The Building Coder

My Mac Died and I am Alive in Greece

I had a couple of eventful days – My Mac crashed – Setting up the new Mac – Recompiling the samples connecting BIM and cloud – Travel to Athens – Athens Forge Meetup – Athens Forge Workshop... Read more →

Roomedit3d Live Real-Time Socket.io BIM Update

I completed the first running version of my roomedit3d project connecting BIM and the cloud demonstrating two cool possibilities to enhance interaction with the View and Data API – A viewer extension enabling interactive model modification, i.e., translation of selected elements – Real-time communication of the modification back to the source CAD system using a direct socket.io connection to broadcast from the web server to any number of desktop clients... Read more →

Roomedit3d Console Test and Rendering Assets

I returned from the trip to Barcelona last week for the Forge Accelerator and was immediately inundated with overdue tasks. One issue that I addressed has to do with rendering assets – Roomedit3d Revit-Independent Implementation Aspects – Connecting BIM and the cloud – Demonstrating cool possibilities to enhance interaction with the View and Data API – A viewer extension enabling interactive model modification, i.e., translation of selected elements – Real-time communication of the modification back to the source CAD system using: – A REST API POST call from the viewer extension to the node.js web server – A direct socket.io connection to broadcast from the web server to any number of desktop clients... Read more →

Idea Station and TextNote Bounding Box

Thank you for your questions during the Autodesk answer day. I am still busy supporting the Barcelona Forge Accelerator participants in the Autodesk office. I am also working on a very exciting new project connecting BIM and the cloud using a direct socket.io connection to communicate changes back to the desktop, instead of the inefficient polling mechanism I implemented in previous projects. Once again, it consists of two parts, the node.js web server and View and Data API handler and the C# .NET Revit API add-in client – Revit Idea Station – TextNote Bounding Box Requires Regen – Regeneration Performance Benchmark... Read more →

Forge Accelerator, DevCon and Answer Day

In case you wonder why I am so quiet: I am busy in Barcelona at the Forge Accelerator in the Autodesk office in Poble Nou. Furthermore, I am preparing for the Forge DevCon in San Francisco next month. As if that was not enough, on Wednesday, I am also participating in the worldwide Autodesk Answer day, taking place from 6am to 6pm Pacific Time. This one will be the biggest yet, focusing on seven products: 3ds Max, AutoCAD, Civil3D, Inventor, Maya, Revit, and Vault... Read more →

Visual Studio 2015 Revit 2017 Add-in Wizards

I updated the Visual Studio Revit C# and VB add-in wizards for Revit 2017. They enable you to create a new C# or VB Revit add-in in Visual Studio with one single click on File > New > Project... > Installed > Templates > Visual Basic/Visual C# > Revit 2017 Addin. The wizard creates a complete Revit add-in skeleton, ready to immediately compile and run. Just hit F5 to start debugging; the add-in manifest is automatically created, copied to the proper location, Revit launched in the debugger, and your shiny new add-in is available in the external tools menu... Read more →

BCF API and Manually Setting Up an Add-In

The time is overdue to migrate the Visual Studio Revit Add-In Wizards to Revit 2017. This time, instead of a simple flat migration like in previous years, I decided to set up a new Visual Studio C# .NET Revit add-in project manually, by hand, completely from scratch, just to see whether anything significant changed since I did that last, and to ensure that the wizard is really using all the required Visual Studio settings. I tried it out in by implementing a buildingSMART BCF API sample client. Basically, that requires the following steps – Create a new pure Visual Studio class library – Rename Class1 to Command – Add references to the Revit API assemblies – Implement an external command – Implement an add-in manifest – Define an add-in GUID – Implement a post-build event to auto-install the add-in... Read more →

The Building Coder Samples 2017

Last night, I migrated The Building Coder samples to Revit 2017 – Flat Migration – Updated RvtSamples Include File – Automatic Transaction Mode is Obsolete – Obsolete Plane Constructors and NewPlane Methods – Obsolete NewPlane Method Taking a CurveArray Argument – Replace View.SetVisibility by SetCategoryHidden – Use DirectShape ApplicationId and ApplicationDataId – All Obsolete Revit API Usage Eliminated... Read more →

DLL Signature, BIM 2 in UK and AutoCAD.NET

A couple of quick topics to start the week – Add-in DLL signature – BIM 2 in the UK – Communication between AutoCAD and Revit... Read more →