The Building Coder

BIM 360, Docs, Issues, Forge, DevDay and Accelerator

Good news on BIM 360 itself, Docs, Issues, and high time to prepare for the DevDay conference and accelerator next week – BIM 360 and C4R Success Story – Forge Web Services – BIM 360 Docs – The Forge Issues Service API – 24 Forge DevCon Presentation Recordings – Forge Hackathon Webinar Series Recordings – DevDay Europe and Forge Accelerator in Munich... Read more →

Forge Webinar Series and Roomedit Starting Points

I am still in the initial steps of preparing for my upcoming presentations on connecting the desktop and the cloud and exploring more Forge sample starting points. At the same time, we are in the midst of the Forge and AppStore online hackathon webinars, with one down and nine more to come – More Roomedit3dv3 starting points – Forge webinar series... Read more →

.NET Runtime Security Blocks External Command

Here is a Revit API add-in installation issue that came up in various forms in the past and now again in the context of Windows 10 configuration: I have a plugin that has been working fine for all pre-Windows 10 platforms. Under Win10, the DLL loads into Revit.exe correctly. The add-in manifest contents are displayed correctly in the Revit UI. When I issue the command, however, nothing happens... Read more →

Entitlement API, Trial Period and Floating License

I had an exciting weekend with ski tours under challenging weather conditions around Oberalppass, Sedrun-Andermatt, skiing on Piz Maler on Friday, piste in a snow storm on Saturday, and climbing Piz Cavradi via the Maighelshuette Sunday morning in splendid conditions, with 50 cm of fresh powder snow for the descent. Here is today's Revit news for you – Trial period, floating license and the Entitlement API – SketchUp Plugin for Grevit – EMEA ADN team meeting in London... Read more →

BIM 360 Docs, Add-In Folders, Stallman and Abc

I am going to the University of Bern this afternoon to listen to Richard Stallman speak For A Free Digital Society. Here are some other recent and not-so-recent topics – BIM 360 Docs – Richard Stallman in Switzerland – Is the abc conjecture proven? – Add-In Folders – BIM 360 Docs is the new Autodesk platform for construction document management. It provides web services to ensure that the entire project team is always building from the correct version of documents, plans, and models... Read more →

Accelerator, AppStore, Disqus and AEC DevBlog Articles

Lots of things happening, making it challenging to find time for my Milano trip preparations: Accelerator in Prague One million AppStore downloads Responsive blogs now use Disqus comments Great series of AEC DevBlog articles: PipeScheduleType is missing for a RTE file Reading ASHRAE Table information from elements Reading Loss Methods available on Revit MEP Creating dimensioning between two detail components Placing a FamilyInstance on a wall face How to create a coloured detail line in family? How to create revision... Read more →

Revit API Task Solving Approach, Success, AppStore...

Let's start the week with these topics: General approach to a Revit API programming task Revit API and AppStore success Architecture and AEC market disruption Autodesk 2016 AEC products Africa is really big, man We start off with something Revit API related, then move on to the Revit API and AppStore in general, architecture and AEC in general, and an interesting aspect of the world having almost nothing whatsoever to do with Revit or AEC at all. General Approach to... Read more →

Duplicate Add-In GUID and Driving Revit from Outside

Lots of stuff going on; I have a hard time keeping up. Due to popular request, I updated the RvtVa3c readme. I am continuing to answer issues on the Revit API discussion forum as well as ADN cases. I am struggling to find time for The 3D Web Coder... One ADN case that I answered fits in very nicely with a forum suggestion provided by Arnošt Löbel. Here are my topics for now: Duplicate add-in GUID Driving Revit from outside... Read more →

From Hack to App – OBJ Mesh Import to DirectShape

I already took a couple of looks at the DirectShape element in the past: DirectShape Performance and Minimum Size DirectShape versus Families, Category and Texture A much deeper investigation was prompted by Eric Boehlke of truevis.com, knowledgeable in architecture and above all in photogrammetry. Eric visited the DevHack at Autodesk University in December 2014. Together, right there and then, we put together a prototype Revit add-in that reads an OBJ file and creates a DirectShape element from it. Eric continued... Read more →

DevDays Conference at Autodesk University

Today we held the DevDay Conference at AU. Exciting stuff. Before getting to that, let me add one little Revit API exploration that I performed much later in the day, getting closer to midnight, after the ADN party; prompted by my colleague Katsuaki Takamizawa in Japan, I migrated the old Revit 2012 GeometryPartsAnalyzer add-in analysing detailed part layer geometry by splitting selected walls into parts in a temporary transaction using PartUtils.CreateParts to Revit 2015. GeometryPartsAnalyzer retrieving detailed wall layer geometry... Read more →

Hackathon, the Climate and my CO2 Footprint

Last week, I attended an interesting and rather sobering presentation on sustainability by Niko Paech entitled Befreiung vom Überfluss – liberation from excessive abundance – the German title is shorter and sounds better, for a change. That prompted me to have a look at my own CO2 footprint. This just happened to coincide more or less with the People's Climate March taking place simultaneously all around the world, including ten thousand participands in Berlin, Geneva and Zurich. Before getting to... Read more →

Job Opportunities, Events, Plans and Planes

Lots of stuff is going on and we have an exciting heavy duty weekend ahead of us: ADN API evangelist job opportunities Autodesk Exchange Apps hackathon this weekend October events and travel in Europe Comparing a plane and a face ADN API Evangelist Job Opportunities I recently mentioned an ADN API evangelist job opening in San Francisco. We are actually looking for other talented new people to join the ADN DevTech team as well. The main openings right now are... Read more →

Autodesk Exchange Apps Hackathon

I am having a nice break. Here is a little news item on an exciting and profitable upcoming event to let you know I am still alive. Let's start with a brief historical flashback: Autodesk Exchange Apps Portathon September 13-14, 2013 Last year, we held the first Autodesk Exchange App Portathon: Earn $100 submitting an Autodesk Exchange app Exchange App Videos and DevTV YouTube Channel Portathon Reminder Cloud and AppStore Usage Growth Portathon Day One Portathon Day Two This year,... Read more →

AEC Hackathon, DevGuide URL and AppStore Webinar

As mentioned, I registered for the upcoming AEC Symposium and Hackathon in New York this coming weekend, May 16-18. You can learn more about both at http://core.thorntontomasetti.com/aec-technology-symposium-2014, and especially check out the interesting projects proposed for the AEC Hackathon. I'm looking forward very much to that and would be happy to meet you there! Revit API Developer Guide Shortcut URL The Revit API Developer Guide shortcut URL has changed and is now www.autodesk.com/revitapi-help. To my utter shock and chagrin, the... Read more →

AppStore Advice and Zooming in a Preview Control

Let's look at another quick PreviewControl question. First, however, please note: Portathon Day 2 Today is the second day of the Portathon! Earn $100 Submitting an Autodesk Exchange App Exchange App Videos Portathon reminder and video Cloud and AppStore usage growth Everything went well yesterday, and today we continue. Last chance to earn your hundred bucks! Advice on Submitting an App to the Exchange Store While we are on the topic of the exchange store and Portathon event, let me... Read more →

MultiReferenceAnnotation Example

Miguel Angel Alanis asked on the Autodesk Revit API discussion forum for an example of making use of the new MultiReferenceAnnotation. I put together this blog post to make sure the solution is easily found. First, a note on something more imminent: Portathon Day 1 Today is the first day of the Portathon! Earn $100 Submitting an Autodesk Exchange App Exchange App Videos Portathon reminder and video Cloud and AppStore usage growth Wish us all luck and much success, please.... Read more →

Cloud and AppStore Usage Grows – Portathon Reminder

As you know, we are promoting the use of the Autodesk Exchange AppStore and cloud and mobile technologies. We have the Portathon coming up end of next week, and you can earn $100 right away, just by submitting an exchange app before it ends: Earn $100 submitting an Autodesk Exchange App Exchange App tutorial videos Portathon reminder and video announcement Regarding the cloud and mobile side of things, I published my cloud-based 2D Revit model editor (live tech summit recording),... Read more →

ADN Training Material on GitHub and Portathon Reminder

My colleague Gopinath Taget and I completed the migration of the ADN Revit API training material in preparation for the Sydney Revit API training, even though the training actually ended up based on completely new spontaneus project ideas from the participants instead, making it more fun, challenging and creative. Anyway, here are some steps of the migration path and pointers to more detailed information: Migrating the ADN training labs to Revit 2014 The ADN sample AdnRme for Revit MEP 2014... Read more →

Exchange App Videos and DevTV YouTube Channel

I recently mentioned the Exchange App Portathon event at which you can Earn $100 Submitting an App. To further support and simplify this task, my colleagues Mikako Harada and Gopinath Taget have lately been busy creating a series of videos showing exactly how to publish apps to the Autodesk Exchange Store for Revit. The videos are also accessible from the Autodesk DevTV YouTube channel as part of the Publish Your Revit Apps to Autodesk Exchange Store playlist. Topic Length (min:sec)... Read more →

Earn $100 Submitting an Autodesk Exchange App

I arrived safe and sound in Australia and will write about the Sydney Revit API training soon. Before getting to that, here is a short note to highlight the exciting possibility of earning a cool $100 by submitting an app to the Autodesk Exchange store, and the Portathon that we are hosting on September 13-14 to support this effort. Exchange App Portathon You cannot find the time to publish your app on the Autodesk Exchange Apps store? Good news for... Read more →

Exchange App Webinar and Travel Plans

Register and mark your calendar now for this upcoming webcast on making the most of the Autodesk Exchange Apps store: "How developers can ride and profit from the Autodesk Exchange Apps adoption wave" There are currently 15 Autodesk Exchange Apps stores. They represent a huge opportunity for developers to gain direct access to the growing number of Autodesk customers using Exchange Apps. In just one year they have enjoyed over one million visits and over 250,000 downloads. With comments like... Read more →