The Building Coder

Extensible Storage Schema Deletion

A new team member, new Revit API and WPF tutorials, and new insights on handling extensible storage – Welcome, George! – WPF form UIApplication access – Mazri's Revit, Dynamo, web and WPF playlists – Extensible storage schema deletion – Extensible storage schema conflict... Read more →

Deleting Storage and Picking a Symbol

Interesting hints from the forum and thoughts on feedback, community and communication – Unload IFC links to delete extensible storage – Picking, selection and UI design – Feedback is always a great gift – Scott Peck and community building... Read more →

Symbol, Instance, Material, Data, Journal, Break

We close this year with an eclectic mix of topics – Symbol vs instance geometry clarification – Create new material with texture – RVT dashboard data access – Marking and retrieving a custom element – Advanced remote batch command processing – Midwinter break... 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generic Any versus Count – Escape RevitLookup – Use extensible storage carefully – jQuery is widespread but outdated...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 →

Extensible Storage, External Event, DLL, Pipe Face

Preserving another couple of interesting recent threads from the Revit API discussion forum on various extensible and external topics – Extensible storage reading trouble – External event implementation – External DLL loading – External side face of a pipe... Read more →

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 →

Extensible Storage and Renaming Family in Project

An interesting question was raised on renaming a family after it has been loaded into a project, which throws some light on the underlying relationship between the family name and the RFA filename. Before that, we revisit the eternal topic of getting started with the Revit API, and what to do to prepare for it before actually touching Revit at all. Afterwards, and similarly, we pick up a good suggestion or two on planning and preparing your extensible storage schema for future version handling – Before getting started – Renaming a family in a project – Extensible storage – versioning best practices... Read more →

Use Forge or Spreadsheet to Create Shared Parameters

I spent last week working on a new little BIM sample showing a round trip connection between Revit and Forge, and an automated way of generating and populating shared parameters from spreadsheet data – RvtMetaProp – Revit meta property add-in – CSV and JSON input file format – Forge configurator sample – Round-Trip Forge meta property editor – BipGroupList lists built-in parameter group enums and labels – Two options to add custom properties to the Revit BIM – Translation of shared parameters to Forge – Handling BIM floors in Forge... Read more →

Determining RVT File Version Using Python

We discussed several approaches to read the BasicFileInfo and RVT OLE storage, aka COM Structured Storage, to retrieve stuff like the file version and preview image, and, more lately, alternative access to BIM data via Forge... 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 →

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 →

Named Guid Storage for Project Identification

I want to continue working on the TrackChangesCloud project asap. So far, it only consists of the Revit add-in to determine and list the changes made to the BIM. The interesting part will be to store the results in a cloud database for analysis and reporting. A prerequisite for that is a reliable way to identify Revit project documents. I already explored that topic when starting to implement the FireRatingCloud sample... Read more →

EstoreFile, Group Preview and RoomScheduleCloud

Lots of exciting topics for today – EstoreFile, extensible storage and embedding a raster image – Preview Image for a Group – Thoughts on migrating the Room Schedule sample to 64-bit: Request, Implementation suggestion, Problem, Response – Autodesk 2016 AEC showreel call for submissions... Read more →

Era of Connection, Families and Data Handling

Let's end this week by taking a look at two new AEC and BIM related publications: a new Autodesk eBook, Era of Connection, and a Dutch architectural design student project exploring Revit families and data handling – Era of Connection – Revit Families and Data Handling... Read more →

Extensible Storage in a Worksharing Environment

Here is a thread from the Revit API discussion forum on working with extensible storage in a worksharing environment between Scott Wilson, Cshha, Erik Eriksson and Arnošt Löbel, Sr. Principal Engineer of the Autodesk Revit R&D team, that I find valuable and therefore edited and reproduced here, for preservation and clarity. By the way, if this topic is of interest and importance to you and your add-ins, you will probably also be interested in Scott Conover's Autodesk University 2013 class... 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 →

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 →

Properties in DWF, IFC, Tables and Extensible Storage

Let's discuss a couple of questions that accumulated recently on various aspects of properties in general: Properties in DWF export Mapping Revit and IFC properties Storing a table in a project Updating versus adding new extensible storage schemas Before getting to that, I'll briefly mention the happy fact that I yesterday went on my first outdoor climb for a while, up the Balmflue south ridge, a nice long route of 16 rope lengths in the Swiss Jura hills close to... Read more →

Storing Revit Add-in Settings

Here is another tip from the Revit API discussion forum that seems worthwhile cleaning up and making easy to find, on how to store plugin preferences, raised and discussed by Dimi, peterjegan and ollikat: Question: I am trying to find a way to store user preferences for my plugin. These preferences are file paths, import options etc. so that the next time the user runs the plugin, all the choices he made the fist time he used the plugin stay... Read more →

Erasing Extensible Storage with Linked Files

Here is a query and resolution raised by Marc in the discussion forum on erasing extensible storage data with linked files, followed by a reminder of the need to regenerate the model to avoid accessing stale data and hint of possible things to come related to Revit and cloud computing: Erasing Extensible Storage Data with Linked Files Question: I am calling the method Schema.EraseSchemaAndAllEntities in a project containing linked documents, and it is throwing an InternalException. How can this be... 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 →

Deleting and Updating Extensible Storage Schema

We discussed a number of extensible storage schema topics in the past. Once you've started using it, you may run into the need to update or delete something. Discussing that also provides an opportunity to summarise the other results we already have: Deleting an Extensible Storage Schema Question: I am unable to delete my extensible storage schema if the RVT project contains a linked project with the same schema. First I thought I was doing something wrong, but the ExtensibleStorageUtility... Read more →

Effortless Extensible Storage

Today we proudly present an exciting and powerful extensible storage utility class library by Victor Chekalin. I'll also add some other assorted items at the end: Extensible storage extension Example 1 – save integer value to an element Example 2 – map field and sub-entity value Extensible storage extension conclusion Zoom and pan in Revit 2013 preview control Display real-time interactive element properties Extensible Storage Extension I think everyone of us has used shared parameters to save custom data in... Read more →

DWG Issues and Various Other Updates

One of the highlights mentioned in the overview of the Revit 2014 API is the FreeForm element API that enables modification of solid geometry imported from DWG or SAT. Several other new DWG and DXF related features include import of DXF markup, import and link of SAT and SketchUp, and access to the DWG, IFC and DGN layer, linetype, lineweight, font and pattern tables. One result of these enhancements is the possibility to access 3D coordinates in DWG import for... Read more →

Relax – Simple Free Cloud Based Data Repository with NoSQL, CouchDB, and IrisCouch

Last week, I mentioned my proposal for the Autodesk Technical Summit in June, to present a cloud-based round-trip 2D Revit model editing project. That will obviously required a cloud-based data repository. Talking with my colleagues, all of their suggestions were oriented towards the Microsoft Azure and Amazon solutions discussed so far on the cloud and mobile DevBlog. I was searching for something freer, more open source, and less proprietary, and was rather surprised to discover an utterly relaxing solution that... Read more →

Cloud & Mobile, Extensible Storage Data Use in Schedules

My topics for today are: Cloud and mobile topics I covered so far Cloud-based round-trip 2D Revit model editing on any mobile device using SVG Extensible storage data use in schedules I am still meeting with my European DevTech colleagues here in Konk Leon, 'anse du Lèon', the cove of the lion, aka Le Conquet, Brittany. Yesterday, one of our topics was work we have done so far for cloud and mobile applications. It was very interesting to hear about... Read more →

DevBlog, DevCamp, Element and Project Wide Data

Every once in a while, I like to start the week with a bang, so here goes, with a risk of information overload on the following topics: ADN AEC DevBlog Autodesk AEC DevCamp Goodbye Kailash Kute Project Wide Data Storage DataStorage Element Simple DataStorage Sample Identifying DataStorage Elements ADN AEC DevBlog I bet you are not half as confused as we always are internally about DevDays, DevLabs, DevNotes, and last but not least DevCamps. I recently mentioned that we are... Read more →

Extensible Storage Features

Here is a nice hot topic to start off the week. We already talked about the new Revit 2012 API EStorage or extensible storage functionality and presented example code to store a map or dictionary in it. Here are a few other interesting notes and issues related to this which have cropped up, contributed and pointed out by Steven Mycynek: Intended use of EStorage. Handling large amounts of data in EStorage. EStorage is self-documenting. EStorage is object-oriented in two ways.... Read more →

Extensible Storage of a Map

I already discussed the important new and powerful extensible storage mechanism, and we also explained and demonstrated it in both the DevHelp Online and Revit 2012 API webcast presentations, both of which were recorded. I updated the sample code for the latter webcast. Here is the mainline of the Execute method: public Result Execute( ExternalCommandData commandData, ref string message, ElementSet elements ) { UIApplication uiapp = commandData.Application; UIDocument uidoc = uiapp.ActiveUIDocument; Document doc = uidoc.Document; try { // pick an... Read more →

Extensible Storage

I mentioned the main new features of the Revit 2012 API and also pointed out that many important developer wishes have been resolved. Here is another very fundamental and longstanding wish that has been addressed, more completely than anyone might have expected: Question: How can I store my custom application data inside the Revit file using the Revit API? Answer: One possibility is to use a shared parameter. This is a slightly convoluted operation and involves setting up the shared... Read more →