The Building Coder

NuGet Revit API Package

Most of the work of the year has been done, and it is time to settle down and clear out for the new. Tomorrow is the winter solstice, followed by Christmas and Yuletide, ending with the Twelfth Night. For me, this is a time of retreat, calm, reflection, and renewal of energy. Today brings a nice gift from Andrey Bushman – NuGet Revit API package – RevitLookup using the NuGet Revit API package – Creating a NuGet package from assembly DLLs – More NuGet packages... Read more →

Viewport Bring to Front and C++ Revit Add-In

Two topics today, on reordering viewports to determine their respective occlusion, and setting up a C++ Revit add-in project – Bringing a viewport to the front – Change the draw order of a viewport (bring to front) for cases when you need to use simplified duplicate of the same view for background, e.g., ceiling grid for example – Code clean-up – Setting up a Visual Studio C++ Revit add-in project... Read more →

Forge Formats Python Script and IFC Open Shell

I went back to answering way too many questions in the Revit API discussion forum yesterday. However, two other interesting topics also cropped up when I finally let go of that pastime, and I just finished a good book – The Sellout by Paul Beatty – IFC Ids and Open Shell – Forge Python scripts – py_forge_formats.py – forge_authenticate_app – forge_formats – jprettyprint – Mainline... Read more →

Parameter Definition Overview

I am happy to present a pretty comprehensive overview and explanation of the process of defining a shared parameter by Scott Conover. Question: What do I need to do to programmatically create a shared parameter? I would like to set the SetAllowVaryBetweenGroups flag on it. Answer: You create the details needed to define a shared parameter from ExternalDefinition. Existing shared parameter file entries can be read to become an ExternalDefinition in your code, or you can create a new entry in the current shared parameter file using the DefinitionGroup.Create method... Read more →

Need for Regen and Duplicate Parameter Access

A Python Revit API question on renumbering viewports helps highlight two separate important programming aspects; I also add some other notes from the Munich Forge accelerator – Question – The need to regenerate – Use built-in parameters to access parameters – Forge accelerator and outage report – Added materials to 210 King model... Read more →

Restoring a Missing Project Information Element

Some people have recently reported that they encountered models lacking the ProjectInfo project information singleton element. Apparently, it was possible in previous versions of Revit for a faulty or malicious add-in to simply delete this element. That obviously causes problems for other add-ins and Revit itself, who rely on its presence. Luckily, it is not hard to fix. Here is the latest discussion addressing this issue... Read more →

Determining Views Showing an Element

The topic of how to determine all views in which a given element is visible has been discussed several times on the past, and a couple of viable solutions have been suggested. However, for large projects, performance becomes an issue. This question was raised again by Abba Lustgarten and Erik Eriksson in the Revit API discussion forum thread on finding views in which an element is visible (by geometry or actual visibility), with Erik sharing a View extension method IntersectsBoundingBox that helps alleviate the performance impact... Read more →

Material Shared Parameters and ADN Xtra Labs

How to attach a shared parameter to Material elements? – Updated ADN Xtra labs to remove all deprecated API usage – A new addin that creates and populates a shared parameter to provide material information for each element – Autodesk University 2016 class materials have now been posted, including the recording of my session on connecting desktop and cloud – Linking Material elements to external database entries – Binding a shared parameter to elements – Attaching a shared parameter to Material elements – Create and populate a shared parameter ForgeMaterial – Cornelius story – cured by natural remedies... Read more →