The Building Coder

AU Begins

I left the desert and the climbing in Red Rock and entered the air conditioned world of conference land. My first task Monday morning was the one I found most challenging, the recording session for my virtual class on the Revit Family API,

• CP9118-1 The New Autodesk Revit Family API: Everything is Relative

It was definitely an interesting experience, with an assistant fussing around to set things up and then sitting in a completely darkened room with several technicians managing the recording equipment, in a sphere of blinding lights directed at me and almost total blackness all around...

It went very well, in any case, and I was able to relax for the ADN conference during the rest of the day, although it did mean that I unfortunately missed the morning sessions of that.

The first broadcast of the Revit Family API is scheduled for this afternoon in just a couple of hour's time. I will be available online to chat and answer questions live in the question and answer session being held in parallel with the broadcast.

A second broadcast is scheduled for tomorrow evening. I would love to chat with you and answer your questions during either one of these two broadcast sessions.

For a live meeting, one place that I will certainly be is the classroom session I am presenting on the Revit MEP API,

• CP308-2 All Systems Go in the New Autodesk Revit MEP API

Another good place to meet me here at the conference is the AU booth. I will pass by there regularly and definitely be spending time there on Wednesday around 12:30 and 19:30.

Sunday before the Storm

The last hours before the conference I spent enjoying a nice, peaceful, sunny Sunday walking, reading and climbing a little bit in Red Rock, once again in the Black Corridor. I had one quick climb on a top rope with Chris and Daniela on Burros Don't Gamble 5.10c, and two climbs with Hannah and Jason, semi leading with the quickdraws already placed, on Vagabonds 5.10a and Burros Might Fly 5.10b.

Jess very friendlily sent me some photos from our climbs together on Friday:

Here I am in the beginning of a route that was too hard for me and I was unable to complete. But I was able to get down again safely the same way I went up:

And finally, here we are having a beer together after the successful day, Karl, Gary, Fritz, Ellis, and Jess, the crazy guys from Dallas, Texas, and me at the end, maybe a bit crazy as well:

Visible Elements

I am sitting here cramped up in an economy seat crossing the Atlantic Ocean as I write this. I should urgently be practicing and preparing for my sessions at AU, but somehow it feels as if writing a blog post requires slightly less space, so here goes. I would also like to answer some pending comments, but cannot right now due to lack of Internet access...

After revisiting the topic of selecting all model elements in the last post, there is one more important and interesting issue to take into account to determine all the visible model elements. In that post, we made use of element filtering instead of an iterator over all elements and eliminated a number of unwanted element types and categories. Once we have thus whittled away the non-model elements, there are still several possibilities to hide elements in a given view through the user interface. Here are two main methods that can be used to hide elements in a view:

• Hide an individual element.
• Hide an entire category of elements.

To determine whether an element is hidden, we need to check for both of these possibilities. In addition, an element may belong to a subcategory. If so, it may be hidden either because its subcategory or one of its parent categories is hidden.

The Revit SDK sample VisibilityControl demonstrates how to control visibility by category, and the topic of categories and how they are used is covered in detail in section 5.2.1 Category of the developer guide "Revit 2010 API Developer Guide.pdf".

The visibility of an element in a view can be queried using the Element.IsHidden( View ) method, the visibility of a category by the Category.Visible property.

Here is the code of a helper method IsHiddenElementOrCategory which takes all these factors into account and can be used to check whether an element 'e' is hidden in a given view 'v'. It returns true if the given element is hidden in this view, either as an individual element, or because its category or one of its parent categories is hidden:

static bool IsHiddenElementOrCategory(
  Element e,
  View v )
{
  bool hidden = e.IsHidden( v );
 
  if( !hidden )
  {
    Category cat = e.Category;
    while( null != cat && !hidden )
    {
      hidden = !cat.get_Visible( v );
      cat = cat.Parent;
    }
  }
  return hidden;
}

Red Rock Revisited

By the way, some time has passed between starting to write and actually posting this. I arrived safely in Las Vegas, grabbed a rental car, and went off to un-jetlag by spending the night in a sleeping bag in the desert. Rather cold, but not freezing, this time around. Two years ago, it was significantly below freezing and my gallon bottle of water froze solid, all the way down. Last year, it was warmer and moister and had actually rained just before my arrival. This year is the most pleasant to date. Frankly, I prefer the desert to the strip.

I spent my first day here climbing in the Red Rock climbing area with a bunch of crazy guys from Dallas, Texas, namely Karl, Fritz, Gary, Jess and Ellis. We did several easy routes on the Ultraman wall, including Scent of an Ultraman 5.7, Clutch Cargo 5.7 and Science Patrol 5.8.

We met up early next morning again to go the Black Corridor, which I visited in the previous two years as well. I led a number of climbs in the morning including The Cel 50' 5.9, Bon Ez 5.9+, and two of hardest and nicest I've ever done, Heavy Hitter and Friend 40', both 5.10d. The guys from Dallas left to return home at midday and I teamed up with Sonja & Jean-Francois from Quebec in the afternoon to climb two more routes led by Jean-Francois, Crude Street 5.9+ and Dance with a God 5.10a.

I am now sitting in the Barnes and Noble book store on West Charleston Boulevard and gratefully using the free Internet access they provide to finish off and post this. This is the road that I keep going up and down to get to Red Rock.

Unrotate North

I spent this weekend on the Rigi Mountain together with seventy other people from the alpine club. Saturday it rained quite hard most of the day, unfortunately, but a couple of us still went on a very nice hike from Rigi Scheidegg across to and over the top of Rigi Hochflueh with a beautiful view down on the Lucerne Lake and the Rütli Meadow. In the evening, we also tested how many people can be shoehorned into a wood-heated hot tub outside in snow and rain, among other interesting pastimes. Sunday I went climbing with Angela. Considering the rain from the day before and the night and it still being quite cloudy on Sunday, we were maybe the only two crazy enough to even try it. It involved the same walk from Scheidegg to Hochflueh, then searching for the climbing area, doing the climbs, and, last but not least, getting back again safely. The climbing area is called Thedys Gärtli and is on the Hochflue slabs close to the summit, so we could all the time enjoy the same beautiful view as the day before. We were extremely pleased to be able to do two very nice climbs, among the easier ones, Männertrü (4c) and Fürlinie (5c). Although we knew when we started the latter one that we would get back rather late, we actually ended up descending the mountain in total darkness and spending most of the night trying to get back to civilisation. Or, rather, all of the night, since I missed the last train out of there.

Anyway, meanwhile, our inexorable exploration of the Revit API continues, and here is another question to address which expands on our analysis of the calculation of the azimuth or Revit elements:

Question: I am using the Element.Location property to query the X and Y coordinate values of an element. I also make use of the project location and project angle. I have a problem if the Project North has been rotated. How can I determine the 'real' X and Y coordinates of an element if the Project North has been rotated?

Answer: Ok, I see what you mean.

To dive into this a little bit deeper, I implemented a new Building Coder sample command CmdUnrotateNorth to calculate the coordinates of the original unrotated element location for you. It transforms the element location back to the original coordinates to cancel effect of rotating the project north by simply determining the project north rotation angle 'a' and applying a similar transformation to the element coordinates like this:

  Transform t = Transform.get_Rotation(
    XYZ.Zero, XYZ.BasisZ, a );

To simplify testing, I implemented a helper method GetElementLocation which defines a location point for any given element having a non-null Location property:

bool GetElementLocation(
  out XYZ p,
  Element e )
{
  p = XYZ.Zero;
  bool rc = false;
  Location loc = e.Location;
  if( null != loc )
  {
    LocationPoint lp = loc as LocationPoint;
    if( null != lp )
    {
      p = lp.Point;
      rc = true;
    }
    else
    {
      LocationCurve lc = loc as LocationCurve;

      Debug.Assert( null != lc,
        "expected location to be either point or curve" );

      p = lc.Curve.get_EndPoint( 0 );
      rc = true;
    }
  }
  return rc;
}

In the main method, I check that one single element is selected and then list its location point as returned by the API, or rather by this method. I then iterate over all project locations, print each one's the project north angle and list the element location point rotated around the origin by that angle.

I tested this by selecting an element and running the command with it in its original unrotated position, which returns:

Selected element location: (-23.64,1.64,0)
Angle between project north and true north: 0 degrees
Unrotated element location: (-23.64,1.64,0)

After applying a rotation to the project north by calling Manage > Project Location > Position > Rotate Project North > Align selected line or plane, invoking the same command again returns the following:

Selected element location: (-21.66,9.62,0)
Angle between project north and true north: 20 degrees
Unrotated element location: (-23.64,1.64,0)

As you can see, the element location returned by the API is different, but the original value can easily be obtained by applying the rotation described.

Here is the code of the entire mainline of the sample command in its Execute method:

Application app = commandData.Application;
Document doc = app.ActiveDocument;

ElementSet els = doc.Selection.Elements;

if( 1 != els.Size )
{
  message = "Please select a single element.";
}
else
{
  ElementSetIterator it = els.ForwardIterator();
  it.MoveNext();

  Element e = it.Current as Element;

  XYZ p;
  if( !GetElementLocation( out p, e ) )
  {
    message
      = "Selected element has no location defined.";

    Debug.Print( message );
  }
  else
  {
    string msg
      = "Selected element location: "
      + Util.PointString( p );

    double pna = 0;

    foreach( ProjectLocation location
      in doc.ProjectLocations )
    {
      ProjectPosition projectPosition
        = location.get_ProjectPosition( XYZ.Zero );

      pna = projectPosition.Angle;

      msg +=
        "\nAngle between project north and true north: "
        + Util.AngleString( pna );

      Transform t = Transform.get_Rotation(
        XYZ.Zero, XYZ.BasisZ, pna );

      msg +=
        "\nUnrotated element location: "
        + Util.PointString( t.OfPoint( p ) );

      Util.InfoMsg( msg );
    }
  }
}
return IExternalCommand.Result.Failed;

Here is version 1.1.0.50 of the complete Building Coder sample source code and Visual Studio solution including the new command.

Journal File Replay

In spite of pretty mixed weather I went on a climb in the alps with my friend Robert on Saturday, the route Kurze Kombination (4c) on the mountain Schmalstöckli (2012 m) close to the Lidernenen Hütte.

Here I am after the climb, just below the summit:

And this is Robert on the summit itself:

We would made another climb on the same mountain if the weather had not been pretty grey and moist. Anyway, now it is Monday morning, and I am back again to Revit programming.

We mentioned the Revit journal file repeatedly in previous posts, but a basic introduction to this topic was still missing. There is a good reason for this, because Autodesk does not provide any official support for the usage of journal files as a means of automating a portion of the design or production process. The only official support for journal files is as a replay mechanism for testing or reporting issues. One can make use of the journaling mechanism totally at one's own risk, and there will almost certainly be changes, incompatibilities between versions, and other problems.

The testing and reporting mechanism provided by the journaling mechanism is fully accessible to Revit add-ins as well. This access is demonstrated by the Revit SDK Journaling sample. Anyone interested in making use of journaling for any purpose whatsoever should have a good look at this sample in order to understand the mechanism in more depth.

Being unsupported, the journaling mechanism should be used only as a last resort. One example of a preferable approach for some tasks is to prompt the user instead.

Still, with some imagination and due to the lack of automation support for driving Revit from outside or invoking Revit commands such as the IFC export programmatically, it does sometimes offer interesting possibilities.

All the uses mentioned above are related to driving Revit by replaying an existing or an automatically generated journal file. Another way of using the journal file is to read out its contents dynamically during an on-going session to find out what is going on. I mentioned an idea to determine the last Revit command from it, and Greg Wesner discussed getting the journal file path for other monitoring purposes.

Here are some recent questions on this topic, one of which lead to me finally putting together an example and proving to myself that a journal file can be used pretty reliably to drive a completely encapsulated sequence of commands, including Revit start up and shutdown. But first, let us look at a negative result.

Question: Is it possible to play back a Revit journal file while Revit is already running and a document is already opened?

Answer: Sorry, I am not aware of any way to play back a journal file in the middle of a running session, with an opened document. The only way I know of using journal files for programmatic purposes is to include the entire sequence of starting up Revit, opening the document, executing the desired action, and closing down Revit again within the journal file execution. You may possibly omit the closing down part, in which case Revit will be left open, if you are willing to give up control to the user at that point.

Here is the question that led me to test running Revit from a journal file and including steps in it which provide me API access for additional control during the replay process:

Question: Is it possible to use the Revit API to create a new family within the OnStartup method of an external application?

Answer: The argument provided to OnStartup is a ControlledApplication instance. This object provides methods to manipulate the ribbon, access the shared parameters file, access some application level properties and set up application level event handler.

It does not include access to the documents. That access is provided by the Documents collection on the Application class, which is provided as an argument to external commands, which are only active after OnStartup has completed and a document has been opened.

If you wish to start up Revit and immediately create a new family document, you can do so once manually and save the journal file that is generated by this interaction. The journal file can then later be used to restart Revit and re-execute this process.

If you wish to continue working programmatically with the new family document, you can set up an event handler for the DocumentCreated or DocumentOpened notification.

Some notes on external applications and document event handling are provided by the blog entries:

• External application OnStartup implementation in VB.
• External application implementing automatic synchronisation using document save and close events.
• Transactions and document modification in a DocumentOpened event handler.
• Document modification in the DocumentClosing event handler.
• Programmatic handling of dialogue box events.

Following this suggestion to implement an external application reacting to an event to programmatically process a newly created family file created by driving Revit from a journal file led to the following new question:

Question: I have created a journal file that opens a family document on Revit start up. However, it issues an error when calling my external application's OnStartup method saying "The journal file could not be run to completion."

Answer: I cannot reproduce the problem you describe. In my experience, the message that the journal file could not run to completion is due to other problems. I do not believe it is caused by the event handler registration. To test this, I implemented a new external application AutoExecuteOnOpen which does what you say, registering event handlers for the DocumentCreated and DocumentOpened events in the OnStartup method. Both of these simply print a message to the Visual Studio debug output window:

public IExternalApplication.Result OnStartup(
  ControlledApplication a )
{
  a.DocumentCreated 
    += new EventHandler<DocumentCreatedEventArgs>( 
      a_DocumentCreated );
 
  a.DocumentOpened 
    += new EventHandler<DocumentOpenedEventArgs>( 
      a_DocumentOpened );
 
  return IExternalApplication.Result.Succeeded;
}
 
public IExternalApplication.Result OnShutdown(
  ControlledApplication a )
{
  a.DocumentCreated
    -= new EventHandler<DocumentCreatedEventArgs>(
      a_DocumentCreated );
 
  a.DocumentOpened
    -= new EventHandler<DocumentOpenedEventArgs>(
      a_DocumentOpened );
 
  return IExternalApplication.Result.Succeeded;
}
 
void a_DocumentCreated( 
  object sender, 
  DocumentCreatedEventArgs e )
{
  Debug.Print( "DocumentCreated" );
}
 
void a_DocumentOpened( 
  object sender, 
  DocumentOpenedEventArgs e )
{
  Debug.Print( "DocumentOpened" );
}

I registered this external application in Revit.ini.

I then ran through the following sequence and saved the resulting journal file:

• Start up Revit.
• Open a family document.
• Close the family document.
• Shut down Revit.

These steps resulted in a new journal file:

C:\Program Files\Autodesk Revit Architecture 2010\Journals\journal.0180.txt

I saved this journal file for replay and had no problem rerunning it. It executes all the following expected steps without problems:

• Start up Revit.
• Load the external application.
• Open a family document.
• Fire the DocumentOpened event.
• Print the message.
• Close the family document.
• Shut down Revit.

In the first attempt at implementing my external application event handlers, I displayed a message box. This did not work, at least not when run from the debugger, because clicking OK in the message box had no effect, so the journal file execution was blocked at that point. Replacing the message box by a simple Debug.Print statement solved that problem. This shows that the entire execution process is very sensitive and picky, though.

Here is a copy of my journal file and here the entire Visual Studio solution AutoExecuteOnOpen

Host Reference

Still enjoying my climbing and sunshine holiday with my sons in Avignon. Yesterday we went climbing and exploring the cliffs or 'calanque' of Cassis, east of Marseille (more images):

Besides climbing, swimming in the Gard river and Mediterranean Sea, and blogging now and then, my sons are also artistically active:

Returning to the Revit API, however: We already touched on the relationship between a host and its hosted elements in some previous posts. The first such topic was the relationship inverter, making use of the explicit property providing a reference to the host of hosted elements such as doors, windows and other family instances. Since this property only specifies the relationship in one direction, we implemented the relationship inverter to obtain the inverse references.

No such explicit property is provided in either direction in the association between a tag and the tagged element, and that discussion mentions four ideas for possible workarounds instead.

Here is another question on a similar topic, the relationship between a wall and its wall footing:

Question: How can I obtain a reference to a wall footing from the wall attached to it? And vice versa, is it possible to obtain a reference to the wall supported by a wall footing?

Answer: As in the case of the tag and the tagged element, the Revit API does not provide any direct access to the link in either direction, neither to get the reference of a wall footing from the wall attached to it or vice versa. The workaround via the Document.Delete method mentioned as one of the four workarounds to determine the association between a tag and the tagged element can be used in this case as well: You call the method to delete the wall. It automatically includes the wall footing in the deletion, and returns the element ids of all deleted objects in an ElementIdSet, from which you can pick out the wall footing. If you encapsulate this operation in a transaction which is aborted after the call, the deletion will not be committed, and you will have obtained the desired information with no changes made to the model. Here is a sample code snippet to implement this:

I added a new command class CmdWallFooting to The Building Coder sample implementing this functionality. Here is the source code of its Execute method:

Application app = commandData.Application;
Document doc = app.ActiveDocument;
 
ContFooting footing = null;
 
Wall wall = Util.SelectSingleElementOfType( 
  doc, typeof( Wall ), "a wall" ) as Wall;
 
if ( null == wall )
{
  message = "Please select a single wall element.";
}
else
{
  doc.BeginTransaction();
  ElementIdSet delIds = null;
  try
  {
    delIds = doc.Delete( wall );
  }
  catch ( System.Exception )
  {
    message = "Deletion failed.";
    doc.AbortTransaction();
    return CmdResult.Failed;
  }
  doc.AbortTransaction();
 
  foreach ( ElementId id in delIds )
  {
    ElementId refId = id;
    Element elem = doc.get_Element( ref refId );
    if ( null == elem )
      continue;
    footing = elem as ContFooting;
    if ( null != footing )
      break;
  }
}
string s = Util.ElementDescription( wall );
 
Util.InfoMsg( ( null == footing )
  ? string.Format( "No footing found for {0}.", s )
  : string.Format( "{0} has {1}.", s,
    Util.ElementDescription( footing ) ) );
 
return CmdResult.Failed;

This is the result of running the new command on the wall depicted above:

Another efficient workaround has become possible in Revit 2010 by making use of the new API method FindReferencesByDirection. It finds both elements and geometric references that intersect a ray extending in a certain direction from an origin point. The Revit 2010 SDK Samples AvoidObstruction and RaytraceBounce demonstrate the use of this new method. By using a couple of points on the wall footing, we can easily determine which wall is located directly above it, and vice versa as well. This provides a much stronger possibility to the workarounds using general geometric proximity suggested in the post on the tag association.

Here is version 1.1.0.34 of the complete Visual Studio solution with the new command.

Revit and Dragonfly

Another post from my vacation in the Provence, where we have been climbing in Plan d'Orgon and Collias so far and bathing in the Gard river. Hot climbing in the sun and cool dips in the river are a great combination!

This is based on a note I received from Emile Kfouri, the Autodesk Senior BIM Platform Manager in the AEC Solutions Division. The Dragonfly team sent an e-mail recently to inform us that Dragonfly has the ability to export a model to Revit using the Revit API.

What is Dragonfly?

Dragonfly is a web-based application for home improvement projects targeting entry level 'designers' like the home owner. Dragonfly's intuitive design tools help you rapidly create and furnish a floor plan, experimenting in real time with your ideas in 2D and 3D before making it real. Dragonfly also enables you to share any saved designs with others by clicking the 'Share' icon in the upper left hand corner of the Designer window. The site has seen very brisk traffic since its launch in March.

For professional designers who use Dragonfly, you can export the floor plan and furnishings as a Revit RVT file.

Dragonfly is the second Autodesk SaaS or 'software as a service' solution that uses Revit technology in the back end. The original trail blazers were the SEEK team.

All you need to do is log on to Dragonfly.

Here is a quick example in three steps:

1. Design your building:

2. Select Export to Revit:

3. Open the model in Revit:

VB Samples and Other Questions

I have been very quiet now for a few days. The reason is that I went on a climbing weekend to Mallorca with my brother and left my laptop in the car while we went for a climb. The car was broken into, and the laptop and all my valuables were stolen, right down to the bicycle keys. Since I had actually used the bicycle to get to the airport, the first thing I had to do on arriving back was to borrow a saw to break my own bicycle lock. Now I am in the painful process of restoring data to a temporary computer. A valuable lesson in letting go, I suppose. More on this below.

Anyway, here are some queries on different topics, some of which have been touched upon previously, and an updated reiteration may be of general interest:

1. Programmatically triggering IFC export.
2. ImportExport SDK sample in VB.
3. OnStartup sample code in VB.
4. 64 bit OLE DB access.

Question: How can I trigger a daily export of a Revit model to an IFC file?

Answer: I am sorry to say that there is currently no API access to this functionality. One option that you might explore is to simulate the user input required for this repetitive task programmatically. You might do this directly using the Win32 API, or make use of some utilities that provide easier access to this functionality. Here are some of the previous posts dealing with related topics:

• Driving Revit from outside.
• The Revit Window handle and modeless dialogues.
• AutoHotKey.

Another option that may fit your requirements perfectly but is not officially supported is the use of the Revit journal file. Every action performed through the Revit user interface is recorded in a journal file, located in a subfolder of the Revit installation folder. We once discussed how to obtain the path of the current journal file. Journal files can be rerun to reproduce the actions performed in a previous session, for instance by specifying them on the Revit command line during start-up. Custom applications can define what data their commands register in the journal file, and how to process that data when a journal file is replayed, as demonstrated by the Revit SDK Journaling sample. In your case, however, you would possibly not need to do any programming or customisation at all, just start up Revit, perform the IFC export, close down Revit again, and save the resulting journal file. This file might be reusable to automate the IFC export on a daily basis, just as you require.

Question: The Revit SDK 2010 provides a sample application named ImportExport which is of interest to me. Unfortunately, it is in C#, I am only familiar with VB, and the example is quite comprehensive. How can I convert this to VB, please?

Answer: We already discussed the topics of conversion, disassembly, decompilation, Lutz Roeder's Reflector tool and the related topic of obfuscation in previous posts. This tool can be used perfectly well to decompile the Revit SDK Samples, as well. The decompiled code can be displayed in a variety of different languages, including Delphi, managed C++, Chrome and Visual Basic. As said, the ImportExport sample is written in C#. I opened the compiled assembly ImportExport.dll in Reflector and asked to see the source code of the Command class disassembled into Visual Basic. Here is the result:

Public Class Command
  Implements IExternalCommand
  ' Methods
  Public Function Execute( _
    ByVal commandData As ExternalCommandData, _
    ByRef message As String, _
    ByVal elements As ElementSet _
  ) As Result
    Try 
      If (Nothing Is commandData.Application.ActiveDocument) Then
        message = "Active view is null."
        Return Result.Failed
      End If
      Dim mainData As New MainData(commandData)
      Using mainForm As MainForm = New MainForm(mainData)
        If (mainForm.ShowDialog = DialogResult.Cancel) Then
          Return Result.Cancelled
        End If
      End Using
    Catch ex As Exception
      message = ex.ToString
      Return Result.Failed
    End Try
    Return Result.Succeeded
  End Function
End Class

I will leave it up to you to decompile the rest of the classes, if you wish. Alternatively, there are other tools available which decompile an entire application in one go.

Nowadays, Reflector is available from Red Gate.

Question: I would like my application to run automatically every time a file is opened. I assume this can be achieved using the OnStartup method. How is OnStartup used in VB.NET?

Answer: We already looked at this topic once previously, and provided a short description on registering to application events in VB. I repeated the steps described there in the Visual Studio 2008 environment for Revit Architecture 2010, and implemented a simple sample external application named OnStartupVb and implementing OnStartup in Visual Basic for you. The description provided in the previous post for Revit 2009 remains valid for 2010 as well. Here is the resulting source code of the external application class:

Imports Autodesk.Revit

Public Class App
  Implements IExternalApplication

  Public Function OnShutdown(ByVal a As ControlledApplication) _
  As IExternalApplication.Result _
  Implements IExternalApplication.OnShutdown
    Return IExternalApplication.Result.Succeeded
  End Function

  Public Function OnStartup(ByVal a As ControlledApplication) _
  As IExternalApplication.Result _
  Implements IExternalApplication.OnStartup
    System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show( _
      "OnStartup says Hello from Jeremy", _
      "OnStartup VB")
  End Function

End Class

Here is a copy of the full Visual Studio solution OnStartupVb.

Question: No OLEDB provider registered ... How can I retrieve a record set from an Access 2007 database using VB.NET in 64-bit Vista?

Answer: If you install 32-bit Revit 2009 in 64-bit Vista, then this is possible. This requires compiling your Revit plug-in in a 32-bit OS, then loading it into 32-bit Revit in the 64-bit OS. On the other hand, if the Revit version is 64-bit, one possible approach is to use the SQL server database accessing driver. Note that the 32-bit version of Revit 2010 cannot be installed on a 64-bit OS, so in that case using SQL Server or SQL Server Express would be the recommended option.

Thanks to Joe Ye for this answer!

Back to the topic of Mallorca. Apart from criminality, it is a surprisingly beautiful place with large areas of untouched nature, mountains, and almost inaccessible beaches, in spite of the strong touristic focus in the cities and villages. Also a huge amount of beautiful climbing opportunities. Here I am walking along a path heading for both a lonesome beach and a challenging cliff:

The weather was hot enough to require some protection against the sun:

Happy New Year 2009

This break is great. I am really relaxing, and this machine is taboo ... and yet ... This is just a short note to say that I am having a good time, enjoying life, spending time with my kids and friends, occasionally looking in a mirror to watch at least some of the creases in my face relax a little. On December 26 I went for a brief climbing session just before sunset with my son Cornelius and his friend Simon on the Hofstettenchoepfli in Flueh near Basle. I led two short climbs on the Elsaesserwand, Gelbe Kante Direkt 5c+ and Sargdeggel 6a, initially with rather cold and numb fingertips, especially when reaching deep into frozen cracks, but one does warm up and stay warm pretty quickly ... at least until the rather early sunset around four in the afternoon.

I still notice that I am a bit out of shape after the conference tour ... Another enjoyable event for improving that was a ski tour on December 29 to the summit of Rotsandnollen [2] near Melchsee-Frutt, 800 meters ascent from Stöckalp past Melchsee, Tannensee, Unter Boden, Zigenboden, and over 1600 m descent, unfortunately with rather difficult snow.

Anyway, I'm enjoying another few days of relaxation and reduced computer interaction before getting down to serious business again next week, although there are some things such as travel and API trainings I will be presenting later in January that require preparation and attention already now.

I wish all readers a happy and harmonious new year!

AU Begins

I have now arrived safely and happily at AU, with a day or two to acclimatise, un-jetlag, enjoy desert and nature and go climbing with Lisa and Steve on limestone in the Gun Club and with Manuela and Norbert on sandstone in the Red Rock Canyon on the way. Here is a list of the climbs I did in Red Rock with some photos:

• Black Corridor
• 71 Bonaire 5.9
• 72 Bon Ez 5.9+
• 73 Crude Boys 5.10d
• 76 Vega Bonds 5.10a
• 79 Crude Street Blues 5.9+
• 80 Crude Behaviour 5.9+
• Magic Bus
• 44 Electric Kool-Aid 5.10a
• 45 Blonde Dwarf 5.10a

I also climbed the first pitch of the Great Red Book, after which we had to abort and abseil down from the middle of the wall because we were running too late in time. The sunset was wonderful from up there.

Another memorable image in my inner eye is sunrise with an orange sky above the distant black mountain silhouettes, and the shimmering orange Las Vegas lightscape in almost the exact some colour below.

Anyway, now I am sitting in the perfumed air of the Venetian and the adjoining conference centre and AU is finally beginning. My AU sessions are all just about full ... the one that still has places free is actually of special interest, because it provides an opportunity to meet and interact directly with some members of the AutoCAD Architecture and Revit development teams:

• DE315-1 AEC API Talk (Thu. 12/4 3:15 pm - 4:45 pm)

Another thing that Stephen Preston reminded me of is the fact we are offering free attendance at an API training class to anyone who participates in one of our developer track classes at AU. The offer is one free training class per attendee to be taken at any time during calendar year 2009. To get this, you must attend the AU class and leave your contact details with the presenter in the class, e.g. a business card. The free training is non-transferable and limited to one free training class per person. To use the free training, just register for a class on www.autodesk.com/apitraining, tell us you attended the class at AU and would like the free training. Then we can check your name against the collected business cards.

I'm looking forward to seeing you at one of the sessions or in between in a break, if you are here, or hear from you otherwise, if you are not.