The Building Coder

Chinese Revit 2012 API Webcast

My colleague Joe Ye of the Beijing office is presenting a Chinese version of the... Read more →

Debugging an Add-in Without Restarting Revit

Here is a question that has come up again and again in recent years: Question: How can I avoid re-starting Revit after every change to my add-in code? It is very time consuming. Answer: Unfortunately, the Visual Studio 'Edit and Continue' feature does not work when developing Revit add-ins. Personally, I set up the Visual Studio project to start up Revit with a testing project already loaded, by appropriately setting up both the 'Start external program' and 'Command line arguments'... Read more →

Extensible Storage of a Map

I already discussed the important new and powerful extensible storage mechanism, and we also explained and demonstrated it in both the DevHelp Online and Revit 2012 API webcast presentations, both of which were recorded. I updated the sample code for the latter webcast. Here is the mainline of the Execute method: public Result Execute( ExternalCommandData commandData, ref string message, ElementSet elements ) { UIApplication uiapp = commandData.Application; UIDocument uidoc = uiapp.ActiveUIDocument; Document doc = uidoc.Document; try { // pick an... Read more →

Loading Only Selected Family Types

As you probably know, the Revit API provides two methods to load family types, also known as symbols: LoadFamilySymbol, which loads an individual type, and LoadFamily, which loads the entire family and all the types it defines. Use of the latter method can be quite time consuming and wasteful, especially if you only require a few of the types included. In the past we also discussed a couple of other issues on handling family types, such as creating a new... Read more →

My First Revit Plug-in

My colleagues Joe Ye and Saikat Bhattacharya of the ADN DevTech team put together a wonderful new training tool, in a project led by Kristine Middlemiss and with strong support by Mikako Harada and Kean Walmsley, to create self-paced 'My First Plug-in' guides introducing power users with no prior programming experience to the APIs (Application Programming Interface) of various Autodesk products. Luckily for us Revit aficionados, the very first of these guides is the Revit one, so let me proudly... Read more →

API Wishlist Survey

This year's API wishlist surveys now ready for several Autodesk products and will remain open until June 3rd, 2011. Here are direct links to the Revit and Navisworks surveys: Revit API wishlist survey Navisworks API wishlist survey The API wishlist survey has a strong influence on the direction of the future API. so please take the time to fill it out. To quote Kean, it really is worth providing us with your input: it's one of the most direct ways... Read more →

List Linked Files and TransmissionData

Today is the day of our Revit 2012 API webcast, in just six hours' time! In case you missed it so far, I assume that there is still time for a last minute registration. I mentioned that one of the new features in the Revit 2012 API is the access to linked file information and the TransmissionData class which stores information about all of the external file references in a document. The TransmissionData for a Revit project can be read... Read more →

Wiki API Help, View Event and Structural Material Type

I am back again from my trip to Turkey and the attempt to climb Mount Ararat. Unfortunately, we were a bit unlucky with the weather on the day of our summit bid and forced to turn back at 4900 m, less than 200 m below the top, after spending several days on the mountain. We established a base camp just below the snow limit at about 2500 m, and a high camp in the snow at around 3500 m, and... Read more →

New Room Computation Parameters

Isidoro Aguilera of Aplicad submitted a comment asking how to migrate code making use of some room computation parameters from the Revit 2011 API to Revit 2012, specifically the built-in parameters LEVEL_ATTR_ROOM_COMPUTATION_AUTOMATIC LEVEL_ATTR_ROOM_COMPUTATION_HEIGHT Question: I'm migrating a plug-in from 2011 and 2012 and experienced problems with the level type parameters BuiltInParameter.LEVEL_ATTR_ROOM_COMPUTATION_AUTOMATIC and BuiltInParameter.LEVEL_ATTR_ROOM_COMPUTATION_HEIGHT. They were writable in Revit 2011, but are read-only in Revit 2012. Have you experienced a similar issue when migrating your samples? The following code worked in... Read more →

Revit 2012 API Webcast

I may be away visiting Turkey and climbing Mount Ararat, but I can still pass on the occasional tidbit to you at the same time. The Revit 2012 API webcast is scheduled for Thursday, May 19th. To register, you can visit the Autodesk Developer Network (ADN) DevTech API training schedule site, filter for 'Revit API', and click on the register link. This webcast is free of cost and open to all developers, regardless of ADN membership. Here is the rough... Read more →

Set Preview Image

While I am away, here is a useful article to keep you occupied by my colleague Saikat Bhattacharya: Setting preview image/view for a Revit document using Revit 2012 API Question: How can I set the preview image/view for a Revit document using the Revit 2012 API? In particular, when I load an older version of Revit document and do a SaveAs using the API, how can I set its preview image? Answer: There are two ways to set a preview... Read more →

Improved MEP Element Shape and Mount Ararat

We recently talked about distinguishing Revit MEP duct element shapes, and Max aka Maciej Szlek presented a solution based on the analysis of the string value of the duct's Size parameter. I suggested that the algorithm might be improved, both to make it more general and robust and also to remove the dependency on the different string formats used for imperial and metric units. It probably becomes more efficient as well, by the way. Instead of looking at the duct... Read more →

Cascaded Events and Renaming the Active Document

I waxed philosophical on the topic of change yesterday, and here is another issue that can be related to that. In fact, almost anything can be associated with change somehow or other, can't it? A developer trying to trap the SaveAs command and rename the active document in order to force users to comply with certain naming conventions was attempting a convoluted solution and running into problems with that scenario. Scott Conover, Software Development Manager in the Revit API team,... Read more →

Iteration and Springtime – Change is the Only Constant

I am back again from a wonderful relaxing Easter holiday with beautiful weather and an almost obscene wealth of blossoming trees and flowers in the Swiss Emmental region: Spring time really gives us an overwhelming impression of nature's capacity for rapid change! And change is the only constant... And, as we see below, change is a constant challenge in programming as well... Meanwhile, here are quick pointers to two of the many noteworthy items that cropped up during the past... Read more →