VIM Desktop Application SDK

About VIM and the VIM Desktop Application SDK

The VIM Desktop Application SDK (https://github.com/vimaec/vim-desktop-sdk) is a C# API for writing plug-ins that can be used for automating the VIM Windows Desktop application and add new functionality.

VIM (Virtual Information Modeling) is both a platform and open file-format designed especially for the efficient interchange of BIM and 3D data into virtual environments and real-time engines running on multiple platform

The VIM Desktop Application is a WPF .NET application with an integrated high-performance rendering engine built from the ground up using the state of the art Vulkan API and is designed especially for large scale architectural projects.

SDK Requirements

The following are required to get started building an SDK:

• Visual Studio Community 2019 – download for free at https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/community/
• VIM Desktop Application – register for a free account at https://portal.vimaec.com

Creating VIM Plug-ins

A VIM plug-in is any public class that has the [VimPlugin] attribute and implements the IVimPlugin interface. VIM plug-ins are loaded from .NET assemblies whose name matches the pattern *.Plugin.dll and that resides in the %userprofile%\VIM\Desktop Plugins folder. On eassembly (class library) may contain multiple plug-ins.

VIM Libraries

The VIM API SDK consists of following files in the VIM Desktop Application folder (e.g. C:\Program Files\VIM\Viewer):

• Vim.BFast.dll - A library for reading and writing binary data in the BFAST format. Both G3D and VIM files use the BFAST layout.
• Vim.DotNetUtilities.dll - General purpose .NET utility functions
• Vim.G3d.dll - A library for reading and writing Geometry data in the G3D format.
• Vim.Geometry.dll - A library of useful Geometry functions
• Vim.LinqArray.dll - A library for providing a LINQ style interface to Immutable arrays
• Vim.Math3d.dll - A high-performance 3D math library appropriate for serialization

The IVimPlugin Interface

The VIM Desktop application communicates with the plug-in by calling functions exposed by the plug-in by implementing the IVimPlugin interface. These are:

• void OnRenderApi(IRenderApi api) - Called when the plug-in is initialized
• void OnHuddleApi(IHuddleApi api) - Called when the plug-in is initialized
• void OnOpenFile(string fileName) – Called when a new VIM file is loaded
• void OnCloseFile() – Called when a VIM file is unloaded
• void OnFrameUpdate(float deltaTime) – Called on each frame

The IRenderApi and IHuddleApi is an interface provided upon initialization to the plug-in that provides a way for the plug-in to communicate with and control the Desktop application further.

Default Implementations of IVimPlugin Classes

There are two classes that provide convenient default implementations of IVimPlugin:

• VimPluginBaseClass - General purpose plug-in that caches the renderer, and provide default virtual function implementation of IVimPlugin.
• VimPluginBaseClassWithMouseHandling - A plug-in that provides additional virtual functions for mouse events.

Creating a new VIM Plug-in from Scratch

• Open Visual Studio Community 2019
• Add a new project
• Choose “Class Library (.NET Framework) C#”.
• Look for Language = C#, Platform = Windows, Type = Library.
• Configure your new project to use .NET Framework 4.7.2.
• Make sure your assembly name ends with “.Plugin.d;;”.
• Add references to VIM libraries
• Make sure that reference has “Copy Local” set to false.
• Go to Windows explorer and type in %userprofile%\VIM\Desktop Plugins and press enter
• Windows explorer will resolve this to a concrete location (like C:\Users\Christopher Diggins\VIM\Desktop Plugins)
• Go to project settings and change the output folder to the resolved path