Visio automation via PowerShell - powershell

Question

I have a script that automates the a Visio diagram, i based my script on the official Office site: http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/office/f77fb025-11ee-48f3-8409-9bb567a63fc3
Well to be honest i have no idea how to retrieve the values of the "shape data", this shape data is for example (Serial number, Building, Location, etc...) from the pc stencil.
I want to add and revise this values programatically, i ve checked the object model reference but without luck.
Can someone help me?
here is the code, it opens a visio document and adds a pc stencil to the drawing.
$application = New-Object -ComObject Visio.Application
$application.visible = $true
$documents = $application.Documents
$document = $documents.Add("Basic Network Diagram.vst")
$pages = $application.ActiveDocument.Pages
$page = $pages.Item(1)
$ComputerStencil = $application.Documents.Add("Computers and Monitors.vss")
$pc = $ComputerStencil.Masters.Item("PC")
$shape1 = $page.Drop($pc, 2.2, 6.8)
$shape1.Text = "Some text...."
Thanxs for your time!!

Answer 1

The Visio Automation library may help you:
Here's an example of how you can use it in C#. Using it in PowerShell should not be difficult.
var app = new IVisio.Application();
var doc = app.Documents.Add("");
var page = doc.Pages[1];
var shape1 = page.DrawRectangle(1, 1, 3, 4);
VisioAutomation.CustomProperties.CustomPropertyHelper.Set(shape1,"Hello","World");
var props = VisioAutomation.CustomProperties.CustomPropertyHelper.Get(shape1);
Using the Visio PowerShell Module, the code will look something like this:
Set-StrictMode -Version 2
$ErrorActionPreference = "Stop"
Import-Module Visio
$app= New-VisioApplication
$doc = New-VisioDocument
$stencil_net = Open-VisioDocument "Basic Network Diagram.vst"
$stencil_comp = Open-VisioDocument "Computers and Monitors.vss"
$pc_master = Get-VisioMaster "PC" $stencil_comp
$shapes = New-VisioShape -Masters $pc_master -Points 2.2,6.8
Set-VisioText "Some Text..."
Set-VisioCustomProperty -Name "prop1" -Value "val1"
Set-VisioCustomProperty -Name "prop2" -Value "val2"
$shapedata_col = Get-VisioCustomProperty -Shapes $shapes
foreach ($shapedata in $shapedata_col)
{
Write-Host "--------------------------------------"
Write-Host Name $shapedata.Name
Write-Host Type $shapedata.Type
Write-Host Value $shapedata.Value
Write-Host Prompt $shapedata.Prompt
Write-Host Ask $shapedata.Ask
Write-Host Calendar $shapedata.Calendar
Write-Host Format $shapedata.Format
Write-Host Invisible $shapedata.Invisible
Write-Host Label $shapedata.Label
Write-Host LangId $shapedata.LangId
Write-Host ShapeID $shapedata.ShapeID
Write-Host SortKey $shapedata.SortKey
}
At the bottom you can see how to set and retrieve shape data.

Answer 2

You could also export the drawing as html, then parse the resulting data.xml.