pyautocad Documentation

The Autocad object provides shortcuts to the current active document and its ModelSpace, which are commonly used for object manipulation:

• acad.doc: Access the current ActiveDocument.
• acad.model: Access the ActiveDocument.ModelSpace.

The APoint class simplifies working with 3D points. It allows for easy coordinate arithmetic, which is useful when moving objects or calculating offsets.

from pyautocad import APoint

dp = APoint(10, 0)
# Adding an APoint to an existing point (e.g., an object's insertion point)
new_point = text.InsertionPoint + dp

ActiveX calls to AutoCAD can be slow because every attribute access (like .Text or .Position) triggers a cross-process call. Use these two methods to improve speed:

1. Attribute Caching: Use the pyautocad.cache.Cached proxy to cache object attributes so they aren't re-fetched from AutoCAD repeatedly.
2. Suppress Table Regeneration: When performing bulk updates on AutoCAD Table objects, use the suppressed_regeneration_of context manager to prevent the table from recalculating its layout after every single cell change.

from pyautocad.utils import suppressed_regeneration_of

# Efficiently update a table
table = acad.model.AddTable(pos, rows, columns, row_height, col_width)
with suppressed_regeneration_of(table):
    for row in range(rows):
        for col in range(columns):
            table.SetText(row, col, f'Cell {row},{col}')

To automate AutoCAD, instantiate the Autocad class to connect to the running application. You can use APoint to handle 3D coordinates easily. The Autocad object provides access to the doc (document) and model (model space) for creating entities like Text, Lines, and Circles.

from pyautocad import Autocad, APoint

acad = Autocad()
acad.prompt("Hello, Autocad from Python\n")
print acad.doc.Name

p1 = APoint(0, 0)
p2 = APoint(50, 25)
for i in range(5):
    text = acad.model.AddText('Hi %s!' % i, p1, 2.5)
    acad.model.AddLine(p1, p2)
    acad.model.AddCircle(p1, 10)
    p1.y += 10

You can install pyautocad using standard Python package managers. If you use pip or easy_install, the required comtypes dependency will be installed automatically.

pip install --upgrade pyautocad

# or

easy_install -U pyautocad

Since pyautocad automates AutoCAD via ActiveX, you can refer to the official AutoCAD ActiveX guide and reference for available methods and properties. These files are typically located in the help directory of your AutoCAD installation or at the following path:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Autodesk Shared\acadauto.chm

Key files include:

• acad_aag.chm: ActiveX and VBA Developer's Guide
• acadauto.chm: ActiveX and VBA Reference

To use pyautocad, you must have comtypes installed. For advanced features like Excel, CSV, or JSON import/export, you should also install xlrd and tablib.

pip install comtypes
# Optional for Excel/CSV/JSON support:
pip install xlrd tablib

Use the Autocad class to either create a new AutoCAD application instance or connect to an already running one. This is the main entry point for automation.

from pyautocad import Autocad

# Create or connect to AutoCAD
acad = Autocad()

To use pyautocad, ensure the following dependencies are met:

• comtypes: Required for ActiveX communication. Automatically installed via pip or easy_install. If installing manually, ensure comtypes is present.
• xlrd (Optional): Required if you intend to work with tables.
• tablib (Optional): Required if you intend to work with tables.

The Table class in pyautocad.contrib.tables simplifies reading and writing tabular data.

Requirements:

• xlrd and tablib must be installed.

Supported Formats:

• csv (Read/Write)
• xls (Read/Write)
• xlsx (Write only)
• json (Read/Write)

Example of saving AutoCAD text data to Excel and reading it back:

from pyautocad import Autocad
from pyautocad.contrib.tables import Table

acad = Autocad()

# 1. Collect data from AutoCAD
data_to_save = []
for text in acad.iter_objects('Text'):
    data_to_save.append([text.Text, text.InsertionPoint.x, text.InsertionPoint.y, text.InsertionPoint.z])

# 2. Save to Excel
table = Table(data_to_save)
table.save('data.xls')

# 3. Load data back from file
loaded_table = Table.load('data.xls')
print(loaded_table.data)