The Building Coder

BIM365 Getting Started, Materials API, CPU Voltage

I am on vacation right now, enjoying splendid weather camping on the coast of the Atlantic. Meanwhile, here are a few items that cropped up in the past few days – Getting started and programming buttons with Revit API – Links to API to modify visual appearance of materials – Improving performance by optimising CPU voltage... Read more →

Revit 2017 and 2018 SDK Samples

The Revit API discussion forum thread on drawing or rendering over the active view brought to my attention that an important new SDK sample created to demonstrate the use of the Revit 2018 functionality DirectContext3D for display of externally managed 3D graphics in Revit is missing in the SDK. I added it right here, in DuplicateGraphics.zip, and also provide an overview of the new SDK samples – CapitalizeAllTextNotes – DuplicateGraphics – GenericStructuralConnection – BRepBuilderExample – MultistoryStairs – PlacementOptions – Structural Analysis CodeCheckingConcreteExample and CalculationPointsSelector – REX SDK DRevitFreezeDrawing... Read more →

Women Coders, Forge and Revit API Docs Updates

Updates on Revit 2017, Revit 2018, and above all our treasured Revit API Docs. Plus, the clock is running now on two Forge enhancements. Finally, notes on DevCon, AU, female coders and the Women Who Code conference – Revit 2018 added to Revit API Docs – Revit 2018.0.1 hot fix – Revit 2017.2.1 update – Forge scopes enforcement by May 22 – Forge View and Data API countdown – Forge DevCon call for speakers is open – Autodesk University call for proposals – Five Autodeskers speak at Women Who Code... Read more →

Virtuous Reproduction, Research, Settings, Ontology

I have probably asked developers for reproducible cases a couple of thousand times by now. Let's discuss that and also return to the topic of how to research a Revit API problem in general. Finally, I'll point out a Revit 2017 API MEP electrical feature. Oh, and I continued my research into deep learning for a Revit API question answering system – Creating a reproducible case may well solve the issue at hand – How to research to find a Revit API solution – Access to cable tray and conduit settings – Getting started implementing a question answering system – First impression from IBM Bluemix – Open source QAS options – Building a Revit API ontology... Read more →

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 →

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 →

What's New in the Revit 2017.1 API

I recently mentioned the updated Revit 2017.1 SDK and its API enhancements. They are documented in full detail in the section Major additions to the 2017.1 Revit API of the Revit 2017.1 API help file RevitAPI.chm included with the SDK, which is also provided there in the separate stand-alone document Revit Platform API Changes and Additions.docx. For convenient, easy and effective web searching, here is the online version of that information... Read more →

AU, Revit 2017.1 SDK and REX FreezeDrawing

I returned from the Munich Forge accelerator, travelling back to Switzerland by train. For ecological reasons, I prefer to avoid flying whenever I possibly can. Last Friday was the deadline for submitting my Autodesk University handout, so that kept me busy. I still need to improve it a bit, and I hope a post-deadline update is feasible. I am presenting two classes, and I have a special discount to offer you. Lots of other things are happening as well – My classes at Autodesk University – $400 AU registration discount – Revit 2017.1 SDK – REX SDK FreezeDrawing sample – Determining the height of a column... Read more →

Revit Future Direction and Public Roadmap

Here I am in Munich, supporting the one-week Forge accelerator workshop – Pizza and Isar – Public Revit Roadmap – Revit Idea Station – Revit Today and Tomorrow... Read more →

How to Create a New Line Style

I arrived safe and sound in Munich to provide support for the one-week Forge accelerator workshop at the Autodesk offices here – Arrival in Munich and Hotel Schlicker – Official pictures from RTC in Porto – Art of README – What is Join? – How to Create a Line Style... Read more →

DirectObjLoader for Revit 2017

Here is a last quick Sunday morning post before I head off on vacation, on the DirectObjLoader migration to Revit 2017, handling the changes in DirectShape.CreateElement and TessellatedShapeBuilderResult... Read more →

Trusted Signature Motivation and Fishing

Topics for today – How does code signing of Revit add-ins increase security? – What happened to LoadCaseArray? – How and where to search for help on a Revit API question? – Dynamo 1.1 Update... Read more →

Revit Macro Samples Migrated to Revit 2017

I recently received requests for a migration of the macro samples provided in the Revit_Macro_Samples.rvt project. The version included in the Revit 2017 SDK miraculously is still based on Revit 2013 pre-release version, according to the update message displayed when opening it, and the macros cannot be executed successfully due to a number small Revit API enhancements made in the intervening years – Problem – Solution – Sam comes to the rescue – See the diffs on GitHub... Read more →

Trusted Signature and Revit 2017 API Resources

Here is a bunch of long overdue news items to round off this hot week – Trusted add-in signature – Revit 2017 API news summary – ADN training labs for Revit 2017 – ADN Xtra labs Revit 2017 migration – We had an extensive discussion on the topic of equipping each Revit add-in with a trusted signature in order to avoid the warning presented before loading it that otherwise pops up and needs to be manually confirmed by the user... Read more →

Point Boundary Condition and Revit 2017 SDK

I arrived safe and sound in San Francisco via Vancouver and am now working on the final preparations for the Forge DevCon and 3D Web Fest. Before getting to that, here are some quick notes from my short exploration last week to produce a rather overdue list of the new Revit 2017 SDK samples and on creating a point boundary condition on a structural column – New Revit 2017 SDK Samples – Creating Point Boundary Condition on End of Structural Column... 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 →

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 →

Real-Time BIM Update via a Windows Forms Client

Today, I address the first item in yesterday's to do list – Document and improve FireRatingClient, the stand-alone Windows client – we will need this to demonstrate the real-time BIM update from arbitrary sources – Context – FireRatingClient – Adding the modified Field – Updating the modified Field on Edit – FireRatingClient Live BIM Update Demo Recording – Download – To Do... Read more →

Real-Time BIM Update with FireRatingCloud 2017

Yesterday, I migrated RoomEditorApp to Revit 2017 and mentioned the BIM and cloud related projects I am working on. Next, let's focus on the FireRatingCloud sample. The main goal there is to implement fully automatic real-time BIM update from the cloud. Now, 24 hours after writing the previous sentence, I can tell you that I succeeded. Well, add another six hours to edit this post... Here is the updated FireRatingCloud custom ribbon tab with its new set of commands... Read more →

Room Editor – First Revit 2017 Addin Migration

A wonderful Monday morning to you. We are enjoying perfect April weather, rapidly oscillating back and forth between warm sprintime sunshine, sleet and hail. Meanwhile, I am continuously striving hard yet failing miserably to reduce my pure Revit API focussed case answering and Revit API activity – Things To Do – Forge DevCon developer conference – RoomEditorApp for Revit 2017 – Roomedit CouchDB installation on Windows – FireRatingCloud enhancements completed and upcoming – First Revit 2017 deprecated API clean-up – Where BIM hasn't gone... Read more →

What's New in the Revit 2017 API

Here is the online version of the 'What's New' section of the Revit 2017 API help file RevitAPI.chm included in the Revit SDK, which is also provided in the separate document Revit Platform API Changes and Additions.docx. This is very important information, both for exploring thee new features and for later reference. If you encounter any issues at all migrating your add-in between different versions, this is one of the first ports of call... Read more →

RvtSamples for Revit 2017

Setting up RvtSamples for Revit 2017 – Copy Html Markup in Visual Studio 2015 – Running Revit 2017 in the Visual Studio 2015 debugger – 'Security – Unsigned Add-In' message – RvtSamples DLL and TXT should be together – Specifying the Revit SDK samples root path – Correcting errors in individual SDK sample entries – PlacementOptions description line is missing – The five FabricationPartLayout external commands – RvtSamples loads and RvtSamples.txt is cleaned up... Read more →

Revit 2017, RevitLookup and SDK Samples

Revit 2017 was released yesterday. Here is the official Autodesk statement stating that Revit 2017 advances BIM for the future of designing buildings. I downloaded and installed my version from the Autodesk Revit family free trial web site. Let's look at what I did to install and first add-in compilation experiences – Uninstalling prior versions and cleaning the registry – Dummy API assembly folder for compiling samples – Resolving hiccups compiling Revit 2017 SDK samples – RevitLookup for Revit 2017... Read more →