The Building Coder

RayTraceBounce Pool Table

In spite of yesterday's promise to stop, here is yet one more last minute Christmas present from Harry Matttison of the Revit API development team. In Harry's own words: "Here is a modification to make the ray shooting SDK example RayTraceBounce a bit more fun ... it works and can amuse a 6 year old, if nothing else." Harry's sample uses the ray tracing capabilities of the FindReferencesByDirection method to simulate a pool table. The model defines the table, six... Read more →

UK Electrical Schedule Sample

Here is my final Christmas present and last post of the year. Over the next few days, I will do my best not to answer any email or comments :-) This final gift before I leave is from Simon Jones, Technical Sales Manager of Autodesk UK. Simon has been strongly and enthusiastically involved in all things AEC related for several decades now and was maybe the main early driving force of the use of AutoCAD in the architectural realm in... Read more →

Revit Python Shell

Here is number two of my collection of Christmas presents. This one may actually be the biggest, and should give us all ample material to play with over the holiday season and indeed also use for productive work indefinitely onwards. Daren Thomas of the Professur für Gebäudetechnik, Institut für Hochbautechnik at the technical university ETH Zürich has published a Python Shell for Revit. It was implemented using IronPython and is used to automate the running of daily tests of a... Read more →

Create a Real Revit Ribbon Tab

We made it to Paris on Friday after all, arriving a ten in the morning instead of the Thursday evening as planned. Still, we were able to successfully present the DevDays conference, so that was good. That was also the last day of my working year, at least officially. I spent the evening in Paris and had a nice train ride through the snow back to Switzerland on Saturday. I have a number of Christmas presents collecting here in my... Read more →

Vertical Projection of Beam Analytical Model

We tried to fly from Milano to Paris this evening for the last DevDays conference, but unfortunately our flight was cancelled due to snow in Paris. Now we are stuck at the Milano airport and hoping that the first flight in the morning will not be cancelled as well. If it is, we will not be able to make it at all. Otherwise, we will arrive rather late and have to reschedule the agenda, but at least then we will... Read more →

Custom Ribbon Tab

I am still on tour presenting at the Western European DevDays conferences, and with no time for blogging or responding to comments. In fact, I have almost no time for anything at all except presenting, meeting and discussing with participants during the day, and getting from one city to the next in the evenings. Right now I am sitting in the airport waiting for a plain to Milano. Back to Bella Italia, albeit for less than twenty-four hours. I was... Read more →

Parameter Filter Units

The Western European DevDays conference tour has begun, and I will be presenting and travelling all week, leaving very little time to spend blogging or responding to comments. I visited relatives in London the preceding weekend, and took some time to write and post this before the real crunch began. Several previous posts deal with various aspects of unit handling in the Revit API: Units. Formatting unit strings. Unit types and format options. Unit conversion. Unit Suffix and the ProjectUnit... Read more →

Modeless Dialogues in Revit

Here is an overview and summary of a number of discussions that we have already presented previously on driving Revit from outside and interacting with modeless dialogues, which hopefully will help to further clarify the issues involved. Question: How can I use a modeless dialogue in Revit? I need to display a modeless dialogue in Revit. On clicking a button in it, an element should be added to the Revit model. The button can be clicked multiple times and elements... Read more →

AU is not done yet

Here are some updates on AU and the class materials. Class Materials Several people have inquired where the class materials suddenly disappeared to. The AU 2009 classes will soon be available online. Starting Friday, December 11, AU Online will have all of the class handouts, presentation materials, data sets, and screencasts of more than 500 AU 2009 conference and AU Virtual sessions, so you can access them anytime, anywhere, all year long. All class materials will be available from the... Read more →

Modify the DWF Export Filename

Here is another case handled by Joe Ye regarding the DWF output filename generated by the ImportExport Revit SDK sample. We already presented another related case of his regarding the DWG export filename. Question: This problem is similar to the ViewPrinter problem where the program automatically names the output file. Please tell me how I can trap the naming of DWF output file so I can either send it to a temp folder or rename it by moving to a... Read more →

Updated DevTV Introduction to Revit Programming

The Revit Developer Center proudly presents an updated version of the DevTV Introduction to Revit Programming for Revit 2010, which is now available in both English and Portuguese: English: View online | Download. Portuguese: View online | Download. Oh dear, Saikat just pointed out that the online viewing links apparently do not work here, they only work when selected on the Revit Developer Center page. Sorry about that. The original version was created based on Revit 2008, and we reused... Read more →

Distinguish Different Dimension Types

I am back in Europe again after spending most of the weekend travelling, similarly to Kean but in the opposite direction. In his last post, Kean summarised some interesting views on the evolution of Autodesk University. Returning to the Revit API, here is a nice can-do solution presenting a workaround created by my colleague Joe Ye of Autodesk and Henrik Bengtsson of Lindab on how to distinguish between the different kinds of dimension types. Question: I am creating a drafting... Read more →

AU Winds Down

AU is winding down. The physical conference has closed. AU Virtual is still in full swing today with tons of great on demand content. I just learned that everybody, including you, is invited to engage with AU Virtual via the Free Pass option. You can register and access great content right now. Good Suggestions for Beginners I finished my participation by going to the closing party and visiting the shark aquarium after attending one final class by Rod Howarth: CP322-1... Read more →

AU and Automated Testing

AU has been as exciting as ever, with lots of fascinating news and good meetings and discussions with developers and colleagues that I never get to meet except here. Here are some quick facts and photos. I visited two great classes yesterday on the Revit API by Harry Mattison and Scott Conover, who both work with the internal development of the Revit API and really know what they are talking about: CP214-2 Creating and Analyzing New Conceptual Massing Geometry With... Read more →

Crop 3D View to Room

In case you have heard enough about both climbing and AU and AUv in the last few posts and would prefer to read about the Revit API and nothing but the Revit API, here is something for you. This is based on a recent case handled by Joe Ye and deals with the 3D view crop box and the transformations required to set it up properly, an issue we have never previously looked at. Question: I would like to set... Read more →

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... Read more →