STK Viewer Control Component

The STK Viewer Control component is a software component that enables you to view and interact with analytical visualizations created with AGI's STK. Using the STK Viewer Control Component, you can:

• Bring STK's analytical and visualization capabilities into HTML for powerful Web-based applications.
• Enliven proposals and other presentations by embedding a fully interactive STK scenario into PowerPoint and other Microsoft Office applications.

You can use any COM-enabled language, such as Visual C++, Visual C#, Visual Basic, to create the STK Viewer Control component.

Note: Because each control component is a COM object, it must follow certain COM paradigms. Most importantly, each different plugin must have a unique GUID (Globally Unique Identifier). Visual Studio provides the GuidGen.exe program that generates unique GUIDs. For users without Visual Studio, download the Windows Script Component Wizard from www.msdn.com/downloads which can also generate GUIDs. It is very important not to have more than one component registered in the Windows registry with the same GUID.

Support Interfaces

The control component must support the following interfaces:

• AgAGIViewer. This class allows you to view analytical visualizations created with AGI's STK.
• IAgAGIViewer. The interface exposes a set of properties that allow interaction with AgAGIViewer component.

Installing and Deploying the STK Viewer Control Component

Because the control component is a COM object, it must be registered for use in the Windows registry. You must have administrative rights to add components to the Windows registry. For the compiled languages, the build settings can be configured to automatically register the sample plugin component during the build. Windows script components are not compiled but still must be registered. This is done using regsvr32. The registration associates a GUID and ProgID defined by the component.

Once a control component has been built, it can be deployed to other machines for use by others. To do this, all the appropriate dynamic link libraries built with the plugin must be copied to the other machine and then the plugin must be registered in the Windows registry. To register a C++ built COM component, use regsvr32. To register a .NET built COM component, use RegAsm /codebase. You will find RegAsm.exe in a sub-folder of C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\.

Note: When you build a plugin in Debug mode, rather than Release mode, the component runs using Microsoft debug dynamic link libraries that are supplied with Visual Studio .NET. The plugin will not be able to run on a machine that does not have those Debug libraries. (Debug libraries are not redistributable and are not part of the standard Windows operating system installation.) In most cases, you should build a plugin for deployment to other machines using Release mode.

STK Programming Interface 11.0.1