The Building Coder

What's New in the Revit 2012 API

This is the third instalment of a series publishing the information provided in the 'What's New' sections of the past few Revit API releases help file RevitAPI.chm. The first instalment covering What's New in the Revit 2010 API explains my motivation for this and provides an overview of the other releases. We now move on to the Revit 2012 API, looking at: Major renovations Major enhancements Small enhancements and changes First, however, another update on my vacation. Unexpected Places, and... Read more →

Mixed Mode C++ in Revit 2012

Here is a short note to start the week, on an issue that arose a couple of times using mixed mode C++ development in Revit 2012. This information was originally published on the members-only ADN web site as a technical solution on the development environment for mixed mode C++ for Revit 2012: Question: I have a mixed mode C++ application. When I run it on a machine where no version of Visual Studio was ever installed, I see the following... Read more →

Remove DWF Links

I spent this weekend in Chamonix with my brother Nick. We did one day of rock climbing in the valley at Les Gaillants and Servoz doing Surbac a' Bras, 6a+, and one day of skiing with Chris down the Vallee Blanche, Mer de Glace and Montenvers from the Telepherique de l'Aiguille du Midi. Our route from the telepherique actually joins the Vallee Blanche via the steep looking descent at the extreme right of this picture, with a sharp ridge crossing... Read more →

Updating the Wall Compound Layer Structure

We have a new Revit API supporter on the DevTech team! Balaji joined ADN DevTech a year or two ago and dived straight into supporting AutoCAD with great zest, setting new records in speed and efficiency. Now he addressed his first Revit API case, on how to update a wall compound layer structure. We touched on this topic in the past when discussing the new changes made to the CompoundStructure class in Revit 2012. An example is also given by... Read more →

AEC DevCamp Coming Up Again

Happy Valentine's Day! Here is our Valentine's Day present for you, an invitation to our bi-annual AEC DevCamp: Are you interested in customizing, extending or integrating with Revit, Civil 3D, Navisworks, the Autodesk BIM 360 vision, Vault Collaboration AEC, Revit Server, new web services and mobile technologies, and more? If so, then the Autodesk AEC DevCamp is for you! When: June 6-7, with a DevLab on June 8 Where: Boston, Massachusetts – near Autodesk's AEC Division headquarters Cost: early bird... Read more →

Access Wire Sizes

Here is an interesting question that came up regarding the access to wire sizes. Using a filtered element collector to retrieve a TemperatureRatingType instance and attempting to read its wire sizes produces a problem that is in fact documented in the Revit API help file RevitAPI.chm, but the workaround is still worth pointing out. Question: I'm trying to access the wire size settings in a Revit model without success. The following code throws an exception saying "Object reference not set... Read more →

Add Reference Points and Markers Read from CSV File

For your convenience and my own future reference, here is a summary of a recent conversation with Dermott Mcmeel and a pointer to his video of the resulting add-in in action. Question: I'm using this wicked tutorial as a basis for a plug-in that will read info out of a CSV file. However, it's a few years old and from what I gather some of the definitions have been redefined our outdated. I've done the 'First Revit API plug-in tutorial'... Read more →

Revit Webcam 2012

I recently discussed the elimination of warnings about use of deprecated API methods from The Building Coder samples. In a similar vein, and for similar reasons, I also decided to migrate to Revit 2012 and clean up the RevitWebcam sample that I implemented to demonstrate the use of the Idling event when it was first introduced in the Revit 2011 API. Please note that this sample is intentionally not related to any BIM specific workflow. A webcam just provides an... Read more →

Eliminating Compiler Warnings and Deprecated Calls

Migrating Revit add-ins from one version to the next is a regular topic, obviously, since we are generally provided with a new release every year. Therefore, it is eminently sensible to ensure that an add-in is easy to migrate by avoiding use of all obsolete API functionality. In some cases, you might also wish to support multiple versions. I provided a simple example of an unusually graceful possibility to handle the differences between the Revit 2011 and 2012 Idling event... Read more →

The Performance Adviser API

Unbelievable as it may seem, there are still a number of new areas of functionality added in the Revit 2012 API that we have not even got around to covering here yet at all. One of these is the performance adviser. Here is an article on that by my colleague Saikat Bhattacharya from the ADN AEC newsletter. The Performance Adviser API added in Revit 2012 allows developers to execute a set of built-in or custom rules against a given model,... Read more →

Point Cloud Feature Extraction

I discussed point cloud unit conversion just yesterday. We can immediately follow up with some more hot news on point clouds: The free technology preview of a point cloud feature extraction tool for Revit has been released on Autodesk Labs. It allows you to work more easily with point clouds in Revit by automatically extracting useful geometry features from point clouds of buildings and creating basic Revit elements from them. Tools Included Point Cloud Feature Extraction for Autodesk Revit 2012... Read more →

Avoid Idling

The advice to 'avoid Idling' may sound rather puritanical and a bit on the workaholic side, but I pay it special heed since it comes from Arnošt Löbel, Sr. Principal Engineer in the Revit development team, our resident Revit Idling expert, who already provided many (or almost all?) important insights in this and other related areas: Transaction responsibility Regeneration option best practices Asynchronous API calls and Idling AutoJoinElements Closing the active document and why not to Modeless door lister flaws... Read more →

Identifying Wall Compound Layers and Parts

We recently looked at how to determine the exact geometry and wall join points of compound layer geometry subcomponents by temporarily creating separate parts from the wall. Here is another interesting question the correlation between the wall compound layers and its ensuing parts: Question: I have split my wall into parts, and now I would like to determine which of the resulting parts correspond to the component structure layers with certain functions such as Structure or Membrane. Once the parts... Read more →

Materials Collection and Filtering

We already mentioned that null entries may be returned when retrieving materials from the document settings Materials collection. This raised a couple of more points, e.g. more on the null entries and using LINQ and filtered element collectors to retrieve materials. In the same context, we can also look at retrieving all materials used by an element and removing the deprecated material related API calls in The Building Coder samples. Materials Collection May Contain Null Entries Quite a while ago,... Read more →

Opening Geometry

Here are two unrelated topics that came up related to openings and the use of LINQ with the Revit API. The issue on requesting non-visible objects to be included when retrieving geometry was discussed a few times in the past, e.g. in the theoretical explanation of the geometry retrieval options and in the practical case of accessing curtain wall geometry. Here is another neat little issue that just came up and helps throw more light on some of the variations... Read more →

Keep Dialogues Modal!

Today is the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, at least in the parts of the world I normally frequent. Just as the sun reached the end of its descent, we finally reached the end of our conference tour, here in the UK. I am exhausted and very much looking forward to returning home. There will be only rather a short time left to prepare for Christmas and my children's visit when I arrive. Meanwhile, here are a... Read more →

Loading an Inventor ADSK Component

We held the DevLab in Munich yesterday before rushing off to get to Milano in the evening. I slept a little bit in the taxi and plane on the way here. I was still dead tired on arrival at the hotel just before ten, but thought I absolutely must get out and have a teeny weeny little sniff of Italy anyway before going to bed. I went to a bar right next door and committed the deadly foreigner sin of... Read more →

AVF Displays Intersections and Highlights Rooms

We held a DevLab in Gothenburg yesterday with lots of interesting things to discuss with our Scandinavian developer guests. Today we are in Munich, Germany. So is Kean :-) One of the topics that came up yesterday is a thing I have been wanting to write about for over a year now and never gotten around to, the use of the AVF or Analysis Visualisation Framework to display temporary geometry to the user. I used it myself to display a... Read more →

Copy a Model from a Revit Server

Yesterday evening we had dinner together with developer partners at Heaven 23 again, the same place we visited last year, with its unique reflection-accessible cloud. Today we are holding a DevLab here in the Autodesk office in Gothenburg in Sweden, providing an opportunity for developers to come visit us with their day-to-day work in progress and current issues. Meanwhile, here is a question related to the Revit Server and its API: Question: How can I copy a Revit file out... Read more →

REX Content Generator

I had an absolutely magical experience in Israel before leaving Tel Aviv Thursday afternoon. Among many others at the developer conference on Wednesday, we met with Dima Brickmann of Omnitech, and he suggested going for a short visit to Jerusalem before returning to the airport, which is located between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Partha and I decided to join him. Dima has a very special relationship with the city and a deep philosophical and photographical view of it, so he... Read more →

AU Begins and Point Cloud Overview

Once again I left the desert and the climbing in Red Rock and entered the air conditioned world of conference land. This year I was pretty leisurely about climbing, although I did at least a few climbs every day. I slept well and long, hiked in to Red Rock from the highway, read a book in the desert sunshine, and finally met up with people in the late morning. A memorable experience on my birthday on Saturday was meeting another... Read more →

Intermediate API Update Releases

I recently mentioned the availability of the Revit 2012 Update Release 2 and my surprise that some people prefer not to update, which gave rise to a couple of vehement comments. I myself seldom ran into issues with incompatibilities between intermediate releases, but now one affecting the API cropped up: Question: Using the IUpdater interface, I can do the following with the Revit 2012 API: ElementId paramId = new ElementId( BuiltInParameter.ROOM_NUMBER ); UpdaterRegistry.AddTrigger( GetUpdaterId(), elementFilter, Element.GetChangeTypeParameter( paramId ) ); The... Read more →

Access Central File TransmissionData on Revit Server

We already discussed using the TransmissionData class to list linked files and make changes using the WriteTransmissionData method. Here is another question on this topic answered by my colleague Joe Ye: Question: I want to access the TransmissionData object in a central file stored in the Revit Server. How can I achieve that via the Revit API, please? I tried the suggestions listed in the developer guide and none of them worked for me. I also tried using IsValidUserVisibleFullServerPath on... Read more →

Read-only Workset API

Another one of the new Revit 2012 API features that we still never had a detailed look at is the worksharing API, a comprehensive read-only API to worksharing features, access the list of worksets, find out what elements are in a workset, who borrowed what, whether an element went out of date with central, etc. Here is a quick Q & A on some basic aspects of that API: Question: I know that the built-in parameter ELEM_PARTITION_PARAM identifies the workset... Read more →

Revit Server REST API

I am currently in Paris giving a Revit API training, last thing before taking off for Autodesk University end of next week. Meanwhile, one little item which just dropped into my mailbox is the call to vote on the AUGI wish list: AUGI Wish List AUGI, the Autodesk User Group International, needs you to choose your top ten wish list items to help define the final Top Ten to be presented to Autodesk during the AUGI Annual Meeting. You can... Read more →

Revit API Developer Guide on Autodesk WikiHelp

Step by step, online help is ever more prevalent. A huge step forwarded was achieved with the Revit 2012 product WikiHelp system with its support for community building and contribution, and the Revit API documentation soon followed suit. The Content Wrangler recently published an interesting article and interview discussing the topic in more depth. Following up on this, here is some more detailed information and suggestions specifically targeted at the Revit API help by Mikako Harada, ADN AEC Technical Lead:... Read more →

Pick Corners and Create Floor

I presented an example demonstrating floor creation and pointed out that setting a view using the ActiveView property cannot be achieved within a transaction. Ishwar Nagwani, Technical Consultant in our Bangalore organisation, contributed a sample command to create a new a floor which demonstrates both of these aspects in conjunction with the interactive PickBox method to determine the floor corners. It makes use of the FindElement method, which we have seen in various incarnations to select an element of a... Read more →

Loading an Add-in With a Journal File

I touched upon journal files a couple of times in the past, for example to load an external application and automatically perform an action in the DocumentOpened event handler, or to implement a script automating IFC import. The Revit SDK also includes the Journaling sample which demonstrates how an add-in can define what information goes into the journal file while it is being recorded, and how to use that data to repeat the add-in's external command functionality during replay. However,... Read more →

String Search ADN Plugin of the Month

Best regards from Andalusia! Here is just a short note to point out that my first ADN Plugin of the Month has been published on Autodesk Labs: the November ADN Plugin of the Month is the Revit String Search. Look at the developer notes at the end for reasons why you should take a look at this :) Description Search Revit project elements and their parameter values for a given string value. Standard string search options can be specified to... Read more →

Retrieving Detailed Wall Layer Geometry

We start off this week with a bang. I find the following topic especially exciting, for several reasons: It deals with geometry. I like that. It implements something that cannot be achieved out of the box. I like that. It makes use of the Revit 2012 parts functionality and the PartUtils class, which we never looked at in detail before. I like that. It uses a temporary transaction to make changes to the model to create and extract information that... Read more →

Product and Add-In Wizard Updates

Here are several interesting updates and other little news items that appeared recently. Revit 2012 update release 2 Visual Studio Revit add-in wizard update Removing an Add-In Registered by the Wizard Global Leadership Summit at the One Team Conference Revit 2012 Update Release 2 A few days ago, I was very surprised to hear that some people neglect to update their Revit products when intermediate updates appear. I find that incomprehensible. I updated all three flavours myself yesterday with zero... Read more →

Getting Started with the Revit 2012 API

We already published 'Getting Started with the Revit API' guides for Revit 2009 and 2010. Here is a completely revamped and much expanded version for Revit 2012. Actually, before even reading any further on this page, go to the Revit Developer Center and see what material is available there. That is always the most up-to-date place to look. Still, this overview may help your orientation as well: Getting Started with the Revit 2012 API 1. Setting up the Environment The... Read more →

Using the WriteTransmissionData Method

I presented a sample to using the TransmissionData class to list linked files, and Mike Caruso submitted a comment asking how to use it to set a new path on a RVT file. Furthermore, Guming recently asked how to make use of the ExternalFileReference class. Here is a sample answering both of these questions: Question: Can you demonstrate how I would load, unload and make changes to the path of linked Revit files? Answer: Loading, unloading and editing path to... Read more →

Python Shell for Revit 2012 and Vasari 2.1

I was so happy to tell you that work on Daren Thomas' RevitPythonShell was recently intensified and endorsed by Zach Kron of buildz to support running in Vasari. Well, the project has been taken a step further: RevitPythonShell now runs in both Revit 2012 and Vasari 2.1. Zach's post includes simple yet detailed instructions for installing RevitPythonShell in Vasari in 5 minutes, and similar steps also work for Revit 2012. Here are the modified steps I performed to use it... Read more →

Analytical Model IsEnabled Method and Parameter

I recently mentioned the changes in accessing the analytical model in the Revit Structure 2012 API. We just discovered a little issue and an effective workaround related to the AnalyticalModel IsEnabled method, which reports whether the analytical model is currently enabled or disabled. Right now, it does not do that, but throws an exception for all members except walls. The Enable and CanDisable methods have similar problems. This will soon be resolved. Meanwhile, here is a simple workaround to avoid... Read more →

Activate a 3D View

Here is a simple question on making use of the ActiveView setter, which is new in Revit 2012: Question: I heard that Revit 2012 exposes an API to change the active view. I would like to change the active view to 3D with the Detail Level set to Fine and Visual Style set to Realistic. Could you please show me the correct way to change the active view to the one I want? Answer: I already discussed setting the visual... Read more →

Yet Another Modeless Update

Here is a rather exciting post for me that I spent quite some time on in the past few days. I recently published an updated version for Revit 2012 of my Revit 2011 modeless loose connector navigator and fixed some flaws pointed out repeatedly by Arnošt Löbel at the same time. Please refer to the original post for a full description of the application, since here I am focusing only on the modeless interaction with the Idling event. The main... Read more →

Modeless Loose Connector Navigator Update

Here is an update to my modeless loose connector navigator, which I created as a sample application to demonstrate how to set up a modeless dialogue to drive Revit using the Idling event. Please refer to the original post for a full description. The original Revit 2011 version had one flaw: the external command it implements subscribes to the Idling event. That means that a new subscription is added for every call to the command. Also, the subscription was never... Read more →

Reference to Analytical Curve

The Autodesk University 2011 Class Catalog is now live and includes a full listing of both AU Las Vegas and AU Virtual Classes. Here are the my three classes: Lecture CP4451: Extensible Storage in the Revit 2012 API Hands-On Lab CP6760-L: Revit 2012 API Extensible Storage Virtual CP4453: Everything in Place with Revit MEP Programming So I have lots to prepare. For a full list of the classes presented by my colleagues in the ADN team, please refer to Kean's... Read more →

Retrieving Materials

Some people have reported issues using the Document.Settings.Materials collection. For instance, its Contains method may throw an exception when used with Revit Structure 2012, while it works fine with Revit Architecture 2012. The problem actually probably has nothing to do with the flavour of Revit being used, but is caused by the template file that the project is based on. If you retrieve materials in a project based on the architectural template in Revit Structure, it also works fine. In... Read more →

Polylines in Imported DWG Files

I still keep discovering functionality in Revit 2012 API that I have not yet discussed here, such as the following important enhancement: Previous versions of the Revit API failed to retrieve polyline data from imported DWG files. The polylines were represented by an internal Revit class which was not exposed through the API, so the geometry retrieval simply ignored these objects. Happily, that changed in the Revit 2012 API with the introduction of the PolyLine class. As stated by the... Read more →

MEP Sample Code for Revit 2012

One of my sessions at Autodesk University 2011 is CP4453 Everything in Place with Revit MEP Programming. It will cover both the new Revit MEP 2012 API features and the Revit MEP API in general. In preparation for that, as well as preparing new samples, e.g. on placeholder elements, I am also updating the existing material, especially the ADN Revit MEP sample code. The old Revit 2011 material from AU 2010 is available online, for instance from the list of... Read more →

Revit API Training Material

The Revit 2012 API training material that we use for our ADN trainings is now available online to the general public from the Revit Developer Center. Here is a direct link to it, with no guarantee that it will remain valid in future. It includes three subfolders: Labs Presentation Sample Drawing These are the Powerpoint presentations used for the training: 0_Revit_Programming_Training_Class.pptx – Overview 1_Revit_API_Intro.pptx – Basics 2_Revit_UI_API.pptx – User Interface and Events 3_Revit_Family_API.pptx – Family API The labs parallel the... Read more →

Linked Element Geometry Access

I just arrived in Greece to give a Revit API training here during the next few days. I am in a pleasant place called Κηφισια (Kifissia), a suburb of Athens. I still need to get the training material set up properly... Meanwhile, here are some notes on a different topic that I have been sitting on for a while: Analysing the geometry of linked files is a challenge. Certain basic information is actually easily accessible, as shown by the discussion... Read more →

Create Gable Wall

I discussed creating a wall with a sloped profile using Revit 2009. Now Saikat Bhattacharya created a similar command to answer a similar question in Revit 2012: Question: Using the Revit user interface, I can create walls that consist of more then four edges, i.e. non-rectangular. Usually they would represent some sort of gable wall in a building. How can I achieve this using the API, please? Answer: To answer your question, I wrote some quick code which creates a... Read more →

VendorId, DevTV, and My First Plugin

Here is a simple issue from a discussion with Stephen LeCompte of FKP Architects, Inc. that several other people people also recently ran into: Question: I followed the steps provided in 'DevTV: Introduction to Revit 2011 Programming - Part I' and incorporated them in my Revit Architecture 2012 64-bit version, but there is a problem. When I start up Revit 2012 it displays the following error message saying 'Failed to initialize the add-in "RevitNETAddin3.addin" because the add-in registration is missing... Read more →

Point Cloud Snap and Freeze

Here are some questions that came up a while ago regarding point clouds: Question: As far as I can tell, the standard object snap settings also control snapping to point clouds: Is there any way to snap to individual points in the point cloud? Answer: Revit itself never asks for the pick of an individual point in a point cloud, so there is no mechanism to support this in the API either. Even when Revit prompts the user to pick... Read more →

MEP Placeholders

Happy Independence Day to all US-Americans, and a wonderful Monday and beginning of the new week to all the rest of us! I recently discussed the Revit MEP 2012 API news and mentioned that MEP placeholders are one of the important new features in both the product and the API. Mostly, new API features are demonstrated by some of the samples provided by the Revit SDK, but the placeholder elements form an exception to that rule. Still, we did present... Read more →

Updated SDK for Revit 2012 Update Release 1

The Revit 2012 Update Release 1 or UR1 is now available, and the SDK has been updated as well. Here are the main SDK update features: Revit API documentation updates. Minor yet important REX API documentation updates in the getting started guides. A test model which was missing from the CompoundStructure SDK sample, mentioned in its readme file. Updates to the AnalysisVisualizationFramework, AddinUtilitySample, ExternalCommandRegistration, and Ribbon samples. Here are the steps I undertook to install the new version of the... Read more →

Get Transformed Family Instance Geometry

One of the new methods added to the Revit 2012 API is the GeometryElement GetTransformed method, which returns a transformed copy of the geometry in this element, and can also be used to obtain the geometry of a family instance in its model space coordinates. This led to the following interesting question by Olli Kattelus of Progman Oy: Question: First of all a salute for new features of Revit 2012 API and the improved handling of geometry. The API now... Read more →