The Building Coder

Teaching a Man How To Fish and Schedule Creation

As you all know, we at ADN spend a significant amount of our time ensuring that API information is available and easy to find for all. In order to find something, though, you often need to invest at least a minimum amount of effort in searching. This can be practiced, of course, and I obtain a useful answer to almost every question I ever have on any subject whatsoever from a single Internet search. Here are two examples of performing... Read more →

Visual Studio 2013 May Partially Support Edit and Continue

The West European DevDays conferences are completed. I am on my way back from Gothenburg to Switzerland. En route, I would like to share this strange and useful discovery by Peter Muigg of CAD Anwendungen Muigg, who says: In spite of what was said in the article on debugging Revit 2014 API with Visual Studio 2013 and the Revit API discussion thread on the same topic, Visual Studio 2013 does in fact partially support edit and continue. Just as stated... Read more →

Debugging Revit 2014 API with Visual Studio 2013

The officially supported development platforms for Revit add-ins are Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 and Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express Edition. The important factor is really only the .NET environment, Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0. Of course, you can also use the built-in SharpDevelop development macro environment. This information comes directly from the horse's mouth, i.e. the Revit 2014 API Developers Guide – happily, back online again – section on requirements. The Revit Python Shell and Revit Ruby Shell, based on IronPython... Read more →

Multi-Version Visual Studio Revit Add-In Wizard

Developers often ask how to support multiple versions of a Revit add-in from the same codebase. Many have implemented solutions for this using various Visual Studio project settings. Alexander Ignatovich of Investicionnaya Venchurnaya Companiya went one step further and implemented a version of the Visual Studio Revit add-in wizard that automatically generates an add-in skeleton supporting both Revit 2013 and 2014 in the same Visual Studio project. He is very kindly sharing is with us here, saying: I have one... Read more →

Family Instance Placement

One issue that keeps cropping up is how to determine which NewFamilyInstance overload to use to place an instance of a given family. As always, you need to first ensure that the desired workflow can be achieved manually through the user interface. If anything fails in the interactively driven steps, it certainly will not work better when driven programmatically, and the user interface will provide much richer information on possible failure reasons. The first place to look for information on... Read more →

Setting up your ViewOrientation3D

Here is a contribution from Mario Guttman of CASE, who already made various contributions here in the past. He says: I have been purging my 2013 code of deprecated functions in preparation for my 2014 upgrade. One group of statements I have needed to replace are the view creations. They were previously using the Document.Create.NewView3D method and needed converting to the View3D.CreateIsometric with a separate ViewOrientation3D object defining the view direction. Typically, in these kind of cases, I just search... Read more →

What's New in the Revit 2013 API

This is the fourth and last 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 2013 API, looking at: Major changes and renovations Major enhancements Small enhancements & API interface changes First, however, another update... Read more →

ADN Revit API Training Material Update and Vacation

After cleaning up the usage of deprecated Revit API calls in The Building Coder samples, I decided to clean up the ADN training material as well. My original plan was to remove all warnings about deprecated API usage, only I quickly discovered there were none to remove :-) In the MEP sample application AdnRme, I just updated the year listed in the copyright message to 2013 and produced AdnRme version 2013.0.2.0. I then did the same for the ADN Revit... Read more →

Retrieving Schedules on a Sheet

Guy Robinson recently explained an easy way to access all elements in a schedule. Victor Chekalin picked up and expanded on that. Here is his solution to retrieve all schedules in a view and elements from a schedule. In his own words: One wonderful day I had to retrieve schedules which are presented on a sheet: At first I looked at the Revit API Help but unfortunately there is no method such as GetSchdulesOnView in the ViewSheet class. There is... Read more →

Eliminating Compiler Warnings and Deprecated Calls

I am revisiting this topic again, which we last looked at a year ago, to clean up our usage of deprecated methods in the Revit 2012 API. In that discussion, I also pointed back to previous versions and other related issues. Here are the warnings about obsolete usage currently produced when compiling The Building Coder samples version 2013.0.100.1 against the Revit 2013 API – copy to a text editor or view source to see the truncated lines in full: C:\bc\BuildingCoder\BuildingCoder\CmdTransformedCoords.cs(67,41):... Read more →

Basic File Info and RVT File Version

I presented an initial solution in Python for determining the version of an RVT file on disk from outside Revit making use of its OLE document Structured Storage format back in 2008. David Echols later shared a more full-fledged C# Revit OLE Storage viewer listing more information and displaying the preview image. Since then, the Revit API added support for reading basic RVT file info through the BasicFileInfo class. Victor Chekalin now presents another C# console application showing how some... Read more →

Revit 2013 Unit Conversion Utility

Here is a Revit 2013 update of the Revit 2011 unit conversion utility, originally posted and described for Revit 2010, by Harry Mattison. In his own words: I was looking at the great unit conversion utility and created a new version upgraded to Revit 2013 that I thought you readers might enjoy. I ran into one issue that required a code enhancement to catch an exception thrown by many parameters, such as HVAC_Temperature, HVAC_Slope, etc. The rest of the code... Read more →

Family Symbols versus Types and SelectionFilterElement

Here is a question that has been asked a couple of times recently and thus seems worthwhile clarifying: Question: If I access the OwnerFamily.Symbols in a family document, i.e. an RFA file, it returns an empty collection. If I load that same family into a project and access the Family.Symbols property, it returns the correct expected family types. Why does this property not work in the family editor? Put differently, the following code snippet will show zero in the message... Read more →

Solid Centroid and Volume Calculation

I have not posted anything since last Friday, being too caught up in the West European Developer days and travelling. Today and tomorrow we spend in Gothenburg on the last lap of our journey, after Paris, Milano, Farnborough and Munich. I had a nap in the taxis to and from the airport yesterday, both in Germany and Sweden, so I was able to burn some midnight oil to share the following exploration with you. One of the many interesting conversations... Read more →

Accessing all Elements in a Schedule

Here is a quick little post, with a surprisingly short and simple answer to a short and seemingly difficult Revit API question. Before getting to that, I will just mention that I arrived safe and sound in Paris for a developer conference here. I had a walk in the sunset on the north bank of the Seine from the Gare de Lyon along the industrial areas on Quai de Bercy and crossed the river over the new-built Pont National to... Read more →

AU Classes on Python, UI, Server and Framework APIs

Thursday was another very full and fruitful day at AU. I gave my third and last class, the most exciting one in my eyes, on some UI and integration aspects. I was unable to attend Iffat May's class introducing Python and using it in Revit and Vasari via RevitPythonShell, but I love her material so much I am including it anyway. Adam Nagy presented a class addressing cloud and mobile development and the Revit Server API. Finally, Arnošt Löbel provided... Read more →

AU Classes on the View, MEP and Link APIs

Wednesday was my first normal and full AU day, after completing the developer conference and DevLab activities. I was able to attend two interesting classes held by Revit API developers Steven Mycynek and Arnošt Löbel, and present my own Revit MEP API one. Here they are in chronological order: CP3133 Using the Revit Schedule and View APIs by Steven Mycynek CP4108 Revit MEP Programming: All Systems Go by Jeremy Tammik CP3455 Managing Revit Links with the Revit API by Arnošt... Read more →

Building Performance Analysis and Face Tessellation

I am busy with Autodesk University and developer conference preparations. The Mac is happily chugging along. Welcome to Building Performance Analysis In spite of these busy times, Emile Kfouri and John Kennedy just launched a new blog on the topic of Building Performance Analysis that will probably be of great interest to many of us Revit API aficionados. Meanwhile, here is an API issue that raises a couple of new points: Triangulation Level of Detail Question: I am triangulating Revit... Read more →

Drive Revit through a WCF Service

Today, a special titbit for you: How can I access Revit functionality from an external process? As we have underlined many times in the past, the Revit API does not support any kind of asynchronous access. The Idling event, however, provides a possibility to work around this limitation. Daren Thomas, the author or RevitPythonShell, even presented a neat and clean pattern for semi asynchronous Idling API access. Now Victor Chekalin, aka Виктор Чекалин, presents another very neat sample providing such... Read more →

Stair Geometry and Roombook

A long time back we touched on the difficulties and challenges in retrieving column and stair geometry. From Revit 2013 onwards, you have full API access to create and read data from stairs and railings, as well as their separate subcomponents, as you can see from this excerpt of the What's New section in the Revit API help file RevitAPI.chm: Stairs and Railings API – Stairs and Stair Components The new Stairs and StairsType classes in the Autodesk.Revit.DB.Architecture namespace provide... Read more →

Revit 2013 Update Release 2

Revit 2013 Update Release 2 is now available. I found a path to the Revit Architecture update via Autodesk Revit Products > Services & Support > Service Packs & Downloads > Autodesk Revit Architecture > Updates > Revit Architecture 2013 Update Release 2. Phew. That was rather hard. A much easier way to reach the exact download I am after is to enter the appropriate string in Google. That takes me directly to the download page with no need to... Read more →

UIView, Windows Coordinates, ReferenceIntersector and My Own Tooltip

Here is my well-meant contribution to making this the most exciting Wednesday of your entire week. For the first time in history, the Revit 2013 UIView class provides a possibility to convert back and forth between Revit model coordinates and Windows device screen points. I imagined making use of that right away when I read about the UIView class, and mentioned it when discussing UIView and Windows device coordinates. I am still a bit surprised that I have not yet... Read more →

Wall Footing Relationship Revisited

In the far distant past, I looked at various ways to programmatically determine relationships between associated objects (also in VB), including references between a host object and its hosted dependent elements, e.g. determining the relationship between a wall and its footing. That was back in the year 2009, using Revit 2010. A few things have changed and been added since then, but the more things change, the more they stay the same, don't they? Anyway, this very question was raised... Read more →

Detach Workset and TaskDialog Command Link Order

Here is a neat and simple solution using the DialogBoxShowing event to detach and discard worksets by Erik Eriksson of White Arkitketer AB, who already provided a useful workaround to synchronize with central using SendKeys in combination with the Idling and DocumentSynchronizedWithCentral events. Here is the issue: Question: We have a need to detach project files without worksets. For instance, it would be great to just have an option to detach and discard worksets. Why do we need this? This... Read more →

Updating Properties and Announcing Revit LT

Today, exceptionally, a second post, partly to highlight an interesting comment submitted by Jinshou on how to programmatically trigger a refresh of the Revit element properties window, and partly to announce a non-API issue, totally non-API, the imminent arrival of Autodesk Revit LT. Refreshing Revit Element Properties If I first invoke the UIApplication OpenAndActivateDocument method, then highlight elements as described in a previous post, the 'properties' window is updated. The trick is that in order to call OpenAndActivateDocument on the... Read more →

IFC GUID Generation and Uniqueness

We looked at IFC GUIDs a couple of times already, e.g. to discuss the relationship between UniqueId, DWF and IFC GUID, the ExportUtils.GetExportId method, and the IFC GUID representation algorithm. The Revit 2012 API introduced the ExporterIFCUtils class for customizing IFC export, and the IFC exporter was released as open source. In Revit 2013, the IFC export implementation switched to a more generic toolkit, many of the APIs introduced in Revit 2012 were removed and replaced, and new interfaces introduced... Read more →

Validate Roof Type and View OBJ on Android

I spent some time exploring how to view the output generated by the OBJ exporter on an Android tablet. Viewing an OBJ Model on Android That proved to be easy. I installed the KiwiViewer open-source visualization app, which supports OBJ, and used Dropbox to upload the OBJ export of my Revit model to the Internet, from where I could access it on the tablet from anywhere. Anywhere with a wifi Internet link, that is. It works fine as far as... Read more →

Updated Revit MEP 2013 Material

I presented the Revit MEP API at the AEC DevCamp in June. In preparation for that, I provided a quick Revit 2013 MEP API overview and migrated and more fully described the AdnRme sample application. I will be presenting on this topic again at Autodesk University in November, so I revisited the material and fleshed out the description of the Revit 2013 changes a bit more. Here is the completed overview: The Revit MEP 2013 API The information provided in... Read more →

UR1 and Line Origin versus Start and End Point

My official vacation time has begun. I still have rather a backlog of important, pending, almost completed projects, unanswered blog comments, and unavoidable meetings, so I will be online now and then in spite of that. I also want to keep us all updated on important little titbits such as the UR1: Revit 2013 Update Release 1 The Revit 2013 Update Release 1 is now available for download and installation from the web and within the product through Communication Center.... Read more →

Elbow Fitting Selection and Dimensioning

Vacation time is approaching fast for me and lots of things need finishing off beforehand. Meanwhile, one thing that had a number of developers champing at their bits for a while now finally came to fruition: Autodesk Exchange The Autodesk Exchange store is now open for application submissions. Stephen Preston already published several articles exaplaining the full details: Summary information Information for Revit developers Publishing an app Here is another topic that recently kept me busy, with some helpful input... Read more →

Multi-Version Add-in

This is blog post number 800, in case you are interested. I'll celebrate that fact by going out for a run in the woods after posting. As we all saw when migrating add-ins from Revit 2012 to Revit 2013, the new version requires an add-in to be compiled using the .NET framework version 4.0. In spite of this, a Revit 2012 add-in can still be loaded into Revit 2013. I created a sample to prove this. Not only can a... Read more →

Meetings, Football, and RevitRubyShell

The whole EMEA DevTech team is meeting in Neuchâtel prior to the coming weekend's annual Autodesk football tournament taking place here. I won't be able to play myself, unfortunately, for the first time in many years, since I had a prior appointment with friends to go climb the Spitzhorn mountain. We also held a virtual meeting with Stephen Preston from the US, who is now our world-wide DevTech manager. Here we are in virtual union, from left to right, Gary... Read more →

OBJ Model Exporter with Transparency Support

Tuesday evening the moon was full, the rain finally eased up a bit, the sky became completely clear, and I spent a couple of hours outside on a hill with a beautiful view, a group of friends, and a nice hot fire. On Wednesday I finally got to play hockey again with my Autodesk colleagues after a long period of missing out on that. I hope all US Americans enjoyed a nice Independence Day. The next days are filled with... Read more →

Update API Assembly References and Wizards

I finally completed my disk clean-up and managed to install the Autodesk Building Design Suite Ultimate 2013. Phew. Update API Assembly References That requires me to update the Revit API references in the projects I am working on accordingly. In order to easily compile all the SDK samples, I always create copies of the Revit API assemblies in the default installation locations for Revit Architecture, MEP and Structure. Here is the batch file cprvtapi.bat that I used to achieve this... Read more →

Getting Going with the Cloud

I am now the proud owner of an Android tablet and happily thinking about things to do with it. The first idea that comes to mind is working through something similar to Adam's Revit model viewer for iOS that Jim Quanci showed at the AEC DevCamp. Before getting into that, though, I should address some of the issues brought up by Senthil in his comment on the discussion on service-oriented architecture, asking for information about Revit cloud development, e.g. a... Read more →

Worksharing Central Filename

Here is a simple question that several people stumbled over and apparently can use some clarification: Question: In Revit 2012, I used the Document WorksharingCentralFilename property to get the location of the central file. This is marked as deprecated in Revit 2013, and the API suggests using GetWorksharingCentralModelPath instead. In my experiments with a central file, I can use this function to obtain a ModelPath object which provides a property named CentralServerPath, but it is blank. How can I recreate... Read more →

Replacing Built-In Commands and Obtaining Their Ids

One main focus of the Revit 2013 API features is better support for add-in integration. This includes the possibility for an add-in to replace an existing Revit command with its own implementation. Note that you cannot call an existing command, just replace it entirely. Such a command replacement is demonstrated in a very simple form by the DisableCommand SDK sample, which disables a command by replacing its implementation with a simple popup message. A slightly more complex example is given... Read more →

AEC DevCamp 2012 Material

Both the AEC and Manufacturing DevCamp 2012 material is now publicly available. The top-level node provides access to the overviews and the five main tracks, i.e. Revit Beginner Revit Advanced Infrastructure Cloud/Mobile and Other Business For completeness' sake, here is the list of are the Revit beginner sessions: These are the Revit advanced topics: I presented some details from a number of the advanced Revit API session in my reports from DevCamp day one and DevCamp day two. In conjunction... Read more →

UIView and Windows Device Coordinates

As I pointed out in the discussion of the new Revit 2013 API features, the add-in integration enhancements include a new View API, and it provides a new UIView class. The UIView class represents a view window, enables you to pan, zoom and determine its size for tiling etc., and may be useful for switchback functionality from other visualization environments, for example. I am very surprised that I have not heard anything more from the developer community about this class... Read more →

Create Section View Parallel to Wall

Here is a nice case that just came up and helped me heal my latent view manipulation phobia. Before getting to that, a short pointer to a non-API issue: The Shanghai Tower is currently being built to become one of the tallest and greenest buildings in the world. Take a look at Shanghai Tower: The Role of BIM in Building the Spirit of the City, a six-minute video explaining the concept and the role of Autodesk BIM solutions in its... Read more →

The Revit 2013 Structure API

I migrated the ADN Revit Structure API training material to Revit 2013, which led me to put together the following summary of the structural API enhancements and some details of the migration steps: API enhancements RstLabs migration NewRstLab migration RstAvfDmu migration Materials Revit Structure 2013 API Enhancements I mentioned a few structure specific enhancements in the Revit 2013 API. They are discussed in somewhat more detail in the DevDays Online presentation on What's New in Revit 2013 and the complementary... Read more →

DevCamp Day Two

This morning I presented my second session, on some of the Revit 2013 UI API enhancements, in the Revit API beginner track. After that, I returned back to the Revit API expert one to attend the presentations on modeless interaction and IFC before presenting my final session on the Revit MEP API. Here then are my sessions of today, in chronological order: 1-4 Revit 2013 UI API enhancements 2-3 Asynchronous interactions 2-2 IFC export open source 2-7 Revit MEP API... Read more →

DevCamp Day One

The first thing that happened here at DevCamp was that I was personally really deeply touched and honoured. The conference was opened by Jim Quanci, director of ADN, the Autodesk Developer Network. He asked all of us twenty-five-plus Autodesk employees up onto stage and introduced us one by one. When the turn came to your humble author (or not so humble, after all), he asked all readers of this blog to raise their hands. Almost every person in the room... Read more →

Retrieve Embedded Resource Image

I had my first haircut since January this weekend :-) The reason I had such a long break from that task is that I shaved my head completely in January. I had been thinking of doing that sometime in my life ever since I was a teenager, but I was always way too scared to actually put it into practice. In the meantime, three of my four kids already showed me how easy it is, and they all looked good,... Read more →

Create Structural Plan View

Today is the last day of the last week before the AEC DevCamp in Waltham. Here are the complete session list and descriptions. I have to submit my material today. Before doing so, one last post on a pure API topic: I mentioned that Revit 2013 introduced a new view API and now includes the possibility to create schedules and section views. Here is a question that came up regarding the new view creation and Onebox and leads to a... Read more →

Revit 2013 API Webcast Recording

The recording of the Revit 2013 API webcast that we held on May 17 is now available from the ADN DevTech Webcast Recordings Archive, entering "Revit API" as the course topic, or directly from here. The 34 MB zip file includes: ReadMe.txt Slide deck Recording Code Samples The webcast addresses two main areas: an introduction to Revit programming for beginners, including a quick walkthrough of basic concepts, and a discussion of some of the new functionality provided by the Revit... Read more →

Pipe Insulation and Insulation Material

I recently looked at the Revit MEP 2013 API and migrated the AdnRme sample to it. To follow up on that, here is an unexpectedly hard Revit MEP 2013 question by Victor Chekalin, who recently created the nice DataStorage sample. The new question leads to some tricky and interesting aspects on how to access data or database elements through the Revit API that are not immediately accessible via the expected route or "normal" channels. Where there's a will, there's a... Read more →

Revit API Webcast Tomorrow

Here is a short final reminder about the Revit API webcast taking place tomorrow, 25 hours from now. As I mentioned, we are holding it on Thursday, May 17, Ascension Day (register). You can find it together with all the other ADN DevTech training opportunities in the Training Course Schedule, entering "Revit API" as the course topic. It will be divided into two parts of roughly equal length, presented by Balaji and me. Balaji is taking care of the first... Read more →

DevBlog, DevCamp, Element and Project Wide Data

Every once in a while, I like to start the week with a bang, so here goes, with a risk of information overload on the following topics: ADN AEC DevBlog Autodesk AEC DevCamp Goodbye Kailash Kute Project Wide Data Storage DataStorage Element Simple DataStorage Sample Identifying DataStorage Elements ADN AEC DevBlog I bet you are not half as confused as we always are internally about DevDays, DevLabs, DevNotes, and last but not least DevCamps. I recently mentioned that we are... Read more →

The ADN MEP Sample AdnRme for Revit MEP 2013

Yesterday I discussed the Revit 2013 MEP API and the external services framework. In preparation for my Revit MEP API presentation at the upcoming AEC DevCamp in Boston in June, I also migrated the ADN MEP API sample AdnRme to Revit MEP 2013. The initial flat migration was extremely straightforward with zero code changes required. I obviously had to change the Revit API assembly references, which forces an update of the .NET framework version to 4.0. After bumping the framework... Read more →