Built-In Objects

When you run a script within Impact (Script Toolbox, a text entity, or an auto-task), several objects are pre-defined so you can use them immediately. In Python these appear as COM proxy instances; use the names as shown.

The impact object represents the Impact application. gui is pre-defined to impact.gui, and active_database resolves to impact.active_database. When a script runs in an nServer context, impact is not defined—use n_server instead.

Other pre-defined objects include active_drawing (normally impact.active_drawing), active_layer (normally impact.active_drawing.active_layer), and active_block (normally impact.active_drawing.active_layer.active_block). These are assigned at the start of script execution and are not updated if the script changes layers or opens a new drawing. During some operations (for example generating a border plot or editing a text entity), active_drawing and impact.active_drawing can intentionally refer to different drawings—the former is the original drawing, the latter is the temporary drawing used for output or preview.

List of built-in objects

• impact (an IApplication object)

• gui (an IGUI object)

• active_block (an IActiveBlock object)

• active_layer (an ILayer object)

• active_drawing (an IDrawing object)

• active_database (an IDatabase object)

• globals (an IGlobals object)

• result (a variant value, often used inside text entities and value mappings)

• value (a variant value)

• n_server (an IServer object, available only in an nServer context)

• row_values (an IDatabaseValues object, used within data row report groups)

• row_block (an IBlock object, used within data row report groups)

These names are case-sensitive in Python.