How to Run Aspose.CAD in Docker

Prerequisites

Docker must be installed on your system. For information on how to install Docker on Windows or Mac, refer to the links in the “See Also” section.
Visual Studio 2022.
NET 6 SDK is used in the example.

Hello World Application

In this example, you create a simple Hello World console application that draws an ellipse and saves it as an image. The application can then be built and run in Docker.

Creating the Console Application

To create the Hello World program, follow the steps below:

Once Docker is installed, make sure that it uses Linux Containers (default). If necessary, select the Switch to Linux containers option from the Docker Desktops menu.
In Visual Studio, create a NET 6 console application.
Install the latest Aspose.CAD version from NuGet.
Since the application will be run on Linux, you may be needed to install additional fonts. You could prefer ttf-mscorefonts-installer.
When all required dependencies are added, write a simple program that creates an ellipse and saves it as an image:

using (var img = Aspose.CAD.Image.Load(System.IO.Directory.GetCurrentDirectory() + "/input.dxf"))
{
	img.Save(Path.Combine("TestOut", "output.png"), new Aspose.CAD.ImageOptions.PngOptions());
}

Note that the “TestOut” folder is specified as an output folder for saving output documents. When running the application in Docker, a folder on the host machine will be mounted to this folder in the container. This will enable you to easily view the output generated by Aspose.CAD in the Docker container.

Configuring a Dockerfile

The next step is to create and configure the Dockerfile.

Create the Dockerfile and place it next to the solution file of your application. Keep this file name without extension (the default).
In the Dockerfile, specify:

FROM mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/sdk:6.0 AS builder
WORKDIR /app

COPY /Aspose.CAD.Docker.Sample/*.csproj ./Aspose.CAD.Docker.Sample/
RUN dotnet restore ./Aspose.CAD.Docker.Sample/

COPY /Aspose.CAD.Docker.Sample ./Aspose.CAD.Docker.Sample/

WORKDIR /app/Aspose.CAD.Docker.Sample
RUN dotnet publish -c Release -o publish

FROM mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/aspnet:6.0
WORKDIR /app
COPY --from=builder /app/Aspose.CAD.Docker.Sample/publish ./

RUN apt-get update
RUN apt-get install -y apt-utils
RUN apt-get install -y libgdiplus
RUN apt-get install -y libc6-dev 
RUN ln -s /usr/lib/libgdiplus.so/usr/lib/gdiplus.dll

RUN sed -i'.bak' 's/$/ contrib/' /etc/apt/sources.list
RUN apt-get update; apt-get install -y ttf-mscorefonts-installer fontconfig

RUN apt-get install fonts-freefont-ttf

ENV ASPNETCORE_URLS=http://+:80
ENV ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT=Release

EXPOSE 80
ENTRYPOINT ["dotnet", "Aspose.CAD.Docker.Sample.dll"]

The above is a simple Dockerfile, which contains the following instructions:

The SDK image to be used. Here it is the Net 6 image. Docker will download it when the build is run. The version of SDK is specified as a tag.
After, you may need to install Fonts because the SDK image contains very few fonts. Also, you can use local fonts copied to docker image.
The working directory, which is specified in the next line.
The command to copy everything to container, publish the application, and specify the entry point.

Building and Running the Application in Docker

Now the application can be built and run in Docker. Open your favorite command prompt, change directory to the folder with the application (folder where the solution file and the Dockerfile are placed) and run the following command:

docker build -t dockerfile .

The first time this command is executed it may take longer, since Docker needs to download the required images. Once the previous command is completed, run the following command:

docker run --mount type=bind,source=C:\Temp,target=/app/TestOut --rm dockerfile from Docker

Pay attention to the mount argument, because, as mentioned earlier, a folder on the host machine is mounted into the container’s folder, to easily see the results of the application execution. Paths in Linux are case sensitive.

More Examples

For more samples of how you can use Aspose.CAD in Docker, see the examples.