The Building Coder

Secret Reference Line Faces

The open source space around the Revit API is continuously growing richer, solutions are shared and exciting discoveries are made, both in the Revit API discussion forum and elsewhere – Debugging, code signing and HOK Mission Control – Creating connectors on a reference line... Read more →

Rapid Prototyping, Testing and Deployment

The pyRevit rapid application development environment can be used for the entire add-in lifecycle, supporting rapid debugging, testing and deployment as well. I successfully implemented invoking an external command defined in a stand-alone Revit plugin assembly from pyRevit! It's proving extremely useful... Read more →

Spatial Geometry, Add-In Manager and Show Reels

New Autodesk show reels, a solution to the lack of an add-in manager in the Revit 2020 SDK, an update for the SpatialElementGeometryCalculator and an interesting observation on English spelling – 2019 Autodesk show reels – The Add-In Manager for Revit 2019 still works – Spatial element geometry calculator update – English spelling... Read more →

Forge Picture, Debugging, Snooping Appearances

Today, let's look at the Forge architecture, Revit add-in debug, edit and continue, and yet another RevitLookup enhancement – High-level picture of Forge – Debug and continue in a Revit add-in – Snooping appearance assets... Read more →

Revit Unit Test Framework Improvements

The UpCodes AI team shared some significant Revit Test Framework improvements – Created a NuGet package – Added the ability to group tests by the model – Added ability to use wildcards for model filenames – Clear messaging and indication of failures... Read more →

Compiling the Revit 2019 SDK Samples

I installed Revit 2019 and compiled the Revit 2019 SDK. That was quite a struggle – Installing Revit 2019 – Installing the Revit 2019 SDK – Installing the .NET Framework 4.7 – Compiling the Revit 2019 SDK samples – Processor architecture mismatch warnings – DimensionLeaderEnd OutputPath missing – Numerous Revit API assembly reference conflicts – SampleCommandsSteelElements lacks components – AppearanceAssetEditing using deprecated API... Read more →

RevitLookup Search by Element and Unique Id

Александр Пекшев aka Modis @Pekshev implemented another useful RevitLookup enhancement to search and snoop elements by element id or unique id – Search and snoop by element id or unique id – File changes – The built-in Select by Id command, Zoom To and StringSearch – RevitLookup update... Read more →

Migrating PlaceInstances to Revit 2018

Migrating a Revit add-in to a new release of the Revit API is generally very easy. The API features slight changes from version to version. Modifications are announced a year or two in advance, and signalled during compilation by deprecated API usage warnings. If you clean up your code every year or two and remove all API usage that causes warning messages, you will normally have very little to do to migrate it later on... Read more →

Deleting a Global Parameter and RevitPythonShell

I have list of all global parameters from the active Revit document. I want to delete a specific global parameter from the list programmatically. Kindly suggest a way to delete a global parameter from the active document... Read more →

Revit 2018 Visual Studio .NET Add-in Wizards

I updated the Visual Studio Revit C# and VB add-in templates for Revit 2018. They enable you to create a new C# or VB Revit add-in in Visual Studio with one single click on File > New > Project... > Visual Basic/Visual C# > Revit 2018 Addin and define a complete skeleton Revit add-in, ready to immediately compile and run, including an add-in manifest file, external application and external command. Just hit F5 to start debugging; the add-in manifest is installed, Revit launched and the command is immediately available... Read more →

Three.js Raytracing in the Forge Viewer

Yesterday, I showed how you can add custom geometry to the Forge viewer for debugging or other purposes and to control graphically what is going on. Today, I address the ray tracing required to determine the number of walls between the user selected signal source point and the other target points spread out across the picked floor slab. Please note the important information in the final section: the viewer implements built-in raycast functionality that obviates the need for this – Connecting Visual Studio Code to the Chrome debugger – Creating a three.js mesh from Forge viewer fragments – Use built-in viewer raycast instead... Read more →

Adding Custom Geometry to the Forge Viewer

I am in Gothenburg supporting the Forge accelerator. My project here is ForgeFader, implementing the same end user functionality as the RvtFader Revit C# .NET API add-in that I implemented last week. I have not quite finished it yet, but the existing functionality looks as if it already ought to be very useful indeed to anyone working with geometry in the Forge viewer – Working in Visual Studio Code – ForgeFader – Implementation – Adding custom geometry to the Forge Viewer – Next steps... Read more →

RevitLookup Extensible Storage Restored

I already discussed the first clean-up of the new Reflection based version of RevitLookup; here comes the second one, restoring access to view extensible storage data – Recent changes to RevitLookup – Restore access to extensible storage data – Download and access to old functionality... Read more →

Add-In Templates Supporting Edit and Continue

Last week, I presented Andrey Bushman's new Visual Studio templates for Revit add-ins. Furthermore, we discussed many aspects of edit and continue in the past, including the solution to use the Add-in Manager. These two topics have now met and united, because Andrey added support for that and a bunch of other new functionality in his commit... Read more →

RevitLookup with Reflection Cleanup

Last week, I presented a drastic change to RevitLookup using Reflection to provide more complete coverage of all the Revit database element methods and properties. Victor Chekalin took a critical look at this new version and cleaned it up significantly. Now all is well and order has been restored again – Shock and gripe – Commit summary – 1. Methods and properties extraction – 2. Show enum values – 3. Drill down into SymbolGeometry – 4. Remove duplicate get_ property getter method – 5. Fixed Fine DetailLevel bug – 6. Visual style of separator – Download and access to old functionality – Reaction and read-only assurance... Read more →

New Visual Studio Templates for Revit Add-Ins

I have been maintaining a simple Visual Studio Revit add-in wizard for a number of years. Now Andrey Bushman implemented a set of more advanced and convenient Visual Studio templates for creation of Revit add-ins for his own use. The discussion of those led us to once more revisit the topic of the Visual Studio settings for debugging Revit add-ins – New Visual Studio 2015 templates for Revit add-ins – Use Managed Compatibility Mode or Enable Native Code Debugging? – Machine learning software engineer job in Switzerland – FreeCodeCamp... Read more →

RevitLookup Reflection Cross-Version Compatibility

Today, I present a large and drastic contribution to RevitLookup from Andy @awmcc90 McCloskey of RevDev Studios that will help significantly in supporting both past and future releases of Revit – Drastic changes making use of object inspection via Reflection – Cross version compatibility – Removal of events and unused functionality – Commit summary – Snoop / CollectorExts – Utils – Tests – File Changes – Download... Read more →

AI, Edit and Continue

I am still in Munich supporting the one-week Forge accelerator workshop, returning back to Switzerland by train tonight. For ecological reasons, I prefer to avoid flying whenever I possibly can. Lots of exciting development is going on here, and we are making great progress. I have another important detail to report from the the RTC Revit Technology Conference Europe in Porto last week, and other little titbits to share as well – Use AddInManager and attach to process to edit and continue – Can I replace myself by artificial intelligence? – Autodesk Design Graph – Artificial intelligence recognises conversational speech – Good portable loudspeakers... Read more →

RTC Revit API Panel, Idea Station, Edit and Continue

This morning saw some lively discussion in the Revit API Panel at the RTC Revit Technology Conference Europe – Panel Members – Questions and Answers – Notes from Previous Revit API Panel Sessions – Session Materials... 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 →

The pyRevit IronPython Script Library

Two weeks ago, Maltezc raised a question on the availability of a version of RevitLookup for Python. I am not aware of any Python version of RevitLookup, but you can certainly call into RevitLookup from RevitPythonShell. Maltezc pointed out the pyRevit IronPython script library. Ehsan Iran-Nejad, pyRevit creator and maintainer, now wrote a blog post describing this powerful and popular collection... Read more →

Index, Debug, Curves, Distance, Deleting PrintSetup

Here is another bunch of issues addressed in the Revit API discussion forum and elsewhere in the past day or two – The Building Coder blog source text and index – Reloading add-in DLL for debugging without restart – Drawing curves from a list of points – Determining the distance of a family instance to the floor or elevation – Deleting a PrintSetup or ViewSheetSetting... Read more →

Intersect Solid Filter, AVF vs DirectShape Debugging

We already discussed the important topics of the analysis visualisation framework AVF, DirectShape (mesh import, new functionality), and the ElementIntersectsSolidFilter. Today, let's look at a little-know restriction on the latter and how to work around it, raised and solved by Miroslav Schonauer, Solution Architect in Autodesk Consulting, and Scott Conover, Software Development Manager of the Revit API team: ElementIntersectsSolidFilter problem Resolution Rectangular prism solid construction DirectShape is easier than AVF for prototyping and visualisation ElementIntersectsSolidFilter Problem Question: I have a... Read more →

Revit 2016 SP1 and Sheets Missing from Print Dialogue

Today, I can present the explanation and prophylactic measure required to prevent a problem of sheets missing from print dialogue. It was only occasionally reported, and I finally heard about the fact and its resolution last week. In brief, when creating sheets programmatically, only create one sheet per transaction! Before looking at that in more detail, I'll just mention that the Revit 2016 service pack 1 was automatically installed for me when I started up Revit today. First of all,... Read more →

RevitLookup in Python Shell and Multi-Release Solution

Here is some exciting news from Daren Thomas on RevitLookup and the Revit Python Shell. The Python and Ruby shells came up a couple of times recently, and I also mentioned Daren's initial thoughts on making the RevitLookup snoop functionality easily accessible from within the interactive Python IDE: Curved wall elevation profile implementation in Python Live development Revit 2016 Python shell and RevitLookup incorporation Revit 2016 Ruby shell This idea has now come to fruition, and more easily than one... Read more →

Live Development and a Share Bar

Let's reiterate a question that comes up quite regularly, on live development, i.e. debugging and editing your code without having to restart Revit and reload a model every time you make a change. First, however, let me say a few words about the new share bar. The Building Coder Share Bar I spent a couple of hours last night adding the share bar that you now see on the right hand side. Kean Walmsley added a ShareThis button to Through... Read more →

.NET Open Source and Visual Studio Community

Steve Mycynek of the Revit Development team pointed out an important update on .NET and Visual Studio: As you may know, one frustration faced by Revit API developers is the lack of debugging support in the free Express versions of Visual Studio. They do not support debugging DLLs against an EXE host or attaching to a process, which is exactly what we require to debug a Revit add-in loaded into Revit.exe (except by resorting to tricks, used, e.g., for the... Read more →

Creating a Sloped Wall

Several questions concerning programmatic creation of sloped walls came up recently, so let's take a look at that, point to some existing samples, and implement a fantastic new one that does it all, including mass family creation, instance insertion and face creation in one fell swoop: How to programmatically create a sloped wall Sloped wall versus sloped slab Creating a sloped wall from mass The Creator CreateModelLine method The Building Coder Samples download Floor creation fails for foundation floor types... Read more →

Debugging and Maintaining the Image Relationship

The Revit database contains a number of undocumented relationships, and it can be challenging and useful to discover them. Christian Tonn of kubit presents a powerful method to determine and maintain such a relationship using an officially supported approach instead: Question: Is it possible to get the ImageType object from an image you inserted in the Revit document with Document.Import? Answer: Not directly! I am using the Import method: bool Import( string file, ImageImportOptions options, View view, out Element element);... Read more →

Exploring How to Remove a Shared Parameter Definition

Here is yet another example of the importance of the RevitLookup database exploration tool. In this case, Trevor Taylor of ZGF, Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects LLP, shows his use of it to discover how to remove a shared parameter definition. Task at Hand When I remove a shared parameter definition, it disappears from the UI. However, the parameter definition isn't truly removed from the model. Its definition persists. Steps to repeat: In a shared parameter definition file, create a parameter... Read more →

Accessing Extensible Storage on OwnerFamily in Project

A couple of developers reported a problem accessing extensible storage data on families when they are loaded into a project in Revit 2015. This problem did not occur in previous versions. Luckily, a workaround is possible right now, designed and implemented by Alexander Ignatovich, Александр Игнатович, of Investicionnaya Venchurnaya Companiya. Alexander already made a number of other complex and powerful contributions to The Building Coder in the past: Exporting Image and Setting a Default 3D View Orientation Intimate Revit Database... Read more →

Activate Your Family Symbol Before Using It

Here is an interesting case with a simple solution that was rather hard to discover. In summary, you need to ensure that all family symbols are activated before making use of them. Question: I'm having a strange problem when replacing curtain walls by windows in Revit 2014. When I run my add-in command, all the curtain walls are successfully replaced by the window family instances. All except the first also cut the hosting wall in the proper manner. The first... Read more →

IFC GUID Algorithm Update and Family Modification

Two short topics for today, an important little IFC GUID algorithm bug fix and some thoughts on detecting family modification. IFC GUID Algorithm in C# Update Håkon Clausen implemented a bug fix update and created a GitHub repository for the IFC GUID algorithm in C# that he originally published back in June 2010. Here are the details on the update and a direct link to his IfcGuid GitHub repository. Detecting Family Modification For ages, content creators and developers have been... Read more →

Project Solon and BipChecker for Revit 2015 on GitHub

One of the handful of Revit database exploration tools that I use on a regular basis is BipChecker, the Revit built-in parameter checker, so that is a pretty obvious candidate for migration to Revit 2015... see below. Before I get to that, let me mention some new Revit energy analysis functionality that you might want to check out: Simple Interactive Energy Analysis in Revit with Project Solon Project Solon beta arrives in Revit, providing more interactive energy analysis results, the... Read more →

Multithreading Throws Exceptions in Revit 2015

I have received several cases lately dealing with add-ins that have been working fine in previous versions of Revit and now throw various exceptions after migration to Revit 2015. Similar issues were also raised in the Revit API discussion forum, e.g. exploring a Revit 2015 exception with a CustomExporter. In all of the cases so far, these problems were due to attempts to access the Revit API from a multi-threaded context. As the Revit API documentation clearly states, multi-treaded use... Read more →

Profiling Revit Add-ins and RoomEditorApp Enhancements

Today we take a look a profiling tool that works with Revit add-ins, and a few small new enhancements to my RoomEditorApp. The entire following article was contributed by Ben Bishoff of Ideate Software: Profiling Revit Add-ins using GlowCode Performance profiling tools allow you to increase the speed of your code by pinpointing slow methods and methods that are called excessively. For the past several releases, we have successfully used GlowCode real-time performance profiler (www.glowcode.com) to analyse and improve the... Read more →

RevitLookup for Revit 2015

My first post dealing with Revit 2015 is dedicated to RevitLookup, the most important Revit database exploration tool, both for developers and interested non-developers. This is particularly urgent, since RevitLookup no longer is included in the standard Revit SDK (software development kit). It is now available from the RevitLookup GitHub repository instead. I created a preliminary version of RevitLookup for the Revit 2015 Meridian pre-release, just to ensure that everybody who needs access to this tool has it available right... Read more →

Lots of Views, Families and Booleans

Certain applications require large numbers of similar but different objects, e.g. for framing, scaffolding, steel detailing etc. Every one of the past few years, Revit has been further enhanced to better still support these kinds of applications and handle larger numbers of families and instances gracefully and performantly. This work is still on-going. Below, we address a bunch of questions related to creating a new wooden structural BIM application. One aspect of such applications is the need to generate a... Read more →

Visual Studio 2013 May Partially Support Edit and Continue

The West European DevDays conferences are completed. I am on my way back from Gothenburg to Switzerland. En route, I would like to share this strange and useful discovery by Peter Muigg of CAD Anwendungen Muigg, who says: In spite of what was said in the article on debugging Revit 2014 API with Visual Studio 2013 and the Revit API discussion thread on the same topic, Visual Studio 2013 does in fact partially support edit and continue. Just as stated... Read more →

Replacing an Idling Event Handler by an External Event

I arrived back in Europe safe and sound from America. Healthy, as well, in spite of air conditioning and the freezing temperatures in some of the Autodesk University conference rooms. Thank God, I went well prepared with long-sleeved woollen underwear and thick heavy sweaters to face the arctic challenges of the desert town. As I hinted at when describing my last day at AU, I realised that I can significantly improve the implementation of the RoomEditorApp subscription to real-time database... Read more →

Debugging Revit 2014 API with Visual Studio 2013

The officially supported development platforms for Revit add-ins are Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 and Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express Edition. The important factor is really only the .NET environment, Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0. Of course, you can also use the built-in SharpDevelop development macro environment. This information comes directly from the horse's mouth, i.e. the Revit 2014 API Developers Guide – happily, back online again – section on requirements. The Revit Python Shell and Revit Ruby Shell, based on IronPython... Read more →

RoomEditorApp Idling and Benchmarking Timer

I solved my two RoomEditorApp Idling issues! They were especially worrying due to the fact that I am planning to present this application in my Autodesk university class DV1736 on Cloud-Based, Real-Time, Round-Trip, 2D Revit Model Editing on Any Mobile Device. By the way, you should now enrol in the AU classes you are interested in – unless you already did :-) Go to the AU class catalogue, sign in, click 'View All Classes', use the filters or keyword search... Read more →

Intimate Revit Database Exploration with the Python Shell

I keep repeating the importance of being able to explore the Revit database model efficiently to understand what is going on. This can even be important for end users, and is certainly much more so for developers. The first and foremost important tool is obviously RevitLookup. The BipChecker is less important and yet also handy for exploring element parameters. The disadvantage of these two is that they only explore existing values provided by properties and parameters. They do not offer... Read more →

RoomEditorApp Architecture and External Application

A couple of days ago, I wrote about creating the RoomEditorApp GitHub repository for the Revit add-in part of my cloud-based real-time round-trip 2D Revit model editing application on any mobile device and promised to discuss its implementation details anon. Well, the obvious place to start that is by providing an architectural overview, followed by a look at its external application implementation. I'll also mention an issue with unresponsive Idling that I am currently experiencing and hope to resolve, and... Read more →

Determining Room Boundary Segment Generating Element

Today we look at how to determine the neighbouring BIM element of a room boundary segment using the ReferenceIntersector to shoot a ray from the room interior into the bounding element. There should not really be any need to implement such functionality ourselves, because the BoundarySegment class already provides an Element property that should return the BIM element generating the given boundary segment. However, unfortunately, the BoundarySegment.Element may erroneously return null under certain specific conditions, and we present a nice... Read more →

RevitLookup on GitHub and Invitation to Collaborate

I sincerely hope that everybody reading this is aware of the power and importance of RevitLookup, has already installed it, and is an avid user. If you do not know what I am talking about, please read these previous posts on the topic, noting that it was previously named RvtMgdDbg, short for 'Revit managed debugging tool': RvtMgdDbg Fixing RvtMgdDbg for MEP Connectors RvtMgdDbg for Revit 2010 RevitLookup Update Units and RevitLookup Getting Started with the Revit API RevitLookup is currently... Read more →

The Dynamo Revit Unit Test Framework

I have repeatedly underlined the importance of unit testing, and recently presented the RvtUnit project enabling the use of the NUnit unit testing tool for Revit add-ins. The Dynamo team now presents another one; in case you have not already heard of and explored it, Dynamo is an exciting visual programming tool on top of Revit. The best explanation of Dynamo is provided in the Dynamo GitHub repository. Much of the discussion and suggestions for new features etc., is happening... Read more →

Programmatic Custom Add-In External Command Launch

One of the highlights of the Revit 2014 API is the new PostCommand functionality enabling programmatic launching of built-in Revit commands. The Revit SDK includes a new sample demonstrating its use, PostCommandWorkflow. However, that programmatically launches an existing built-in Revit command, not an external command added by a custom application. Furthermore, there was a problem launching custom external commands in the initial release of Revit 2014. Happily, it was fixed by the update release 1, UR1, a fact listed among... Read more →

Handle Your Own Exceptions and Edit Slab Boundaries

Today, we continue yesterday's discussion on the need to handle your own exceptions and mention Joe Ye's solution to edit an existing slab boundary. How to Handle Your Own Exceptions Yesterday we explained why Revit cannot gracefully handle all your exceptions for you and the need to do so yourself in all parts of your Revit add-in, especially the modeless ones that Revit is not even aware of. Better still, of course, is to avoid all modeless activity completely, if... Read more →

Handle Your Own Exceptions

I was under the impression that it should be hard for an add-in to crash Revit. Therefore, it was a surprise yesterday to receive an add-in displaying a form and instructions to reliably cause Revit to terminate unexpectedly with just two or three clicks. The reason is simple, however, as we shall see below, and underlines once again how hard it is to properly implement and handle any modeless activity within a Revit add-in. Important aspects were discussed in the... Read more →