The Building Coder

LLM Prompting, RAG Ingestion and New Projects

New projects and progress using LLMs for Revit API – Add-In wizard 2025 – DirectContext3D video – Rvt-App browses BasicFileInfo – Revit API support prompt – pyRevit scripting prompt – Promptimal prompt optimiser – Jupyter Forge viewer – Superhuman multi-player poker – OpenAI o1 hacks and cheats – Writing Doom short film on superintelligence – Cosmos for physical AI – MarkItDown converts files to Markdown – NV-Ingest parses documents for RAG – Gitingest makes GitHub repos LLM-ready – LangSmith intro and LLM for dummies... Read more →

Interactive BIM Notebook, Temporary Graphics and AI

Interactivity and AI keeps growing – BIM interactive notebooks – TemporaryGraphicsManager in action – Classify line styles built-in vs user – The curious case of JavaScript – Magika AI-based file type classification – NotebookLM – AI understands videos better – Airline chatbot invented a refund policy – LLM tokenisation – Diátaxis systematic technical documentation – Amara's law – Talking about progress versus risk... Read more →

3D View, Curved Section and Browser Round-Trip

RevitLookup update, roundtrip interaction between your own browser instance and external command, BIM element location, structural 3D view, curved section view – RevitLookup 2024.0.10 – Calling Revit command from Chromium browser – Chromium browser Js round trip callback – Element location – Create a structural-only 3D view – Creating a curved section in Dynamo – Carbon footprint of AI – Sending data by pigeon – Permaculture farm – The Valley of Code... Read more →

64-Bit Element Ids, Maybe?

We may need to scale up the handling of element id integer values in future, a sample snippet to retrieve schedule headers, a Dynamo book, and a web-based family showroom browser – 64-Bit element ids – Revit schedule title headers – Beyond Dynamo: Python manual for Revit – Web-based family management showroom – Tree view in pure CSS – High-documentation, low-meeting work culture... Read more →

Outer Walls, Lookup Update and Filtering

Freshening up a few of our favourite recurring topics – RevitLookup update – Filtering for multiple built-in categories – Retrieving all outer walls – Zen and the art of React programming... Read more →

Purge Unused and the Autodesk Camel

We return to the topic of programmatic purging and learn the history and latest news about the venerable Autodesk Camel – Purge unused using eTransmitForRevitDB.dll – The Autodesk office Camel – Node.js reference architecture... Read more →

Installer Asset, FormIt and Quaternions

Notes on FormIt and its JavaScript API, the new automatically generated RevitLookup MSI installer asset, transformations and quaternions – FormIt API and geographical context – RevitLookup MSI installer asset – Transform and quaternions... Read more →

New Analytical Model API

Important news coming for structural developers, further development in RevitLookup, notes on extensible storage and JavaScript – New Analytical Model API – Praise for modeless RevitLookup – Benchmarking generic Any versus Count – Escape RevitLookup – Use extensible storage carefully – jQuery is widespread but outdated... Read more →

Addin File, Learning Python and IFC.js

Today, we look at the add-in manifest, learning Python and Dynamo, the status of the Revit Python shell and a useful stand-alone IFC viewer – Personalised add-in manifest – Learning Python and Dynamo – Quo vadis, RevitPythonShell? – IFC.js... Read more →

Model Group and DA4R Language in Forge

Today, let's look at two Japanese Forge questions, on model groups and the Revit engine language, another RevitLookup enhancement, and, while we're talking about languages, a surprising scientific discovery on naked mole-rat dialects – Retrieving Revit model group in Forge – Specifying the Revit UI language in DA4R – RevitLookup supports ScheduleDefinition GetField – Naked mole-rats speak in community dialects – Van Gogh 360... Read more →

Forge at AU and Open Source Property Access

Today, we take a look at a fix for the RvtVa3c custom exporter and a Forge issue related to Revit property access – Pull metadata from RVT in BIM 360 – Forge at AU class recordings – RvtVa3c updated and issues fixed... Read more →

Onbox, DirectContext Jig and No CDN

Autumnal topics for this week – The Onbox cross-platform Revit API framework – DirectContext rectangle jig – Creating reports from AutoCAD and Revit – RevitApiDocs statistics – Stop using JavaScript CDN... Read more →

DA4R I/O, Logging, Updater and Custom Properties

Forge Design Automation for Revit or DA4R is really starting to take off – Display custom properties – Upgrade Revit file version – Logging – Input and output files – CesiumJS open source 3D mapping – Banksy's wife hates home office – Virtual Forge accelerator... Read more →

Panel Schedule Slots and Changing Room Level

An amazing solution to move existing rooms between levels while retaining all their information, some thoughts on managing slots in panel schedules, and a couple of useful JavaScript debugging console hints – Moving rooms to other levels – Slots in panel schedules – JavaScript debugging console commands... Read more →

DevCon Europe and Typepad versus Google Search

I am making final travel preparations for the Forge accelerator in Rome next week, and need to start preparing for DevCon Europe as well. As always, when you have no time to spare, something else urgent cropped up as well requiring immediate attention – Forge DevCon Europe coming – Hijacking Typepad search input for Google site search... Read more →

Changing Text Colour

Here are some notes on changing text colour and a nice node.js web scraping tutorial – Changing text colour via the text note type – Web scraping using node.js... Read more →

Purge and Detecting an Empty View

One topic that keeps cropping up is how to purge different kinds of Revit database elements – Purge – Detecting empty views – JavaScript debugging tips – Collection from the past... Read more →

Work Half, AKS Opener, RvtFader and ForgeFader

I completed a first revision of the ForgeFader project, bringing it up to par with RvtFader. It is pretty cool seeing the same functionality implemented in two such different ways, on completely different platforms, using different tools. Alan Seidel shared another exciting Revit add-in. First and not least, another exciting topic for me personally is switching to half-time work – Work half – AKS Opener – Video – GitHub repository – Why? – Specific interest – RvtFader – ForgeFader... Read more →

WTA Mech and TTT for Provision for Voids

Today is the last day of the Forge accelerator, and I am still working on the ForgeFader project. The topics today are mainly related to Revit, though – Google prettifier on GitHub – WTA mechanical family placement add-in – Provision for void – What is a provision for void? – Creating a provision for void... 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 →

Happy New Year, C++, Crypto and Content

Happy New Year to one and all! I had a great break over Christmas and New Year and hope you did as well. I continued checking into the Revit API discussion forum throughout and had several interesting discussions with the busy souls hanging out there – C++, audio, crypto and security – Prayer of the Mothers – Avoid remaking CAD content... Read more →

1500 Posts, DevDay and Storing a Dictionary

Welcome to The Building Coder post number 1500! I returned safe and sound to Europe from Autodesk University 2016 in Las Vegas and recuperated from jetlag over the weekend. Today I discuss upcoming events, new simple samples to embed a Forge viewer in a web page or blog post, and strategies to embed a dictionary into the Revit database – DevDay Europe in Munich – AEC Symposium in New York – Embedding a Forge viewer – Storing a dictionary in the Revit database... Read more →

Retrieving and Broadcasting the Roomedit3dv3 Translation

As I discussed last week, the translation tool emits info about its activity via socket.io. Now I want to pick up that information higher up, in the viewer transform extension, and relay it to the node.js web server or broadcast it to the rest of the world. The existing sample call to emit is inside onTxChange, which is called on each mouse move. We do not need to track each mouse movement in such fine detail... Read more →

Roomedit3d Live Real-Time Socket.io BIM Update

I completed the first running version of my roomedit3d project connecting BIM and the cloud demonstrating two cool possibilities to enhance interaction with the View and Data API – A viewer extension enabling interactive model modification, i.e., translation of selected elements – Real-time communication of the modification back to the source CAD system using a direct socket.io connection to broadcast from the web server to any number of desktop clients... Read more →

The Responsive Building Coder

I suffer from acute and chronic responsiveness. That is unpleasant for me, although hopefully pleasing and useful for the rest of humanity. What I mean is, I tend to answer other people's questions and needs before taking care of my own. I am forever trying to stop doing that. One of these days, I certainly will. The topic I refer to above is not me, personally, though, but The Building Coder blog. Nowadays, web pages should be based on a... 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 →

A Dockable Web Browser

The Revit API supports add-ins defining their own dockable panels, similar to the built-in Revit project browser and element properties panels. Here is The Building Coder topic list of Dockable Panel related discussions: What's New in the Revit 2014 API A Simpler Dockable Panel Sample RevitRubyShell for Revit 2014 Revit 2014 Update Release 1 Open MEP Connector Warning Revit 2014 Update Release 2 I have repeatedly been asked bow to host a web browser in a dockable panel, and this... Read more →

The Building Coder wishes you a Merry Christmas!

Christmas arrived already, and here I am, still wrapping up for the winter break. Let me share a couple of Christmas greetings from my friends and colleagues in the Autodesk Developer Network ADN and elsewhere: Kevin Vandecar Balaji Ramamoorthy Jaime Rosales Duque Claude Karfiol Aaron Lu The Building Coder wishes you a Merry Christmas! Final Words from Roland Zelles and Victor Hugo Kevin Vandecar Happy holidays to everyone! Have a great time off! I had a chance to learn something... Read more →

Back from The Conference Tour and Wrapping Up

Things have been a bit hectic the last couple of weeks, just like every December, what with Autodesk University and the DevDays Conferences. I am still cleaning up various open issues and looking forward to settling down into Christmas real soon now. Here are a couple of items to share from the last few days: AU 2014 classes online Family type preview images InfraWorks 360 REST API Moscow DevDays, Meetups and Hackathon Milano JavaScript Meetup I Love 3D More Wrapping... Read more →

Functional Programming, View and Data API Demos

I spent Monday evening at the interesting meetup workshop on functional programming in JavaScript led by basel.js meetup group regular Lukasz Gintowt. All available seats were taken with 20 participants. Follow the link above to get to all the interesting material we looked at. It reminded me somewhat of the early days of AutoCAD programming, where the more elegant AutoLISP solutions tended towards functional programming... Remember car, cdr, mapcar, apply and lambda? Basically, that is part of what we talked... Read more →

Berlin Hackathon Results, 3D Viewer and Web News

We completed the Berlin hackathon last weekend, and many other noteworthy and exciting things are going on, concerning the Revit API, the 3D web viewers, web services and more: Berlin hackathon projects and winners Avoid unnecessary unit conversion 3D viewer news AutoCAD as a web service Collada STL ADVA export settings RvtVa3c update Berlin Hackathon Projects and Winners The Berlin hackathon completed and the winners were announced last weekend. I took notes of four teams' project presentations: US4, us four... Read more →

Berlin Hackathon Begin

I arrived safe and sound for the Berlin hackathon. Topics for today, three on the Revit API and three not: Traffic jams and too many cars Intro to functional programming in JavaScript Aligning multiple elements Render to PDF Displaying transient graphics in a preview control Berlin hackathon beginning Traffic Jams and Too Many Cars Yesterday, on a Friday afternoon – bad timing – my colleague Peter Schlipf and I travelled from Darmstadt to Berlin by car, about 600 km. It... Read more →

Autodesk View and Data API Notes and Samples

Here is a summary of my notes from three presentations on the Autodesk View and Data API given by Cyrille Fauvel and Philippe Leefsma, in the two introductory workshops at HackZurich on Friday evening, October 10 and at HackaBxl in Brussels on October 17. Philippe also presented a very nice and absolutely minimal basic viewer sample in node.js demonstrating how to implement a private web service to obtain the authorisation token without exposing your key and secret in your JavaScript... Read more →

PoiPointer, View Depth Override and Destination BIM

Three topics for today: Brussels hackathon and PoiPointer View depth override Destination BIM contest Brussels Hackathon and PoiPointer I returned from the Hackathon Open Data Brussels that I mentioned last Friday, promoting the use of the huge amounts of open data, cf. this impressive list of available data sets. As said, I participated in the PoiPointer project, with a goal of implementing an app pointing out points of interest of various categories in Brussels, e.g. museums, cultural places, monuments, sculptures,... Read more →

Hackzurich, Fluelisee, Memento, Jobs and Books

Cool topics for today: Zurich hackathon projects and winner: Immersive Solitude and relaxation at the Flueseeli Lake Project Memento and a webinar More job opportunities My favourite books Zurich Hackathon Projects and Winner: Immersive The Zurich hackathon completed with 101 new projects submitted. The winner, both overall and of the Autodesk 'best 3D app' challenge, is Immersive (GitHub repository). Congratulations! It uses regular smartphones and inexpensive devices like Google Cardboard to create an immersive stereoscopic virtual reality impression. Scenes are... Read more →

Three.js AEC Viewer Progress on Two Fronts

Along with our everyday workload, my colleagues and I are busy playing with the View and Data API and the powerful WebGL based viewer that is on the verge of release. Meanwhile, very significant progress has also been made on the public domain and open source vA3C three.js based AEC viewer. The Autodesk View and Data API WebGL Based Viewer I mentioned that I presented the Autodesk View and Data API and viewer technology at the July basel.js meetup. My... Read more →

Basel.js Meetup View and Data API Demo

I am busy right now answering Revit API cases as usual, and preparing my Basel.js meetup View and Data API presentation for tomorrow evening. One of the cases caused me to add yet another iteration to last Friday's note on how to empower yourself to search for an answer on the Internet. Also, before I get to the technical stuff, let me mention that I went climbing again last weekend, after a long break, and in spite of the rather... Read more →

Refresh Element Graphics Display

I talked about how to refresh element graphics display back in 2011, and it seems like the time has come to revisit that topic. After that, I also want to mention an approach to determine the height of a schedule in a sheet and how to avoid running a web server. Refresh Element Graphics Display Afshin just submitted a comment about this on replacing an Idling event handler by an external event, and another developer asked something similar today, so... Read more →

Technical Summit Day 1 and Removing RVT References

Yesterday was the first day of the Autodesk internal Technical Summit in Toronto, and pretty exciting. Also, I just had a note from Norway on how to remove references that looks worthwhile sharing. So here is a list of today's multifaceted topics: Recent rendering research JavaScript optimisation Spherical harmonics Web app packages Removing RVT links Technical Summit Day 1 This being an internal meeting, I cannot talk openly about all the topics covered. A couple of titbits that I found... Read more →

Room Editor with Handlebars and Refresh

Somehow, I have a much harder time documenting my JavaScript exploits than my Revit API ones. The Autodesk Tech Summit is taking place in Toronto next week, and I am making those potentially disastrous last minute changes that every sane person avoids at all costs. Automatically Refresh on Save One really important thing that I fixed now required just one single line of code: The browser display of the model is automatically refreshed when you press 'Save'. I remember wondering... Read more →

Updated SDK, DevTV, BIM 360 News and Viewer

A whole bunch of updates, with the last one mentioned being the most exciting by far: Revit SDK Update Release 2 DevTV Introduction to Revit 2015 API Programming DevDay Online – BIM 360 Glue DevDay Online – BIM 360 Field Sneak Peek at the New Autodesk 360 Viewer Revit SDK Update Release 2 The Revit SDK provided on the Revit Developer Centre has been updated again to include the complete add-in manager, which was lacking in the last update labelled... Read more →

RvtVa3c Assembly Resolver

One of the RvtVa3c implementation aspects that I mentioned was the fact that we ran into some problems using the standard .NET Microsoft System.Runtime.Serialization.Json.DataContractJsonSerializer class and chose to replace it with the more reliable Json.NET component instead. Serialisation is required by our early decision to define and generate the three.js JSON file format by representing all the required objects, their properties and relationships by a set of C# classes. We instantiate and populate these classes in our custom exporter context... Read more →

RvtVa3c – Revit Va3c Generic AEC Viewer JSON Export

When you read this, I will already be sitting on the plane back from New York to Switzerland. Before leaving, though, I wanted to add some more explanations on the extremely fruitful work we accomplished this weekend. I am very happy and grateful that we spontaneously formed such a wonderful team and worked together so enthusiastically, pleasantly and effectively. Most of all, I enjoyed the companionship, competence and professionality of my closest teammate Matt Mason of Imaginit Technologies. In the... Read more →

AEC Hackathon – From the Midst of the Fray

The New York AEC Symposium and Hackathon is nearing its conclusion. The end and final result demos are scheduled for Sunday noon, coming up all too soon. A bunch of us have been working non-stop through the night since Saturday morning. It is now early Sunday morning, and coffee is eagerly awaited by all. I am participating in a pretty big project to implement a general-purpose 3D AEC model viewer. It is designed to consume models defined in three.js JSON... Read more →

Room Editor Element Properties and the Async Trap

I made significant progress with my Tech Summit preparations, in spite of trying to "dance at many weddings", as the Germans say, i.e. juggle too many balls at once, what with new technologies, meetups, hackathons, AU preparations, support cases, email requests, blogging and all the normal everyday admin work that we are all confronted with. I originally had plans for three main enhancements of the room editor: Display sheet, views and floor plan geometry Revit add-in part implemented, web part... Read more →

HTML5 for Teaching Maths and Physics

Good morning and welcome to this new week. I am pretty busy right now, so I will just recommend taking a look at something not related to the Revit API: Mathigon, a stupendously beautiful interactive didactical mathematical eBook making advanced mathematical ideas accessible to the general public. Mathematics has never been so colourful! Very impressive use of HTML5, JavaScript, etc. It reminds me of the JavaScript physics sample simulating ripping a curtain of tearable cloth that I mentioned last spring,... Read more →

CouchDB Implementation and GitHub Repository

I more or less completed the research for my cloud-based round-trip 2D Revit model editing project. I'll describe some parts of that, and also address Three aspects of life and programming Room editor navigation Nested asynchronous database call-back functions Roomedit – my first GitHub project Debugging JavaScript with Firebug Screen snapshots on mobile devices Open source components used by Autodesk Retrieve slabs above specific walls Lazy, Simple and Perfect You will like the first slide of my upcoming tech summit... Read more →

Source Code Formatting and Google Prettifier

As you know, I format my source code to pretty short lines in order to avoid having them truncated by the narrow blog post view column. I also like to present the code colour coded, as it appears in Visual Studio and many other programmer editors, to make it more readable. For .NET code, I use CopySourceAsHtml inside of Visual Studio for that. I tried using other tools outside of Visual Studio instead in the past, including building my own,... Read more →

My Cloud-Based 2D Editor Implementation and Status

Continuing the research and development for my cloud-based round-trip 2D Revit model editing project, here are some issues I tackled since my last report: Updated project description and status CouchDB SVG editor implementation Home page: list all models and select one Updated Project Description I originally thought I would be implementing three cooperating components: the Revit add-in, a cloud-based data repository, and a browser-based JavaScript SVG viewer and editor client for the mobile devices. After struggles with and resolution of... Read more →