The Building Coder

Wall Profile Command Update

I returned from my time off in July. I dived in deep into the Revit API again to resolve an issue retrieving wall profile curves. Here are some other noteworthy items to keep company with my debugging report – CmdWallProfile update – Access to the IUpdater original value – Getting element dimensions from IFC files – Creative workaround to rotate elevation marker in chunks... Read more →

Moving the Section View Location

Today, let's recap the Revit API discussion forum thread on moving the location of a section vie raised by Danny Bentley, BIM Structural Technician at SOM in California, since Danny very kindly created a video and GitHub repo to demonstrate and share the solution, which will certainly be of use to others as well. By the way, Danny also writes Bentley's Revit Dynamo & API blog on his personal exploration of the Revit API and Dynamo... Read more →

Dynamic Model Updater Tutorial and Wizard Update

The Forge DevCon is over and was a great success. I am really excited to see where our paths will lead us in the near future as we continue to improve the connections between the desktop, Revit and BIM to the cloud and move forward towards freeing our BIM data. I published pointers to all the 'Free your BIM data' resources yesterday. Our main topics today are completely different and purely Revit API related – Updated Visual Studio Revit Add-in Wizards – RevitPythonShell Dynamic Model Updater Tutorial... Read more →

Idling, DMU, DocumentChanged and Need for Regen

Today we have two ever-recurring topics to revisit: a discussion on how to react to a document modification and yet another example of the need for regeneration – Idling and external events, DMU and DocumentChanged – Need for regen in an updater... Read more →

Connecting Desktop and Cloud at AU and DevDays

I am still working on my Autodesk University preparations, and, as always, lots of Revit API cases, both from ADN and Revit discussion forum threads. Let's look at the current state of affairs regarding AU, DevDays, and two of those threads – AU 2015 – Connecting Desktop and Cloud for AEC – Regeneration invalidates all geometry – Autodesk DevDays 2015 and Cloud Accelerator Week... Read more →

Clicks, DMU, Surfaces, FireRating Feedback, Vacation

Let me list some of the topics we discussed today in the Revit API discussion forum before I head off for vacation: Reacting to Windows mouse clicks in Revit. Reacting to changes and setting parameters using DMU or DocumentChanged. Creating a surface in Revit. FireRating in the Cloud feedback. Vacation Time Now. Summer has seriously arrived in Europe, and the weather is really good as well, for a change. I took advantage of it this weekend and climbed the Alphubel... Read more →

Dynamo, Centroid & Volume Calculation Migration Blitz

My French colleague Olivier Bayle, co-author of the French AEC-related Village BIM blog, just re-raised the topic of my old solid centroid and volume calculation add-in. Let's also point out one or two of the numerous topics we tackled in the past few days on the Revit API discussion forum: Graphically displaying the centre of gravity using Dynamo GetCentroid on GitHub and blitz migration across four Revit API releases Finding the orientation of welded pipe outlets How to set the... Read more →

CreateLinkReference Sample Code

The Revit 2014 API introduced a whole bunch of linked RVT document interaction enhancements: Identifying links Obtaining linked documents Link creation Link load and unload Link path type Conversion of geometric references Room tag creation from linked rooms Picking in links They all provide important and useful functionality. Let's take a look at one of them in particular as well as another issue that just cropped up: Conversion of a geometric reference in a linked RVT model Triggering a dynamic... Read more →

Wrangling Revisions with Ruby

Here is a write-up by Andy Holmes, Integration Specialist at OPX design consultancy on a Ruby project that uses a lot of different Revit API features, e.g., revisions on sheet, DMU updaters, Idling and document events, and creating a Ruby 'add-in' by using an application-level macro that has no macros in it. This write-up will soon be made available on the redesigned OPX website, and the code is already freely available on GitHub. Andy adds that Mat is colleague who... Read more →

The Developer Guide is Back on WikiHelp

Let's look at a couple of topics today, in order of decreasing relevance to the Revit API: The Revit API developer's guide on Autodesk help Using Dynamic Update and Extensible Storage in family documents 3D modelling in a browser 3D access to Smithsonian historic artefacts Comet ISON may be visible in daylight soon The Revit API Developer's Guide is Live on Autodesk Help The title says it all. Here is the link to the Revit 2014 API Developers Guide table... Read more →

ADN Training Material for Revit Structure 2014

Here comes the final step of migrating the ADN training material and The Building Coder samples to Revit 2014. The previous steps included: ADN Revit API training labs ADN Revit MEP sample AdnRme The Building Coder samples migration and deprecated API usage cleanup Now we turn to the final component, the ADN training material for Revit Structure, consisting of: Revit Structure training labs Revit Structure link sample NewRstLab RstAvfDmu The ADN Revit Structure Training Labs The ADN Revit Structure training... Read more →

The Champions Roundtable at AU

Tuesday we held a DevLab at AU successfully exploring and resolving a bunch of interesting issues. I hope to get around to documenting and sharing some of them soon, before being overwhelmed by other new exciting stuff. The most pressing priority first, though: sharing the notes from the Revit API roundtable session. My first session at AU was a very pleasant, comfortable and fun one, being a roundtable providing a free-for-all exchange of questions, views and feedback between the audience... Read more →

Updater Queues Multi-Transaction Operation for Idling

I recently pointed out that certain operations require multiple transactions to complete. The dynamic model updater framework DMU, on the other hand, takes complete control over the transaction handling, making it impossible to incorporate such a multi-transaction operation. The updater framework is designed to enable an add-in to incorporate its own additional behaviour into a running transaction to react to changes in the model. The advantage is that the entire operation including the custom add-in behaviour is encapsulated in one... Read more →

DocumentChanged versus Dynamic Model Updater

Here is an interesting little overview and comparison of possibilities to react efficiently to the addition of certain elements to the database. Two easy ways to achieve this are by subscribing to the unspecific DocumentChanged event, or by registering a more specific DMU dynamic model updater. If you subscribe to an event or register an updater, it is also important to keep in mind to unsubscribe or unregister when you are done with it. We discussed both of these repeatedly... Read more →

Avoid Idling

The advice to 'avoid Idling' may sound rather puritanical and a bit on the workaholic side, but I pay it special heed since it comes from Arnošt Löbel, Sr. Principal Engineer in the Revit development team, our resident Revit Idling expert, who already provided many (or almost all?) important insights in this and other related areas: Transaction responsibility Regeneration option best practices Asynchronous API calls and Idling AutoJoinElements Closing the active document and why not to Modeless door lister flaws... Read more →

Lock the Model, e.g. Prevent Deletion

I recently discussed two common and interesting issues with developers which ended up being easily resolved: Locking the state of certain programmatically generated parts of the model to prevent the user from messing them up. Simpler still, prevent deletion of certain elements. Both of these issues can be efficiently addressed using the Failure API. It allows us to Define our own failure conditions. Post pre-defined or custom failures. Handle failures, e.g. suppress unwanted messages or completely replace the standard failure... Read more →

Structural Dynamic Model Update Sample

I am away again on the next leg of my extensive vacations this summer, travelling a bit further afield this time. After one night in a plane and another night in a bus I find myself on the island of Ko Tao in Thailand, where I completed my first open sea water dive in the Japanese Garden with Boris of Alvaro Diving. Since I will be away for the whole month of August, I decided to take the computer with... Read more →

Element Level Events

From my point of view, one of the most important enhancements to the Revit API is the availability of element level events. This allows an application to react to modifications to the database, including tracking changes to individual elements. The Revit 2011 API provides not just one but two separate mechanisms to subscribe to element level notification events: Elements changed event Dynamic model update Elements Changed Event The new Application.DocumentChanged event is raised after every transaction is committed, undone, or... Read more →