Streaming data to C#-project through OLE-oject(file) from other SW

Joe Domer

15y2.9k

Hi,

I am using an IR camera and a special analyze software with the camera.

I want to stream data from the analyze software to a C#-project (Visual studio 2010) using OLE. OLE is the only way to stream from this particular program and until yesterday I had never looked at OLE.

I have managed to stream data to Excel by typing:
=IRWinres.Session|'C:\Users\Klimator\Documents\FLIR\OLE-test.irs'!\max

into an Excel -cell. Where "OLE-test.irs" is a worksession file which apparelty contains the requested information. The file is not readble text but some binary mess.

Now I want to import the same data to a C# (studio 2010) project.
I have not been able to find a way to call this "OLE-test.irs" file and read the max (or any other) property and I really have no idea how to go about.

Any tips regarding this is mighty appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

3 Replies

Know the answer? Post it — somebody with the same question will find it here.

Sam Hobbs15y ago
Try this. In a C# (or VB .Net) project go to the Solution Explorer and right-click on the References; select Add Reference. Go to the Browse tab and try browsing to the OLE-test.irs file. Select it and see what happens. If it works, then go to the Object Browser and fine the namespace for the object and it should show you the methods and other members.

If adding a reference that way does not work, then try adding a reference from the COM tab but you must know what the object is called. If that does not work, then another thing to try is the OLE-COM Object Viewer, which is a Windows SDK tool that is installed with Visual Studio. There are other tools that could help but the OLE-COM Object Viewer is already installed in your system.
Joe Domer15y ago
Thank you for your answer. I feel I need to clarify my previous post.

Everything happens on a Windows PC.

On my hard drive I have a file called "OLE-test.irs" which is a associated with a special camera software(running on windows pc). When I am running the camera software, some properties of the camera image is constantly being saved to this file.

In Microsoft Excel I can access the file and it's properties by typing "=IRWinres.Session|'C:\Users\Klimator\Documents\FLIR\OLE-test.irs'!\max" into an Excel-cell. In this particular example the "max" property from the file is displayed in the Excel-cell. So when the camera software is running, the Excel-cell is constantly being updated to display the "max"-property.

By looking at the Excel syntax above I draw the conclusion that "IRWinres.Session" is some sort of "OLE-class". Then it seems that Excel looks to the file specified and then picks out the "max"-property using that particular syntax.

Now I would like to access the same file and "max" property with C#-code in an windows application using OLE. The windows C# application is created in Visual Studio 2010 and I am guessing I should use the classes found in "System.Data.OleDb".

My problem is that I have no idea how to "connect" to the above .irs-file using the classes in the said library.

The reason I mention the Excel-example is that I thought it might offer some clues on how to connect to my .irs-file.

Thanks again.
Sam Hobbs15y ago
A project is something that Visual Studio uses to know what to build and how to build it. You need to build an application or a class library or something like that. If you don't know what type of application then you need to read the documentation of the hardware; we don't know what how the hardware works so we don't know what type of application you need or anything like that.