Opening an MXD outside of an arcMap Session

[MichaelAdornetto]

I've been running geoprocessing functions in a stand alone program that consumes an ArcGIS Desktop license.  One of the Models I call uses "Map to KML" which can use an MXD file as a parameter,  It works fine but I would like to tweak it a bit. I have code that produces the KML I want but it needs to run in ArcMAP.  I need to develop a custom geoprocessor tool taht I can feed an MXD to, however I'm unfamiliar with how to reference the layers inside a map document out side of an ArcMap Session.  Does anyone know how to do this, can I open an MXD without the ArcMAp UI or Map Control?  I image the tollbox item "Map to KML" does this.

thanks

[MarkWelsh]

Check out the IMapDocument interface.  It is built to allow this type of activity you are interested in.  You can use it to open a map document, read layers, etc. without the code having to run inside an mxd.

Mark