The Building Coder

SDK Update, RvtSamples and Setting Grid Endpoint

An updated version of the Revit SDK was published, I set up RvtSamples for Revit 2018, which I use to load The Building Coder samples, and we present a useful employment of the DatumPlane class methods GetCurvesInView and SetCurveInView – Revit 2018 SDK Update – RvtSamples for Revit 2018 – How to Modify Grid Curve End Points... Read more →

Retrieving Elements Visible in View

Minho re-opened the Revit API discussion forum thread on getting the ElementId of all visible entities in a viewport, providing a good opportunity to mention Colin Stark's answer to the StackOverflow thread on determining whether a FamilyInstance is visible in a View. Question: I am looking for code to get the ElementIds of all entities inside a viewport. A viewport is a region of a big view plan... Read more →

Revit 2017 and 2018 SDK Samples

The Revit API discussion forum thread on drawing or rendering over the active view brought to my attention that an important new SDK sample created to demonstrate the use of the Revit 2018 functionality DirectContext3D for display of externally managed 3D graphics in Revit is missing in the SDK. I added it right here, in DuplicateGraphics.zip, and also provide an overview of the new SDK samples – CapitalizeAllTextNotes – DuplicateGraphics – GenericStructuralConnection – BRepBuilderExample – MultistoryStairs – PlacementOptions – Structural Analysis CodeCheckingConcreteExample and CalculationPointsSelector – REX SDK DRevitFreezeDrawing... Read more →

Hotfix Resolves Export and Print Issue

Here is just a quick note to begin the week with the good news that the Revit 2018 issue reported in the Revit API discussion forum thread on Revit 2018, DWF, shaded views, and Windows explorer bug is resolved by the hotfix to handle the product crash when communicating with licensing server. It can apparently also occur when exporting or printing views... Read more →

Finding the Right Project Location

An explanation of the Revit project location elements and selecting the right one to use. I see two project location elements: 'Internal 21748' and 'Project 111428'. The active Project Location is 'Internal 21748'. However, the values in 'Project 111428' are correct and can be used to transform the coordinates, whereas the values in 'Internal 21748' are nonsense. Why is the active project location wrong? How can I determine which of the two to use? What is the difference between these two? ... Read more →

API Access to Family Instance References

Here is another Revit 2018 API enhancement that is obviously worth highlighting, since it immediately answers the question on getting a specific reference from a family instance raised in the Revit API discussion forum: Is it possible to get a named reference plane from a family without going into the family editor API? For example, I would like to have users be able to name a reference plane 'my arbitrary location' when they are creating a family... Read more →

Prompt Cancel Throws Exception in Revit 2018

In Revit 2018, cancelling family instance placement during a call to PromptForFamilyInstancePlacement throws an OperationCanceledException exception – Easily fixed, once discovered – Question – Change in Behaviour – Exceptions Should be Exceptional – Answer – The Building Coder samples CmdPlaceFamilyInstance... Read more →

External Access to the Revit API

We are currently being flooded with questions about a topic that has already been discussed repeatedly and in depth in the past, external access to the Revit API. Possibly, the cause is the growing interest in implementing web driven solutions to generate RFA and RVT files. It is in fact possible to implement a web server driving Revit in the background to execute such tasks, as demonstrated by the old sample showing how to drive Revit through a WCF service and other examples listed in the topic group on Idling and external events for modeless access and driving Revit from outside – Revit I/O and Forge – Question – Answer... Read more →

Wall and Opening Tessellation

Let's turn to a geometric question on tessellation, expanding on the discussion on TessellateSolidOrShell. I am exporting Revit wall geometry to an external application for comparison of net and gross wall areas. I have a problem with the fact that Face.Triangulate(double levelOfDetail) creates a different tessellation segmentation of neighbouring faces for the wall and its opening, although the underlying intersection curve between them is obviously the same. Why does the tessellation segmentation differ in this manner? The levelOfDetail in unchanged... Read more →