAttr.material; newAttr.material.texture.fileLoc = oldAttr.material.texture.fileLoc; char guidStr[64]; APIGuid2GSGuid(newAttr.header.guid).ConvertToString(guidStr); DBPrintf("\n"); DBPrintf(" [%3s] {%s} \"%s\"", newAttr.header.index.ToUniString().ToCStr().Get(), guidStr, newAttr.header.name); newAttr.header.index = oldAttr.header.index; GSErrCode err = ACAPI_Attribute_Modify(&newAttr, nullptr); if (err != NoError) { return err; } if (ACAPI_Attribute_Get(&newAttr) != NoError) { return 0; } return NoError; }

Re: Replacing Surface Materials based on MaterialName.

Ralph Wessel — Wed, 14 May 2025 07:19:18 GMT

Do you just want to edit the existing materials rather than reassigning the materials assigned to elements?