Here is a last-minute announcement that I will be attending the Swissbau Basel on Wednesday, a quick hint to answer a support case that just came in today, a forum thread issue, and a pointer to a drum solo:
- Attending Swissbau Basel on Wednesday
- Comparing families using part atoms
- Maximum area rectangle in polygon
- Neil Peart drum solo
Attending Swissbau Basel on Wednesday
I am attending Swissbau Basel on Wednesday, January 15.
Please reach out if you would like to meet there.
Thank you, and looking forward to seeing you!
Comparing Families using Part Atoms
I recently discussed comparing symbols and comparison operators, including pointers to previous ponderings on defining your own key for comparison purposes and tracking element modification.
In a comment on that post,
Matt Taylor suggested an effective solution to compare family definitions using the Revit API ExtractPartAtomFromFamilyFile method:
I would say that this is a good candidate for the ExtractPartAtomFromFamilyFile and ExtractPartAtom methods.
You can call those on your family and compare the results they return.
The article on Extract Part Atom Revisited shows how they can be invoked.
As an example, consider a basic column family with width and depth parameters, both set to 600mm, and a type named '600x600'.
Load that into a project and change the width to 590.
Export the part atoms of each, e.g., like this in VB.NET:
Imports Autodesk.Revit Imports Autodesk.Revit.Attributes <Transaction(TransactionMode.Manual)> <Journaling(JournalingMode.NoCommandData)> Public Class InternalExportPartAtoms Implements UI.IExternalCommand Public Function Execute( ByVal commandData As UI.ExternalCommandData, ByRef message As String, ByVal elements As DB.ElementSet) _ As UI.Result Implements UI.IExternalCommand.Execute Dim app As ApplicationServices.Application = commandData.Application.Application Dim doc As DB.Document = commandData.Application.ActiveUIDocument.Document Dim family As DB.Family = TryCast(doc.GetElement(New DB.ElementId(4568558)), DB.Family) Dim familyName As String = family.Name Dim logFileFolder As String = "C:\Users\<login>\Desktop\PartAtoms\" app.ExtractPartAtomFromFamilyFile(logFileFolder & familyName & ".rfa", logFileFolder & familyName & "-file.xml") family.ExtractPartAtom(logFileFolder & familyName & "-family.xml") Return UI.Result.Succeeded End Function End Class
Then do
a diff on the two outputs,
e.g., using diffchecker.com:
This won't catch all tampering, but it's a decent tool for comparison.
Many thanks to Matt for this invaluable tip!
Maximum Area Rectangle in Polygon
Completely unrelated to the Revit API, an interesting question popped up today in the discussion forum thread on drawing maximum area rectangle inside a polygon – it is such a nice question, I picked it up anyway:
Question: We are working on a project related to the construction industry, building an iPad application, where we need to find a MAXIMUM POSSIBLE RECTANGLE INSIDE THE GIVEN POLYGON lines. We totally approached around 100's of ways, but till now we are not getting a right solution. Any suggestions will be really helpful!
Answer: I searched the Internet for maximum inscribed area rectangle in polygon.
The first hit I found was this same question of yours in a different forum with several very helpful suggestions for solving it, on How to find the maximum-area-rectangle inside a convex polygon.
Another hit shares a proven working solution for the largest rectangle in a polygon – an approximation algorithm for finding the largest rectangle inside a non-convex polygon.
The latter solution also includes several references to scientific papers on the topic.
Neil Peart Drum Solo
In closing, you may enjoy this pretty cool drum solo by Neil Peart live in Frankfurt:
Neil Peart was a fellow Canadian – you may be surprised to hear that I am one too, besides other things – and passed away last week, on January 7, 2020.
