The following is a blog I published on my site but it is interesting enough to show the translation here.
It would have been fantastic if Autodesk had made Dynamo available for AutoCAD itself, but luckily, there are other ways to get it working. For example, I’ve been trying to get Dynamo working in an AutoCAD environment lately.
If you’re a regular on tech forums, you’ll occasionally read stories like how programmers managed to port the game Doom to a toothbrush! One with a display, of course. Many programmers spend their free time doing things that aren’t necessarily useful, but are still fun. Now I tried something that’s definitely fun, and perhaps even useful! It took some free time, but I managed to activate Dynamo in AutoCAD. And it turned out not to be all that complicated.
As you see, Dynamo is running in AutoCAD 2026.
TL;DR
The step towards it
The idea of implent Dynamo into the AutoCAD environment had been floating around in my head for a long time. Dynamo is simply a fantastic application, and it would definitely be a valuable addition if this functionality became available in AutoCAD. However, implementing it from scratch isn’t easy. The Dynamo Core is available as a sandbox environment, but how do you connect it to the active drawing in AutoCAD as a host? The source code for Dynamo for Civil 3D isn’t available, so I couldn’t see how Autodesk did this. So the idea faded into the background until Jacob Small suggested to take a look at Dynamo for Advance Steel. This code is publicly available. Jacob is one of Autodesk’s most knowledgeable technical experts and knows practically everything there is to know about Dynamo. A true Dynamo-saur, in other words.
I started this project full of enthusiasm. I spent most of my time understanding the source code. What does each step do, which components have code, and how does it all work together? The Solution contains several Projects: one for the application itself, one for the Nodes, and one for the UI Nodes, plus a few support Projects. Much of the functionality is well-integrated, but it’s always a bit of a puzzle when you have to dig through someone else’s code. And sometimes you understand the code, but it doesn’t work as expected, but more on that later.
Converted code
To start, I needed not only the code for Dynamo for Advance Steel, but also the Dynamo Core runtime. Fortunately, this is publicly available. But, silly me, at the moment (February 2026), AutoCAD 2026 is the latest version, and it only supports .NET 8, while the latest version v4 of Dynamo Core is based on .NET 10. So I quickly realized I had to use an older version of Dynamo Core.
Next, I performed a search and rename operation, replacing all references to Advance Steel with references to AutoCAD. I also updated all references to libraries and application paths, reviewed and modified configuration files, and deleted unnecessary Projects. Afterward, I cleaned up the included Nodes, as they were based on Advance Steel functionality. Nothing specific to AutoCAD was available, so as a test, I added a Node to draw a Point in the drawing. Of the UI Nodes, I left two intact: one that picks a location in the drawing and the other that selects objects.
Gradually, you get to the point where you think it’s going to work! Until, during a test run where AutoCAD actually starts and you try to load the application, you get a MissingManifestResourceException error. After some research, it turns out this is related to building localized applications. But what’s the connection to AutoCAD? That wasn’t easy to figure out, until a post on the AutoCAD forum gave me a clue. If you don’t use the Localized Command Name parameter when registering a new AutoCAD Command, this problem shouldn’t occur (or else create localized resources, of course). And finally I could continue.
Crooked code
Sometimes you encounter code you understand but that doesn’t work. For example, the application was stuck on a library that couldn’t be found. The code was supposed to load Dynamo Core Geometry Libraries, but they’re located in a subfolder with a version number. This is in the used Dynamo Core version 231.0, and therefore not comparable to the AutoCAD version, nor the internal version 25.1 or something similar. Therefore, the code searched the AutoCAD application folder for a file named ASMAHL*.dll that used the same version, so it could then search for the correct libraries. Whether it’s a coincidence that both have the same version, or whether it’s a workaround that works as long as it works, I’m not sure yet. What was a problem, however, is that since AutoCAD 2026, this particular file is no longer included in the application folder, but in some user folder in a completely different location. And AutoCAD 2026 was precisely the version I was trying to activate this on! If only I had tested with AutoCAD 2025…
Anyway, it’s perfectly fine for testing by simply hard-coding the version, setting a different folder as the search base, or finding another library containing this version. Hard-coded references are set up in several places, so why such a special setup for this one? Once that was all done, it worked, and Dynamo started up perfectly within AutoCAD!
Dynamo for AutoCAD
The UI Nodes were found immediately and displayed in the Node Library. Selecting a location in the active drawing also works fine. The strange thing is that, unlike Dynamo for Civil 3D, I can simply switch drawings, but I think I’ll have to write some interception code for that myself (or prepare the Nodes for a possible drawing switch).
The node for placing a Point in the drawing isn’t in the Node Library, but it can be found by right-clicking. I know why, and it’s easy to adjust, but for a proof of concept, I thought it was fine.
The Node seems to be working, but unfortunately, it’s not placing an object in the drawing yet. But now that I’ve gotten this far, I think I can get that last bit done.
And now further
It’s a POC, so it was important for me to see if it would work. But should I continue with it?
I don’t think so. It would take an incredible amount of time to improve this project, because all the AutoCAD nodes still need to be written. Also, I’d prefer to start over from scratch now that I know how it works. There’s no Dynamo Player too, which is a project in itself. Furthermore, the work for AutoCAD 2027 would have to be redone with Dynamo Core v4.0, because they both support .NET 10. And should I then create Dynamo for AutoCAD for just 2027, or also for earlier versions? And should those also be compatible (as much as possible) with Dynamo for Civil 3D? For a hobbyist like me, this is simply not feasible. I also can’t make any money to cover the costs, not to mention whether Autodesk views the reuse of Advance Steel code the same way I do. So, alas, it was fun, but for me, this is where it ends!
But who knows, Autodesk might see the light and release Dynamo for AutoCAD themselves! If I, as a hobbyist, managed it in just a few days’ worth of man-hours, it shouldn’t be a problem for them. It will make thousands, millions of users seriously happy, I’m sure of it!
