The Building Coder

The Revit 2013 MEP API and External Services

I mentioned a few MEP-specific enhancements in the Revit 2013 API. To recap, the enhancements include: Access to routing preferences, selection of pipe sizes, materials, fitting types, and the RoutingPreferenceTools SDK sample demonstrating its use Pipe and duct friction factors MEPSection base class for duct and pipe sections Viscosity and density at specified temperatures, new FluidType and enhanced FluidTemperature classes Read and write access to panel schedule spare circuit values Access to localized user-visible display strings for enumeration values via... Read more →

The Schedule API and Access to Schedule Data

Somehow I seem to be spending the vast majority of my time just shovelling information back and forth, preparing for conferences and trainings and answering questions. It is always a great pleasure for me to actually get in a teeny weenie bit of programming in between, so I am happy that I managed to find time to create the new little sample application described below. One of the many exciting enhancements in the Revit 2013 API is the new Schedule... Read more →

DevDays Online on What's New in Revit 2013

A recording of the "What's New in the Revit 2013 API" presentation from the DevDays conferences that we presented on the world-wide tour during the winter months is now live, both by selecting "DevDaysOnline-Revit2013API" in the public ADN webcast recording archive (download recording) and on the members-only ADN web site. The 88 MB download contains the following: Recording – MP4 and supporting files (73,682,898 bytes) Presentation – DevDays Online - Revit 2013_Whats New.pptx (4,915,103 bytes) Sample code ReadMe.txt RoutingPreferenceAPI ScheduleAPI... Read more →

Edit Family Requires No Transaction

I recently received a note from Matt Mason pointing out that the behaviour of the EditFamily method changed in Revit 2013, and a suggestion to highlight this fact. The suggestion is very valid, since his note was quickly followed up by a matching question by Woong Ki Sung on reloading a family, who ran into the very same issue: Question: I am testing some code to edit family types in Revit 2013, and I have a transaction problem even though... Read more →

Developer Center and SDK Update

I enjoyed the first really hot weekend this spring. It was warming up seriously last week in Munich, and now it feels as if we were suddenly catapulted from a hesitant spring straight into summertime. I also took some time to explore the developer centre and Revit 2013 SDK update, though. The Revit Developer Center has been updated to a new layout. The API and the available training material have grown so fast and voluminous that the old layout was... Read more →

Xtra ADN Revit 2013 API Training Labs

I finished the Munich Revit API training yesterday and celebrated with a picnic and a snooze in the sunshine on the on the bank of the river Isar followed by a wave with Maja Mühlbauer in the evening. Today I am heading back home again. Before leaving, let me post the updated ADN Revit API Training material that I used. Lab Projects Most of it is a copy of the migration of the official ADN Revit 2012 API Labs provided... Read more →

Migrate Building Coder Samples to Revit 2013

I migrated The Building Coder samples to Revit 2013. Revit Onebox Before diving into that, however, a short note on Revit Onebox. Here is a comparison matrix of the features provided by the different flavours, all of which are available in the Onebox version. There is even a short 1.5 minute youtube video on the topic. Question: I would like to install the Revit 2013 Onebox product which contains Revit Architecture, Structure and MEP as one product. Where can I... Read more →

Add-In Wizard for Revit 2013

I have been using an updated version of my Visual Studio Revit C# add-in wizard for Revit 2013 for a while and thought you might find it useful as well. It now generates a bit more boiler-plate code up front which can be simply deleted if not needed: UIApplication uiapp = commandData.Application; UIDocument uidoc = uiapp.ActiveUIDocument; Application app = uiapp.Application; Document doc = uidoc.Document; // Access current selection Selection sel = uidoc.Selection; // Retrieve elements from database FilteredElementCollector col =... Read more →

Drag and Drop API

We already looked at what can be done using drag and drop in Revit 2012. At that point, an external Windows application could be used to initiate a standard Revit drag and drop sequence, but we had no control over Revit's behaviour on receiving the dropped files. This has changed in the Revit 2013 API, which provides a drag and drop API as part of the add-in integration features and includes the UIAPI sample in the Revit SDK to demonstrate... Read more →

Revit 2013 Product GUIDs and GUID Algorithm

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, plus the Revit 2013 one-box solution, and for 32 and 64 bit operating systems. We discussed this topic in the past for Revit 2010 and previous versions, Revit 2011 and Revit 2012, when the 'perpetual GUID algorithm' was introduced. The install path is much less... Read more →

GetElement method and Get Element Type

In the far distant past, the Revit API boasted a property on the Element class that gave direct access to the element type. It was declared obsolete, and a new way to access the element type had to be implemented, as we discussed two years back. This can still raise an issue even today: Question: I have an old plug-in that I am trying to update to Revit 2013. The code uses a property (element.ObjectType) that has been made obsolete... Read more →

Migrating VSTA Macros to SharpDevelop

As you probably noticed, we held a very successful and exciting Revit API training course and DevLab recently in Melbourne. More face-to-face hands-on trainings are planned, as you can see from the ADN Training Course Schedule, entering "Revit API" as the course name. Revit API Hands-On Training in Munich The next scheduled class that I will be conducting is taking place in Munich, Germany, on April 25-26 (register). If you are interested in participating in a class, you will benefit... Read more →

Idling Enhancements and External Events

Revit 2013 has been released, and I presented an overview of the Revit 2013 API and the new SDK samples last week. One of the areas of enhancement is the Idling event and interaction with modeless dialogues, which also was the subject of Arnošt Löbel's Autodesk University 2011 class CP5381 on asynchronous interactions and managing modeless UI. As I mentioned, the enhancements and new functionality are demonstrated by the new ModelessForm_ExternalEvent and ModelessForm_IdlingEvent SDK samples. Here is an overview of... Read more →

New Revit 2013 SDK Samples

Revit 2013 has been released, and I presented an overview of the Revit 2013 API two days ago. As always, the use of most of the API features is demonstrated by various SDK samples. For a better understanding of the use and contents of the Revit SDK in general, please refer to the getting started and self-preparation guides. Here is an overview of the new samples: ModelessForm_ExternalEvent and ModelessForm_IdlingEvent (ModelessDialog) ProgressNotifier (Events) RoutingPreferenceTools UIAPI WorkThread (MultiThreading) These samples are all... Read more →

Revit 2013 and its API

As you probably know by now, Revit 2013 has been released, with legions of new features. Here they are for architecture, MEP and structural. Without further ado, let us take a look at its API. Overview Just like in previous years, the API in the upcoming version of Revit software sports truly impressive enhancements, both in quantity and quality. As always, a number of completely new features were added, and many features added in the 2012 timeframe were enhanced based... Read more →