The Building Coder

Markdown, Fusion Accelerator $$$, Revisions and Bulk Upgrade

Today, I discuss my new Markdown blog post format, Fusion 360, the Fusion accelerator and a couple of Revit issues: Using the Markdown blog post format; Fusion 360; Fusion 360 for game artists; Fusion 360 accelerator; The Revit Revision API; Running a background bulk upgrade batch, Banksy's Dismaland bemusement park... Read more →

Revit Add-In Wizard GitHub Installer

I recently mentioned the unrestricted VendorId in Revit 2016, and pointed out that I would like to update the Visual Studio Revit add-in wizards accordingly. I now went ahead and did so, adding a couple of other enhancements as well along the way – oh, and I did some work on putting my personal calendar online, as well: Sharing a calendar via GCal, Google API, and GitHub Pages. Visual Studio Revit add-in wizards on GitHub. Updated VendorId tag value. Wizard... Read more →

Stingray and Project Expo for Architects

Stingray Stingray is live! Stingray is a 3D game engine and real-time rendering software optimised for developers creating 3D games and design professionals creating real-time visualizations and visually stunning 3D experiences. That is not all, though. Project Expo Based on this new technology, Autodesk Labs now publicly provides Project Expo for free. Project Expo provides the ability to explore your design and communicate design intent in a compelling real-time environment, supporting architects and other designers in sharing and experiencing architectural... Read more →

Batch Processing, DWFx Links and Future-Proofing

The never-ending stream of Revit API topics continues. Today, let's look at: Unrestricted VendorId. Retrieving DWFx links. Batch processing Revit documents. Future-proofing The Building Coder samples. Recent Revit API AEC DevBlog posts: Delete custom family parameter. JoinGeometryUtils.JoinGeometry for walls and columns. Reading gross and rentable area elements. Unrestricted VendorId In the past, we recommended using an Autodesk registered developer symbol or RDS as your vendor id, stored in the add-in manifest VendorId tag (starting from the Revit 2012 extensible storage... Read more →

Revit Future and Saving User Configuration Settings

I encountered the need and implemented solutions to save user configuration data several times over in the past. Today, prompted by a recent query, I'll point out two of them, and some other exciting and interesting stuff as well: Anthony Hauck on Futures for Revit. The Most Popular Programming Languages 2015. Saving User Configuration Settings. Text Format Configuration File Storage and Parsing. .NET XML Configuration File Storage and Parsing. Anthony Hauck on Futures for Revit BIMThoughts is a podcast platform... Read more →

Internal vs. Base Point and Link to Host Coordinates

Let's look at two questions on various coordinate systems raised by Simon Jones and Miroslav Schonauer: Translate coordinates from link to host Project Base Point versus Project Internal Translate Coordinates from Link to Host Question: Take this snippet of code: foreach (RevitLinkInstance lnk in selectedLinks) { Document doc = lnk.GetLinkDocument(); mDocumentList.Add(doc); projectLocation = doc.ActiveProjectLocation; XYZ origin = newXYZ(0, 0, 0); ProjectPosition position = projectLocation .get_ProjectPosition(origin); LocationPoint linkLocationPt = lnk.Location as LocationPoint; Location loc = lnk.Location; SiteLocation siteLocation = doc.SiteLocation; }... Read more →

Revit Geometry Kernel and Cylinder Faces

One of the cases that I answered yesterday evoked a very interesting response from the development team that I want to share with you: Question: When traversing the faces in the boundary representation of a cylinder solid in Revit, I find that it contains two planar faces (top and bottom of the cylinder), and two cylinder faces (two half-cylinders). I examined many different circular solids in Revit and noticed that all of them split into 2 or 4 half/quarter cylinders.... Read more →

Revit API Context and Form Creation Errors

I am back from my vacation. I had a wonderful time. Now, let's look at two important recurring topics that came up while I was away: Revit API Context Summary. Detailed Form Creation Error Information. Before getting to those, let me mention some of the nice places and mountain tours I was blessed with in the past few weeks: Pallanza and the Lago Maggiore: Mont Blanc, mountaneering and climbing around the Cabane d'Orny: Monte Leone above Locarno (photo album): Pizzo... Read more →