Compiling ObjectARX® Application Against FRX SDK

Owned by Shilpa Thippasandra Shivalingappa
Last updated: Oct 17, 2024 by Jeronimo Benlloch Marti
3 min read

Compiling your FRX application with ARES Commander

Requirements

ARES Stream

Visual Studio Version

Platform Toolset

FxARX SDK

2024.x.x

  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2019(Version 16) or higher

  • Microsoft Visual 2019 Community Edition or higher

v142

2024.x.x

2025.x.x

  • Microsoft Visual 2022

v143

2025.x.x

Follow the next steps to compile your projects against the current ARES Commander Service Pack and also previous versions of the current year:

Step 1 : Create FRX configurations for your project

  1. Open your ARX project with Visual Studio.

  2. Go to the Configuration Manager and create new configuration based on your ObjectARX configuration (release and debug).
    Note: Make sure that the ObjectARX props files are not copied in the new configuration.

  3. Open the vcxproj file in an editor and search for props files.

  4. Remove ARX props files that are imported in the FRX configurations and save the file.

Editor : Notepad++

Step 2 : Modify FRX Configuration Properties

  1. Open your project with Visual Studio.

  2. Open project properties.

  3. Change Configuration to the FRX configuration.

  4. In Configuration Properties > Advanced :
    Set Character Set to Use Unicode Character Set

  5. The resulting Target File Extension should be .frx.

  6. Apply the changes.

Dialog : Visual Studio 

Note : From ARES Commander 2025 onwards Visual Studio 2022 must be used.

Step 3 : Link the headers from FRX

  1. In C/C++  >  General : Additional Include Directories remove all the headers related to ObjectARX.

  2. Add headers from FRX:

    1. version_x64_ARES_SDK\SDK_x64\Headers\frx_inc\FxARX2025SPX\include

    2. version_x64_ARES_SDK\SDK_x64\Headers\frx_inc\FxARX2025SPX\_impl_include

  3. Apply the changes.

Step 4 : Link the Libraries from FRX

  1. In Linker  >  General : Additional Library Directories remove all *.lib files related to ObjectARX.

  2. Add *.lib files from FRX:
    version_x64_ARES_SDK\SDK_x64\Libraries\frx_lib

  3. In Linker  >  Input : Additional Dependencies connect to the *.lib file from FRX: FxARX2025_X0.lib.
    Note: Please connect to the appropriate *.lib file corresponding to the release you are using.

  4. In Linker > Input : Module Definition File remove the *.def file related to ObjectARX.
    Example :
    Remove ..\..\..\inc\AcRxDefault.def

  5. Apply the changes.

 

Step 5 : Add in the project resource file the API version that it is used to compile your projects

We recommend to define in your project resource file (.RC), the "FRX-API-VERSION" with the API version against you compile your project. This way your plugin will keep compatibility across different Service Packs from same year. The following table shows the relation between released service packs and the version value that must be used to set "FRX-API-VERSION"

Service Pack

Value

Service Pack

Value

ARES Commander 20XX SP0

20XX_00

ARES Commander 20XX SP1

20XX_10

ARES Commander 20XX SP2

20XX_20

ARES Commander 20XX SP3

20XX_30

You just need to define in the StringFileInfo block of the resource file, the value FRX-API-VERSION. For example, if you compile your sources against FxARX API 2025 SP0 then you will add something like:

VALUE "FRX-API-VERSION", "2025_00"

For more information about this topic, please read Keeping compatibility across the service packs

In case you configure your projects using a PROPS file, FxARX package contains FxARX.props with the default configuration to link against the FxARX SDK.

FxARX is only provided as 64-bits module. Make sure you build your project in x64.

Please, notify Graebert GmbH about the inheritance of the custom entities that your are implementing.

The resulting FRX file is not compatible with any other application. You can use the plugin only in ARES Commander environment.

Additional Resources:

Frequently Asked Questions

Reporting FRX issues

Examples ( FRX )