A custom tool is represented by a class deriving from the base class GdkTool.

Once a class has been defined and registered with the project assembly, it will be automatically discovered by the framework and become available for use just like a built-in tool.

The Gdk tool implements the virtual methods of the GdkTool class. These virtual method implementations are called by the GdkTool APIs which in turn are called by the Gdk framework.

The following aspects of a tool can be controlled:

Name
Type
List of parameters
List of inputs
List of measurements
List of feature outputs
List of data outputs
List of generic outputs
Visualization
Acceptable data type

During boot-up, the framework calls the VName and VDescribe static methods for each tool class. The implementation of the VDescribe method should describe the tool using the given GdkToolInfo object.

At a minimum, a tool should describe its type name, source data type, acceptable source options and at least one measurement.