The Building Coder

Exploring ARM, ChatGPT, Nairobi and the TSP

I am still in Nairobi, Kenya, getting to know the lay of the land and team here, as well as setting up my new computer; meanwhile, OpenAI ChatGPT is making global waves and first explorative steps are being made to use it with the Revit API – Outings in Nairobi – ChatGPT in Kiswahili – for music and poetry mimicry – for Revit API – for Revit interaction – teaching about the birds and the bees – limitations and improvement – acrostic poem – VS2022 on MacBook Pro M1 with Parallels – Chasing the travelling salesman... Read more →

ACC Summit, Model Properties, Copy Relationships

We take a look at maintaining relationships between Revit elements when copying, at ACC, the Autodesk Construction Cloud, and its APIs – ACC Model Properties API – ACC integration partner summit – Maintain relationships copying elements – Unsplash with free images... Read more →

Design Automation API for Revit Going Public

The hugely popular Design Automation APIs for Revit, Inventor, and 3ds Max will be officially released to the public on October 28. In a completely different vein, I found a very simple solution to download photos from an Android phone to the Mac – Public Forge Design Automation APIs – What can you do with Design Automation API for Revit? – Easy solution to transfer photos from Android to Mac – Gadgets in 1990 vs. 2018... Read more →

Element Identifiers in RVT, IFC, NW and Forge

A recent internal discussion clarifies Revit element identification in Forge, Navisworks and IFC, some new thoughts on consciousness versus AI, and a couple of topics of personal interest – Two Nice summer mountain hikes – Revit element ids in Forge via Navisworks and IFC – Some aspects of consciousness may be beyond reach of ai – Trees might help against global warming – Holidays ahead... Read more →

Slow, Slower Still and Faster Filtering

Today I discuss (once again) an important performance aspect of Revit element filtering, a Python script for tagging JPEG images with EXIF data, prompted by a recent ski tour, and three other interesting topics that caught my eye – Slow, slower still and faster filtering – Python JPEG EXIT filename tagging – TED talks and population growth – Objective reality does not exist – Artificial intelligence judge... Read more →

Forum Français and Treeview Performance

As usual, I have been much too active in the Revit API discussion forum recently and worked too little for my taste here in the blog. Here are some of the recent items that I want to share plus a few pictures from my latest mountain outing – Marat's shapka ushanka and Balmer's Graetli – Naveen is a top solution author now – Revit et BIM en Français – Tree view performance optimisation – Underture... Read more →

Five Secrets of Revit API Coding

Joshua Lumley pointed out the recording he made for his BILT submission on five secrets of Revit API C# coding. Before getting to that, here are a couple of pictures from this last weekend's mountain tour – Ruessigrat, Brotmesser and Matthorn – Five secrets of Revit API Coding... Read more →

Vacation and Multi-Version Revit Add-In Template

As I already mentioned, I am taking lots of time off in July. This is just a note to let you know I am alive, well and happy, currently in Brassac in Occitanie in southern France, on my way to practice awareness, care and attentiveness in the Buddhist monastery Plum Village near Bordeaux. On the road, I'll just share this quick note from a comment by Zhmayev Yaroslav on multi-targeting Revit versions using TargetFrameworks – Multi-Version Revit Add-In Template... Read more →

Creating Face Wall and Mass Floor

I went on my first ski tour this season... lots of interesting issues in the Revit API discussion forum... a Japanese case on programmatically generating a mass floor, enabling us to mention yet another hitherto unmentioned Revit API usility class, MassInstanceUtils... Please tell me if a method exists to generate a mass floor using the API... Read more →

Forge DevCon in Las Vegas

My plans changed and I will not be visiting Las Vegas this year after all. The most important participants in the Revit API session that I was preparing to host are the members of the Revit development team, anyway. I very strongly urge you to not miss the chance to attend both AU and the preceding Forge developer conference, though – Forge DevCon highlights and reasons to join your peers – Sneak peek at the Forge DevCon keynotes – Visit the exclusive Forge DevCon village on Monday – Get one on one with Amazon Web Services – Decide now... Read more →

AU Recording, Books, Education and Units

I completed the presentation and recording of my presentation yesterday on Rational BIM programming using Revit and Forge at Autodesk University in Darmstadt, Germany – Rational BIM Programming recording – Pleasant walks in the Odenwald – Some of my favourite recent books – Where to continue after finishing school – New AlphaGo Zero is completely self-taught – TotalPressureLoss units... Read more →

Modeless Form Keep Revit Focus and On Top

I am back from a nice break in Italy. Next, I am attending the European Autodesk University in Darmstadt, Germany. Meanwhile, solutions for two issues on keeping Revit focused and on top when working with a modeless form, and an important heads-up warning from the Revit development team on a future change coming. We here at Ideate Software are seeing what appears to be Revit add-in ownership issues with Revit's main window. The behavior has changed between Revit 2017 and Revit 2018 for modeless add-ins. For Revit 2018, when a modeless add-in is closed, Revit does not retain is focus; it is pushed behind another application... Read more →

ADN Xtra Labs and API Changes since Revit 2013

As usual, I am answering Revit API cases and maintaining the documentation and training material. What I really should be doing is preparing my upcoming class for Autodesk University in Darmstadt. Here are some of the things I dealt with today – API changes from Revit 2013 to Revit 2017 – ADN Xtra Revit API Labs for Revit 2018 – Access to modified combo box setting... Read more →

Distances, Switches, Kiss-ing and a Dino

I continued my activity in the Revit API discussion forum and had lots of interesting discussions there. One recent thread caused me to bring up a favourite topic of mine, on keeping things simple. I'll also mention two other less recent recurring questions – Distance between two points in a specific direction – Revit command-line switches – Keeping things simple with the Revit API – Dino pondering lengthening days... Read more →

Determining Views Showing an Element

The topic of how to determine all views in which a given element is visible has been discussed several times on the past, and a couple of viable solutions have been suggested. However, for large projects, performance becomes an issue. This question was raised again by Abba Lustgarten and Erik Eriksson in the Revit API discussion forum thread on finding views in which an element is visible (by geometry or actual visibility), with Erik sharing a View extension method IntersectsBoundingBox that helps alleviate the performance impact... Read more →

AU Day One, Keynote and DevLab

Today Autodesk University started up for real. For me personally, the morning was occupied with booth preparation, the exciting keynote presentations and the afternoon DevLab Q&A – Autodesk University Keynote – Jeff Kowalski, CTO – Machine learning – Generative design – Virtual reality – Robotic systems – Exciting times – Guest Speakers Christian Benimana and Anna Nixon – Carl Bass, CEO – DevLab – Forge Pricing – Cl3ver, Chaos Group and V-Ray... Read more →

DevDay Conference at Autodesk University

Yesterday afternoon, I checked into the Venetian hotel for AU and the preceding DevDay conference – Desert day and night versus hotel morning – DevDay general session and Forge – AEC breakout – Revit API news, roadmap and idea station – BIM 360 – InfraWorks 360 and Civil 3D – Forge's first birthday party... Read more →

How to Create a New Line Style

I arrived safe and sound in Munich to provide support for the one-week Forge accelerator workshop at the Autodesk offices here – Arrival in Munich and Hotel Schlicker – Official pictures from RTC in Porto – Art of README – What is Join? – How to Create a Line Style... Read more →

Revit API Connecting Desktop and Cloud @ TUDa

The RTC Revit Technology Conference Europe and my stay here in Porto is nearing its end – Wrapping up in Porto – Connecting BIM and Cloud @ TUDa – Creating a Revit add-in with one single click – Connecting Revit and Forge in 55 minutes... Read more →

Token Expiry and Online Revit API Docs

My vacation ended and I am now in Porto, putting the last touches to my presentation material for the RTC Revit Technology Conference Europe and the ISEPBIM Forge and BIM workshops at ISEP, Porto University. Here are today's Revit API and Forge news items – Updated Online Revit API Docs – Handling Forge token expiry... Read more →

Exporting RVT BIM to JSON, WebGL and Forge

I am happy to say that I returned safe and sound to Switzerland from my travels for the Forge DevCon and Cloud Accelerator. Since then, I rounded off the hierarchical MEP system exporter to a JSON graph for interaction with it in the Forge viewer, worked on an update of the ADN JSON mesh exporter and helped my son Christopher getting started with C# scripting to drive audio effects for professional spatialized sound design for computer games – More TraverseAllSystems updates – CustomExporterAdnMeshJson updates – ADN JSON Exporter Alternatives to View RVT in WebGL – vA3C – The Forge Viewer – Getting started with Unity C# scripting – Opendesk at Autodesk Forge Accelerator Barcelona... Read more →

Traversing and Exporting all MEP System Graphs

The Forge DevCon last week completed successfully. I had a full body 3D scan created there and used sed to flip the axes of the resulting OBJ mode. This week, I am sitting in the Autodesk offices at One Market in San Francisco, supporting the fourth Cloud Accelerator. One of the projects we are working on is from the University of Southern California to interact with Revit MEP systems in the Forge viewer. That requires traversing the MEP systems in the Revit model to store, recreate and represent their graph structures in the viewer – Revit MEP System Traversal – TraverseAllSystems Revit Add-in – Download – To do – Thanks to Mustafa Salaheldin... 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 →

Freeing Your BIM Data and Roomedit3d Forge OAuth

The Forge DevCon took off yesterday with a big bang, as you have certainly heard by now. The 3D Web Fest evening event was also very cool. Today is the big day for me, with my presentation on Freeing your BIM Data coming up this afternoon. Here are all the roomedit3dv2 resources for you to explore at your own leisure – Detailed discussion – Slide deck – Demo recording – Source code – Live test... Read more →

Highlighting Revit Rooms in the Forge Viewer

I am leaving Athens today. The Athens Forge meetup and web server workshop at The Cube went well. Now it is full steam ahead towards the Forge DevCon in San Francisco week after next. Not to forget the 3D Web Fest on June 15, in parallel with Forge DevCon, showcasing the best of the 3D web as live performance art with a catered reception in a film festival atmosphere... Read more →

My Mac Died and I am Alive in Greece

I had a couple of eventful days – My Mac crashed – Setting up the new Mac – Recompiling the samples connecting BIM and cloud – Travel to Athens – Athens Forge Meetup – Athens Forge Workshop... Read more →

Idea Station and TextNote Bounding Box

Thank you for your questions during the Autodesk answer day. I am still busy supporting the Barcelona Forge Accelerator participants in the Autodesk office. I am also working on a very exciting new project connecting BIM and the cloud using a direct socket.io connection to communicate changes back to the desktop, instead of the inefficient polling mechanism I implemented in previous projects. Once again, it consists of two parts, the node.js web server and View and Data API handler and the C# .NET Revit API add-in client – Revit Idea Station – TextNote Bounding Box Requires Regen – Regeneration Performance Benchmark... Read more →

Forge Accelerator, DevCon and Answer Day

In case you wonder why I am so quiet: I am busy in Barcelona at the Forge Accelerator in the Autodesk office in Poble Nou. Furthermore, I am preparing for the Forge DevCon in San Francisco next month. As if that was not enough, on Wednesday, I am also participating in the worldwide Autodesk Answer day, taking place from 6am to 6pm Pacific Time. This one will be the biggest yet, focusing on seven products: 3ds Max, AutoCAD, Civil3D, Inventor, Maya, Revit, and Vault... Read more →

Pi Day, Meeting, Ski Tour, Revit Server Bar Separator

You may be surprised to hear that today is Pi Day :-) – as well as the birthday of my S.O.S. or significant other's son. I had an exciting week with the ADN team meeting in London followed by a ski tour during the weekend. To round this off, I'll also tuck in one little Revit API item here for you – Happy Pi Day and Dan's birthday – EMEA ADN team meeting in London – Ski tours in the Alvier group – Revit Server model path requires bar separator... Read more →

Reorg, FoMT, DevCon, TED, QR, Custom Exporter Quality

I had last week off and terminated it with a nice ski tour climbing the Albristhorn. Here are some topics to get going again – Reorg and Octo – The Future of Making Things, Iot, Forge and more – Forge and the DevCon in SF – T⁴ – Top Twelve TED Topics – RDBLink and Exporting data from Revit – Revit QRCode generator – Controlling custom exporter geometry quality... Read more →

Richard Stallman for a Free Digital Society

I attended the presentation by Richard M. Stallman of the Free Software Foundation FSF for a free digital society in the University of Bern yesterday – Ground Rules – Threats to our Freedom in the Digital Society – DRM – Digital Management of Rights or Restrictions? – GNU and Linux – JavaScript – Software as a Service – Open Source versus Free Software – Free Software Evangelism – Surveillance – Censorship – Voting Systems – The War on Sharing – Sharing Art – Issues in Switzerland – Digital Freedom of Speech – Auction of an Adorable GNU – Recording of the Entire Presentation... Read more →

BIM Programming Madrid and Spanish Connectivity

I spent this week in Madrid, presenting at the BIM Programming conference and teaching the subsequent two-day workshop on the Revit API and connecting the desktop and the cloud – BIM Programming mainstage presentation – The Spanish nature of connectivity – Castafiore – Zazen – Matins – AlphaGo, machine learning and intuition... Read more →

Retrieving All Model Elements

Let's revisit the ever-recurring topic of retrieving all model elements, and also look at a well-documented workflow for retrofitting historical buildings, the renovation of the Milano Teatro Lirico opera house... Read more →

Happy New Top CAD Blog, Public Models and Forge

Happy New Year! I had a really good break, although I spent the last ten days being ill and coming to grips with a serious sinusitis. I was still able to climb the Schafberg at Wildhaus once – Autodesk Forge Accelerator – Top CAD Blogs of 2015 – Public Revit models... Read more →

Wall Opening Profiles and Happy Holidays!

Last week, we discussed how to retrieve wall openings. Let's take another fresh look at that, based on FindInserts instead of the ReferenceIntersector ray tracing approach, and also at – A walk over Uetliberg – Using FindInserts to retrieve wall openings – CmdGetWallOpeningProfiles – Relationships, independence and consumerism... Read more →

AU Keynote and Revit API Panel

The first day at Autodesk University was jam-packed full and exciting as always. My main highlights were – The Keynote session – The DevHack – Arnošt Löbel's class SD10752 on Revit External Services – The Revit API panel... Read more →

DevDay@AU and Using a Custom Exporter for 2D

Several developers recently asked how to export 2D shapes through a custom exporter. I recently discussed this issue with Arnošt Löbel and below present a summary and combination of several different conversation threads on the topic. First, let me mention that I arrived safe and sound at Autodesk University. I travelled on my birthday last week, so I was upgraded to fly in style – in a sledge – sleeping in the desert – DevDay@AU... Read more →

RTC, Budapest and the Revit API Panel

Last week, I listed my three Revit Technology Conference classes on connecting the desktop and the cloud, The Building Coder chatroom, and the full detailed handout of the lab on getting started with Revit macros. All three went very well. Today, I'll present the questions and answers from The Building Coder chatroom, which turned into a really interesting Revit API panel discussion, with the help of several fellow developers. Here are also some of the pictures I took... Read more →

Happy Halloween!

The Revit Technology Conference RTC Europe in Budapest is just wrapping up. Happy Halloween! Read more →

RTC Classes and Getting Started with Revit Macros

I am presenting three classes at the Revit Technology Conference RTC – Autumn walk over Schauenburg – Full moon fire – Revit 2016 R2 – Session #44 Connecting the Desktop and the Cloud – Session #130 The Building Coder Chatroom – Session #161 Getting Started with Revit Macros... Read more →

Autodesk DevDays 2015 and CAD Trends

I am back from my vacation in Andalusia. Time to get through the email backlog and back to productive work again. No, not at all, time to get ready for the Revit Technology Conference next week, all-too-quickly followed by Autodesk University and the Autodesk DevDays 2015. Oh dear, in a hurry again. Time flies! The DevDays format is significantly changed from previous years – Autodesk DevDays 2015 with Accelerators – Kean's hsbcad Wood Construction Customer Visit – CAD Trends... Read more →

Lunar Eclipse and Custom File Properties

Today, let's look at a Windows API question that can be of interest handling Revit documents as well, and mention my night out to watch the – Lunar Eclipse – Custom File Properties... Read more →

Sharing, Dynamo and a Chinese Book

I returned from the Autodesk Cloud Accelerator in Prague, where I finished off cleaning up the FireRating in the Cloud sample and made some good inroads into the new CompHound project. Some learning resources and sharing philosophy – Håvard Vasshaug on Learning Dynamo and Sharing Content – Open Source BIM, IFC and FreeCAD – Chinese Revit API Book... Read more →

IFC GUID Access, Life Span and Cloning of Geometry

Today, let's talk about the life span of Revit geometry and accessing the IFC GUID of an imported element: Life span and cloning of solids and faces Accessing the IFC GUID of an imported wall First, I'll just mention that I returned safe and sound from the successful fourth and last day of the Milano WebGL workshop, which we concluded with a group session guiding through the View and Data API tutorial. I wrote is a short report on that... 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 →

AngelHack Athens, Sustainability and Export Precision

AngelHack Athens is in full swing, Autodesk has committed to 100% sustainability, Scott Conover explains some Revit export precision and tolerance aspects, and I am leaving on vacation next week: AngelHack Athens hackathon Autodesk commits to 100% renewable energy Revit export precision and tolerance Vacation time AngelHack Athens Hackathon We held the second I love 3D – Athens meetup yesterday with 19 interested and enthusiastic participants: I posted the full details and links to all the important View and Data... 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 →

Cloning a Solid, AngelHack, 3D Web Fest and Dubai

The Revit 2016 offers a whole host of exciting new functionality that I am dying to try out, e.g.: Custom exporter supports 2D output Improved ReferenceIntersector linked model support DirectShape supports curves, points and references Cool new Geometry API functionality And much, much more... Too little time! At least I can mention one useful aspect of the new geometry API that came in handy for an issue that came up yesterday. I am in Dubai right now, preparing for the... Read more →

Traditional, 3D Printed & Vertical Compound Structures

Let's look at various kinds of structures and compound structures today: A traditional American Indian sweat lodge The biggest co-created 3D-printed object on earth Creating and assigning vertical versus simple compound structures A Traditional American Indian Sweat Lodge First, here is a quick look at the nice sweat lodge we built last weekend for an Inipi purification ceremony: I traditionally try to do that before embarking on my yearly worldwide travels to Autodesk University and the DevDay conferences. Here are... 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 →