Get started with Trimble Connect for Windows API

Trimble Connect for Windows API is an Application Programming Interface written in C# allowing external .NET/C# applications to communicate with Trimble Connect for Windows.

The API is meant to be easy and intuitive to use in order to minimize the required technical background.

Main functionalities

The main functionalities of the Trimble Connect Windows API are (included but not limited to):

• Accessing active project

• Accessing models inside the active project

• Accessing and modifying model placement

• Accessing model objects with various filters

• Accessing model object attributes

• Interacting with model objects

• Support for model object hierarchies

• Accessing, activating and creating views

• Accessing and modifying camera

• Starting point picking and accessing the picked points

• Support for reacting to certain events raised by Trimble Connect for Windows

Basic concept of the Windows API

The following image shows the basic concept of the API and how it relates to Trimble Connect for Windows. By familiarizing this concept, the usage of the API will become simpler and it is easier to follow the class level API reference documentation.

• TrimbleConnectDesktopClient works as an entry point for the API

• Manager classes contain context specific operations. For example, you can get access to the active Project in Trimble Connect for Windows by using ProjectManager's GetActiveProject method.

• Certain Manager classes can be accessed from different levels. For example, ModelObjectManager can be accessed from Project and from Model classes.

• The level from which the Manager classes are used defines the scope that the operations are limited to. For example, getting model objects by using the ModelObjectManager from project level returns all the model objects from all the loaded models inside the project. In contrast, when getting the model objects from model level, only the model objects from that specific model are returned.

Start coding 

 Create your first application

1. Create your first very simple application by following the steps defined in Code example: Get name of the active Trimble Connect project
2. Get familiar with class level API reference documentation
3. View the code and try to understand what's going on
4. Make some small changes to the code and run the application again

Try other code examples

Continue by trying out other code examples included in the API Reference.

1. Open you first application in Microsoft Visual Studio
2. Replace the public class Example definition with the definitions provided in the example.

Start developing your own applications!

API is easy and intuitive to use so now you are ready to start developing your own Trimble Connect for Windows applications.