The Building Coder

Extensible Storage Features

Here is a nice hot topic to start off the week. We already talked about the new Revit 2012 API EStorage or extensible storage functionality and presented example code to store a map or dictionary in it. Here are a few other interesting notes and issues related to this which have cropped up, contributed and pointed out by Steven Mycynek: Intended use of EStorage. Handling large amounts of data in EStorage. EStorage is self-documenting. EStorage is object-oriented in two ways.... Read more →

The Revit Structure 2012 API

Sangsen recently submitted a couple of comments which made it clear that a short overview of the new features of the Revit Structure 2012 API is overdue (see below for the Q & A). Here is a description written by Joe Ye for our Spring 2011 ADN AEC newsletter: Autodesk Revit Structure 2012 API Migration Tips This article discusses changes made to the Revit Structure 2012 API. We will quickly go over the list of items which have been changed,... Read more →

Extensions for Revit 2012

I recently mentioned the availability of the subscription packs for Revit 2012. Yesterday, another important set of subscription packs were released: the Revit Extensions: Revit Extensions for Revit Architecture 2012 Revit Extensions for Revit MEP 2012 Revit Extensions for Revit Structure 2012 As always, they are available through the Autodesk subscription center, to which ADN members also have access by going to the ADN home page and selecting the Autodesk Subscription Center link. Once again, even though all of this... Read more →

Boolean Operations and InstanceVoidCutUtils

I mentioned last week that I plan to take a look at Boolean operation in the family creation context. Before we do so, however, here is an overview of some of the Boolean operation functionality provided by the Revit API and the use of one of the approaches in the project context. In the past, the Revit API did not offer many possibilities to perform Boolean operations in the project itself. The standard approach to perform a Boolean operation within... Read more →

Revit STL Exporter Released as Open Source

Here is one of the most surprising and promising recent news items for Revit API developers, published yesterday by Emile Kfouri on BIM Apps: The Revit STL exporter is now open source. Look at Emile's post for the complete story, including: Introduction, motivation, and explanation. Definitions of STL, stereolithography, and open source. STL exporter history. User feedback. Future. Open source license and participating parties. How to get started. Exciting news! Adding a Parameter to a Family To add an unrelated... Read more →

Placing a Line Based Detail Item Instance

We already talked in depth about placing a detail family instance and the difficulties in selecting the right overload of the NewFamilyInstance method for that, a topic also discussed in the developer guide section 12.3.5 Creating FamilyInstance Objects, and its tables 34 and 35. As we already stated in that post, the exploration continues... Here is an interesting update to the issue by Frode Tørresdal of Norconsult Informasjonssystemer, which also highlights a new overload added in the Revit 2012 API:... Read more →

The Revit MEP 2012 API

The Revit 2012 API includes a number of important MEP specific enhancements, some completely new APIs have been added which are especially useful in the MEP domain, and last but not least, all of the many significant Revit platform enhancements are useful for MEP as well. The major Revit MEP enhancements include: Placeholder ducts and pipes Duct and pipe insulation and lining Read and write access to MEP pipe settings and sizes A number of minor enhancements have also been... Read more →

Subscription Packs

As most Revit users probably know, but some developers may have missed, a whole stack of subscription advantage packs for Revit 2012 have been released and are available through the Autodesk subscription center. ADN members also have access to the subscription center by going to the ADN home page and selecting the Autodesk Subscription Center link there. Even though all of this is "user stuff", some of the tools address workflows you might also be tempted to tackle through programming... Read more →

File Upgrader Plugin of the Month

The third Revit Plugin of the Month has been released, after Adam Nagy's Room Renumbering and Martin Schmid's ASHRAE Viewer: the File Upgrader for Revit by Saikat Bhattacharya. As always, the new ADN Plugin of the Month can be downloaded from the Autodesk Labs ADN Plugins page. The File Upgrader can be used to batch upgrade previous versions of Revit files to the Revit 2012 format. It can upgrade both project files and family content: The download includes a compiled... Read more →

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 →

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 →

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 →

Updated SDK, 2012 Products, and Source Code Colourisation

Here are several miscellaneous news items that I would like to pass on before heading off for a week's vacation: Updated Revit SDK AUGI Autodesk 2012 product overviews HTML source code colourisation Easter greetings Updated Revit SDK on Developer Center An updated version of the Revit SDK has been posted on the Revit Developer Center. The differences to the version included with the initial public release of the Revit 2012 product are negligible. Still, you can always rely on finding... Read more →

Migrating the Building Coder Samples to Revit 2012

This is the third migration of the The Building Coder samples, after moving from Revit 2009 to Revit 2010 and then to Revit 2011. The move from 2010 to 2011 was a tougher round with many changes. This time around, from 2011 to 2012, it is quite easy and straightforward again. For details on what needs modifying, as always, please refer to the Revit 2012 SDK documentation and especially the chapter 'What's New' in the Revit 2012 API help file... Read more →

Revit 2012 WikiHelp Overview

Here is a product related news item, although obviously of interest to developers as well. Revit product help has been available on the web for a while now, which provides a number of benefits. Some online Revit API help is also available, although the full Revit SDK documentation is not there yet. Now the product help system has taken the next step by moving to a wiki-based system which provides support for a full community learning experience. Here is a... Read more →

DevDays 2010 Online with Revit 2012 API News

Back in December, I mentioned some of the stations of our yearly world-wide Developer Days or DevDays conference tour. Now the recordings of the final updated contents of these presentations are available to the general public. They can be obtained from the Autodesk Developer Network (ADN) DevTech API Training & Consulting page, following the link to the webcast archives. To find the recording of the new features of the Revit 2012 API, created by my colleague Saikat Bhattacharya, please filter... Read more →

Product GUIDs for Revit 2012 and Forever More

Every year anew, people ask for the Revit product GUIDs used to identify the Revit installation and stored in the Windows registry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall There are different keys for each of the three Revit flavours, and for both 32 and 64 bit operating systems. The first time around, we discussed the Revit 2010 and previous versions' installation path and product GUIDs, and then updated the list for Revit 2011 last year. As I mentioned last time, the install path is... Read more →

The REX SDK

Last night I returned to the vegetarian restaurant that I remembered from my last visit to Verona. If used to be called Suca Baruca, or crazy pumpkin. Now it changed its style a bit, and its name, to La Fata Zucchina, ristorante biovegetariano; highly recommended! I recently mentioned the main new features of the Revit 2012 API and pointed out that many wishes have been resolved and new features such as extensible storage added. Besides the addition of some new... Read more →

Visual Studio Add-In Wizards for Revit 2012

As I mentioned yesterday, this weekend was spent traveling to Verona to give a Revit API training here. Happily, I enjoyed some mountain air the weekend before, on Helgenhorn 2837m, Basodino 3273m and Cima di Lago south of All'Acqua in the Bedretto Valley (more photos by Jogi): Anyway, that was last weekend; back to here and now in Verona, where I was busy yesterday, preparing for the training, starting today. I already updated the DevTV Visual Studio wizards for creating... Read more →

Extensible Storage

I mentioned the main new features of the Revit 2012 API and also pointed out that many important developer wishes have been resolved. Here is another very fundamental and longstanding wish that has been addressed, more completely than anyone might have expected: Question: How can I store my custom application data inside the Revit file using the Revit API? Answer: One possibility is to use a shared parameter. This is a slightly convoluted operation and involves setting up the shared... Read more →

Many Issues Resolved

I mentioned the main new features of the upcoming Revit 2012 API last week. Many of the improvements were directly driven by requests from developers, and many of the most common wish list items have been addressed. Here are a couple of examples of this: Full read and write access to wall and floor layer compound structure and wall reveals. Read and write access to wall join functionality. Access to the paint material for walls. Access to linked file information.... Read more →

Revit 2012 API Features

Revit 2012 and the other Autodesk 2012 products have been announced, and already there is abundant information on it on the web. David Light discusses quite a few of the user interface and product features. A detailed exploration of some of the following items could fill volumes, but I'll try to briefly give you an idea of what each feature is about, at least. First, here is simply an overview of the highlights of the Revit 2012 API features. See... Read more →

Tag Association

Unfortunately, the Revit API does not currently provide any direct method to access the tag of a tagged element, and vice versa. Normally, I do not write about things that do not work. In this case, however, we have a couple of suggestions for workarounds. I would love to hear back from you whether you are already using any of the methods described below, or other techniques not described, in spite of the lack of direct API support. So this... Read more →