The Building Coder

Room Editor with Handlebars and Refresh

Somehow, I have a much harder time documenting my JavaScript exploits than my Revit API ones. The Autodesk Tech Summit is taking place in Toronto next week, and I am making those potentially disastrous last minute changes that every sane person avoids at all costs. Automatically Refresh on Save One really important thing that I fixed now required just one single line of code: The browser display of the model is automatically refreshed when you press 'Save'. I remember wondering... Read more →

Revit API Wishlist Survey

Once again, the time has come for another round of API wishlist surveys. Revit 2015 Add-In Manager Before getting into the details of that, let me mention Augusto Gonçalves's useful note on the modified installation procedure for the Revit 2015 Add-In Manager included in the May 14 Revit 2015 SDK Update Release 2, which now just provides the .dll and .addin files, no longer any MSI installer. The Spring 2014 Revit API Wishlist Survey This year's Revit API wishlist survey... Read more →

Exchange Apps Webinar Recording and Resources

As you certainly know by now, the Autodesk Exchange Stores provide an efficient means to showcase and distribute your applications addressing a large world-wide audience. Furthermore, it is very easy. As krispy just said in this Revit API forum thread on creating an installer for a Revit application, "You can just zip up the files they require (dll, addin, etc.) and upload that... the exchange app team will create the installer for you. They are pretty good with telling you... Read more →

Updated SDK, DevTV, BIM 360 News and Viewer

A whole bunch of updates, with the last one mentioned being the most exciting by far: Revit SDK Update Release 2 DevTV Introduction to Revit 2015 API Programming DevDay Online – BIM 360 Glue DevDay Online – BIM 360 Field Sneak Peek at the New Autodesk 360 Viewer Revit SDK Update Release 2 The Revit SDK provided on the Revit Developer Centre has been updated again to include the complete add-in manager, which was lacking in the last update labelled... Read more →

ADN Revit 2015 API Training Material

The ADN Revit API Training Material available on GitHub from the RevitTrainingMaterial repository has now been updated for the Revit 2015 API. Here is a direct link to download it as a zip archive. The Revit 2014 version is still available as release 2014.0.0.0, and the Revit 2015 version – obviously – as release 2015.0.0.0. Tech Summit Preview Recording In case you are interested in listening to what I plan to say about my enhanced cloud-based round-trip simplified 2D BIM... Read more →

Properties in DWF, IFC, Tables and Extensible Storage

Let's discuss a couple of questions that accumulated recently on various aspects of properties in general: Properties in DWF export Mapping Revit and IFC properties Storing a table in a project Updating versus adding new extensible storage schemas Before getting to that, I'll briefly mention the happy fact that I yesterday went on my first outdoor climb for a while, up the Balmflue south ridge, a nice long route of 16 rope lengths in the Swiss Jura hills close to... Read more →

TessellateSolidOrShell – Holes Versus Wholes

Let's try to clarify further the various options to retrieve closed faceted shells from a Revit BIM. When processed face by face, the Revit API will return gaps. This issue was addressed by the introduction of the TessellateSolidOrShell method. Let's look at some pros and cons of it, raised by the Revit API discussion forum thread on mapping the triangles it generates to faces. We already looked at the topics of gaps in shells and the TessellateSolidOrShell method now and... Read more →

RvtVa3c Assembly Resolver

One of the RvtVa3c implementation aspects that I mentioned was the fact that we ran into some problems using the standard .NET Microsoft System.Runtime.Serialization.Json.DataContractJsonSerializer class and chose to replace it with the more reliable Json.NET component instead. Serialisation is required by our early decision to define and generate the three.js JSON file format by representing all the required objects, their properties and relationships by a set of C# classes. We instantiate and populate these classes in our custom exporter context... Read more →

Views Displaying Given Element, SVG and NoSQL

I am slowly getting back to normal working mode after the AEC Hackathon last weekend and the neat project that we worked on there, so I finally get around to publishing this post that I started working on last week. The only remaining issue is of a physical nature: my feet are still swollen after flying to New York on Friday, sitting and working non-stop at the Hackathon from Saturday morning until Sunday afternoon, standing for a couple of hours... Read more →

RvtVa3c – Revit Va3c Generic AEC Viewer JSON Export

When you read this, I will already be sitting on the plane back from New York to Switzerland. Before leaving, though, I wanted to add some more explanations on the extremely fruitful work we accomplished this weekend. I am very happy and grateful that we spontaneously formed such a wonderful team and worked together so enthusiastically, pleasantly and effectively. Most of all, I enjoyed the companionship, competence and professionality of my closest teammate Matt Mason of Imaginit Technologies. In the... Read more →

AEC Hackathon – From the Midst of the Fray

The New York AEC Symposium and Hackathon is nearing its conclusion. The end and final result demos are scheduled for Sunday noon, coming up all too soon. A bunch of us have been working non-stop through the night since Saturday morning. It is now early Sunday morning, and coffee is eagerly awaited by all. I am participating in a pretty big project to implement a general-purpose 3D AEC model viewer. It is designed to consume models defined in three.js JSON... Read more →

New York Travel Preparation and ADN Job Opening

Friday – travel to New York to spend the weekend at the AEC Symposium and Hackathon. Before leaving, I revelled briefly in nature, celebrating a couple of hours of moderate weather after the cold and wet spell lately, before spending the entire following weekend indoors staring at computer screens in Big Apple: I celebrated the full moon on Wednesday evening with a nice fire on a nearby hill with a grand view: I arrived safely in New York and just... Read more →

DirectShape Performance and Minimum Size

One of the exciting API enhancements in Revit 2015 is the Import API functionality providing the new DirectShape and TessellatedShapeBuilder classes. These enable significant performance enhancements and powerful new possibilities for generating libraries and importing geometry, especially repetitive shapes. On the other hand, the same limitations on minimum size apply as in the past. DirectShape Performance Regarding the performance, here is a first enthusiastic reaction and quick report from a developer after the initial introduction during the beta phase last... Read more →

Project Solon and BipChecker for Revit 2015 on GitHub

One of the handful of Revit database exploration tools that I use on a regular basis is BipChecker, the Revit built-in parameter checker, so that is a pretty obvious candidate for migration to Revit 2015... see below. Before I get to that, let me mention some new Revit energy analysis functionality that you might want to check out: Simple Interactive Energy Analysis in Revit with Project Solon Project Solon beta arrives in Revit, providing more interactive energy analysis results, the... Read more →

AEC Hackathon, DevGuide URL and AppStore Webinar

As mentioned, I registered for the upcoming AEC Symposium and Hackathon in New York this coming weekend, May 16-18. You can learn more about both at http://core.thorntontomasetti.com/aec-technology-symposium-2014, and especially check out the interesting projects proposed for the AEC Hackathon. I'm looking forward very much to that and would be happy to meet you there! Revit API Developer Guide Shortcut URL The Revit API Developer Guide shortcut URL has changed and is now www.autodesk.com/revitapi-help. To my utter shock and chagrin, the... Read more →

Add-In Wizards for Revit 2015

I updated my Visual Studio Revit add-in wizards for Revit 2015. The 2015 version generates the same boilerplate code as the reliable old Revit 2014 one and its update did, which can be simply deleted if not needed. I selflessly also implemented and tested the Visual Basic version right away. Revit Add-in Wizard Customisation As I keep pointing out, it is important to understand how easy it is to modify the wizards for your own needs, and make copies with... Read more →

Room Editor Element Properties and the Async Trap

I made significant progress with my Tech Summit preparations, in spite of trying to "dance at many weddings", as the Germans say, i.e. juggle too many balls at once, what with new technologies, meetups, hackathons, AU preparations, support cases, email requests, blogging and all the normal everyday admin work that we are all confronted with. I originally had plans for three main enhancements of the room editor: Display sheet, views and floor plan geometry Revit add-in part implemented, web part... Read more →

Multithreading Throws Exceptions in Revit 2015

I have received several cases lately dealing with add-ins that have been working fine in previous versions of Revit and now throw various exceptions after migration to Revit 2015. Similar issues were also raised in the Revit API discussion forum, e.g. exploring a Revit 2015 exception with a CustomExporter. In all of the cases so far, these problems were due to attempts to access the Revit API from a multi-threaded context. As the Revit API documentation clearly states, multi-treaded use... Read more →

On Handling Warnings and Failures

Many aspects of detecting and handling dialogues and failures have been discussed in the past. Let's look at this area again, based on two recent questions, a basic and an advanced one, and also mention some Revit 2015 enhancements to the Revit Developer Centre: Programmatic handling of warning messages Resolving failures using the Failure API Revit 2015 enhancements to the Revit developer centre Programmatic Handling of Warning Messages Question: Is it possible with the Revit MEP 2011 API to handle... Read more →

New Revit 2015 SDK Samples

Rather belatedly, I went through my usual analysis of the Revit SDK to determine the new samples added to the Revit 2015 SDK. While I was at it, I also migrated the DevDays samples for Revit 2015 UR1, since some new SDK functionality is not yet covered by new SDK samples, and the ones posted with the DevDays online recording were still compiled for one of the early pre-release versions of Revit. New Samples in the Revit 2015 SDK To... Read more →

IFC Exporter Open Source Wiki

As you certainly know, the Revit IFC exporter is open source and available from the sourceforge IFC Exporter for Revit project repository. It has now been updated to Revit 2015, obviously, covers import as well as export, and enhanced with a FAQ wiki to address the most frequently asked questions. Below, I would like to present both the main IFC exporter project description and its new FAQ. Autodesk Revit Wikipedia Entry Before getting to that, let me briefly add that... Read more →