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 →

APS, Nairobi and NetTopologySuite

I am writing this in Nairobi, Kenya, getting to know the team here; also, the new APS landing page just went live, and Benoit points out a useful geometric modelling library to help power your Revit add-in – DAS team in Nairobi, Kenya – NetTopologySuite in Revit add-ins – New APS landing page – You can create RVT using APS... 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 →

Accelerator, Dash Pattern Fix, Rotation and Phase

I am participating in the Forge Accelerator in Barcelona this week. Let me mention some pending Revit API issues before diving into any accelerator topics – AddMaterials enhancements – Retrieving element rotation – Changing the phase created parameter... Read more →

New Revit 2020 SDK Samples

Question: What can we do with the new Revit 2020 API features? Well, just like most of the existing functionality, the enhancements and some typical yet simple use cases for them are demonstrated by the updated SDK samples. Revit 2020 sports five brand new SDK samples – AttachedDetailGroup – CreateTrianglesTopography – Custom2DExporter – PathOfTravel – ViewTemplateCreation – This list also highlights some the most exciting areas of enhancement... Read more →

Mindful Living and Smiling to Myself

I am back from my July vacation. As planned, I visited the Buddhist monastery Plum Village near Bordeaux. Here are some personal notes from my experiences there, followed by a Revit API related issue that just cropped up – Plum Village and its visitors – Mindfulness and relaxation – My struggle with the smile – Mindful watering of seeds – Line intersection with topography surface... 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 →

Add-In Registration – VendorId and Signature

I am taking lots of time off in July, so this may be my last post for a while. Before leaving, I will share my answers to a list of pertinent questions on add-in registration, especially how to populate the add-in manifest VendorId tag and handle the trusted digital DLL signature – Add-in registration – VendorId – Add-in registration – trusted digital add-in signature – Vacation in July... 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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

Loading an IES Photometric Web and Exciting Times

Today, let's look at an MEP related issue, loading the IES photometric web data for a light source, plus all the exciting things happening both for myself in the next weeks and for Autodesk as a company as a whole, reinventing itself for the modern cloud-based collaborative sharing technoculture – The first annual Autodesk X summit – Jeremy's January – DevDay in Munich – Accelerator Workshop – BIM Workshop in Madrid – Loading the IES photometric web data for a light source... Read more →

[email protected] 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 – [email protected] 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 →

Revit API Context and Form Creation Errors

I am back from my vacation. I had a wonderful time. Now, let's look at two important recurring topics that came up while I was away: Revit API Context Summary. Detailed Form Creation Error Information. Before getting to those, let me mention some of the nice places and mountain tours I was blessed with in the past few weeks: Pallanza and the Lago Maggiore: Mont Blanc, mountaneering and climbing around the Cabane d'Orny: Monte Leone above Locarno (photo album): Pizzo... 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 →

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 →

Gross and Net Wall Area Calculation Enhancement

We make further enhancements to the on-going project to determine gross and net areas and volumes, obviously a fundamental issue to BIM. And I have more news to share as well: Playing with my WebGL viewer WebGL Developers meetup in NYC April 21 AEC Hackathon in Dallas May 1-3 Angelhack in Dubai May 7-9 Angelhack in Athens June 5-7 Wall area calculation handling multiple openings in multiple walls in multiple rooms Playing with my WebGL Viewer My last post was... Read more →

Revit API Trends and Team Meeting in Bretagne

Here is an illuminating explanation by Arnošt Löbel and Martin Schmid on some Revit API development trends that have already been underway for a couple of releases. Before I get to them, a quick report from our ADN team meeting: ADN European Team Meeting in Bretagne As you may have noticed from Adam Nagy's tweets in the past few days, I am at a team meeting with my European ADN colleagues: We are convening in Brittany, home of our manager... Read more →

Understanding the Use of the UniqueId

Here is a thread from the Revit API discussion forum on understanding the use of the UniqueId between Erik Eriksson and Arnošt Löbel, Sr. Principal Engineer of the Autodesk Revit R&D team, that I find very valuable and therefore edited, for preservation and clarity: Question: In the early days, I thought that ElementId was a stable way of finding elements in a document, then I learned that UniqueId was the proper way. But I haven't been able to find enough... Read more →

List Pipe Sizes and More Obsolete API Usage Removal

I was ill for a few days last week, with a fever and a virus. I also made a quick trip to Moscow, where we held the final event in this year's sequence of DevDays conferences. For the first time in my life, I gave my presentations in a woolly hat :-) I also rented my first airbnb flat ever, on Arbat street in the centre of town, and was pretty happy with that. I returned back to Switzerland on... Read more →

Vacazione in Sicilia

I'm off for a short vacation in Sicily. No computer, sleeping out. I wish you lots of fun and success with the Revit API, and myself some nice nature, good long walks, and deep relaxation. And good coffee. Ciao! 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 →

Milano Meetups and My New NFC Business Card

We completed the DevDays conference and Meetup in Munich and now arrived in Milano, bella Italia. Tonight we are holding our Inaugural 3D Lovers Meetup here at Coworking LOGIN, Via Stefanardo da Vimercate 28, Milano. We only just noticed that another interesting inaugural meetup is taking place in the same location at the same time, the First MEAN Event: Break the Ice. MEAN stands for MongoDB, Express, Angular.js and Node.js, so you can see how well it fits. Main topic... Read more →

DevDays, GitHub, STL and OBJ Model Import

Long time no post. Sorry, I am rather caught up in the DevDays conferences, accompanying meetups and travel back and forth across the continent. After the first Western European DevDays conference and meetup in Paris on Monday, we continued and repeated in London, UK, and Gothenburg, Sweden. We had a day's break there, and I took a quick bus and ferry ride out to Styrsö before leaving. Now we have arrived in Munich, Germany, and the last goal for Tuesday... Read more →

SelFilter, a Powerful Generic Selection Filter Utility

I recently discussed the minimalist generic selection filter implementation JtElementsOfClassSelectionFilter that I added to The Building Coder samples. Alexander Buschmann of IDAT GmbH responded to that and says: I saw your generic SelectionFilter class and this reminded me of a little pet project I've done in my spare time that I thought your readers might be interested in. Two things always bothered me about the ISelectionFilter: You have to create a class to use it. Though most often you just... Read more →

DevDays Conference and Meetup in Paris

I left Autodesk University, Las Vegas, and travelled to Paris via London. DevDay and Meetup Today, we held the first West European DevDays conference here, followed by a meetup on reality capture, 3D on the web and 3D printing in the Ecole des ingenieurs de la Ville de Paris (eivp-paris.fr). From here, we continue to London, Gothenburg, Munich and Milano during the coming ten days. Jasper Unexpectedly, I got to meet Jasper Desmet, whom I previously only knew by email.... Read more →

Handling Transaction Status and Errors

Today, let's discuss how to handle transaction status and errors, quickly, before Autodesk University and my stint of DevDays conferences begins on Monday. I also briefly touch on programmatic file upload to A360, my arrival in Las Vegas and current reading. By the way, this is a special post for me, being the number 1250. In the olden days, every new century of posts was important... now it is five quarters of a millennium. So I have something to celebrate... Read more →

The DevDays 2014 Conferences Have Started

Our tour of DevDays 2014 developer conferences in 16 cities around the world from November through January has started. Our indefatigable leader Jim Quanci is already on the road, this time accompanied by Philippe Leefsma, attending all of the venues world-wide. I will 'just' be attending the DevDay conference at Autodesk University in Las Vegas and all the Western European venues: Paris, London, Gothenburg, Munich and Milano. Here is Daniel Du presenting the zero client WebGL based Autodesk View and... Read more →

Brussels Hackathon, Pipe Wall Thickness and Voids

I received an email asking whether it is possible to determine the Revit MEP pipe element wall thickness, and also about the API access to voids in the family editor. Before getting to that, let me mention that I am now in Brussels at the Open Data Hackathon. Hackathon Open Data Brussels I arrived in Gent last night and returned to Brussels this morning for the Hackathon Open Data Brussels taking place today and tomorrow, October 17-18 2014. It is... 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 →

Past, Future, Frameworks, RevitLookup and Hackathon

Today, let me ask you to test my RevitLookup future-proofing update and mention a discussion on the use of the .NET 4.5 framework for Revit 2013, 2014 and 2015. I am sitting here writing this among the swans and gulls, squinting in the autumn sunshine on the shore of the Zurich Lake. Later, I visited the nearby Kronenhalle, a rather exclusive restaurant highly praised year in and year out by gourmet Christian Seiler, e.g. 2011, 2012 and 2014. With all... 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 →

DevDay, Meetup and Hackathon Event Calendar

Here is a list of upcoming events, most of which I will be involved in in one way or another: DevDays 2014 DevDay & DevHack in Las Vegas Meetups and Hackathons DevDays 2014 Here is the list of cities and dates where our DevDays events 2014 will be held around the world later this year. These events are accessible to ADN members. If you are not an ADN member and still would be interested in learning more about application development... Read more →

Back from Sweden

I returned from my wonderful relaxing outdoor vacation in the vast nature of Sweden and had numerous simple Revit API questions waiting for me on my return, e.g. Annotation Location property Placing ElementType instances Commercial use of the Revit API Before looking at those, here is an impression of the huge open space offered by heaven and earth in the islands in the Stockholm Skärgården archipelago, e.g. Utö and Ålö: For something more tranquil, here is a sunset meditation on... Read more →

Room Editor Live and Unofficial Custom Ribbon Button

I spent a wonderful weekend and yesterday's Whit Monday holiday enjoying high summer in Swiss nature with no electricity and a Chäschessi, the Swiss variant of a Jacuzzi or hot tub. Today I am leaving for a ten-day camping vacation in nature in Sweden. Here are two topics I would like to address before leaving that will hopefully keep you occupied and entertained during my absence: Room Editor Live Adding a custom button to the Modify tab Vacation time Room... Read more →

New York Travel Preparation and ADN Job Opening

Friday – travel to New York to spend the weekend at the AEC Symposium and Hackathon. Before leaving, I revelled briefly in nature, celebrating a couple of hours of moderate weather after the cold and wet spell lately, before spending the entire following weekend indoors staring at computer screens in Big Apple: I celebrated the full moon on Wednesday evening with a nice fire on a nearby hill with a grand view: I arrived safely in New York and just... Read more →

Back from Desert and Two Happy Events

I returned from my hike near Zagora in the Sahara desert in Morocco. I was welco... Read more →

TextNote Leader Alignment

Let us explore TextNote leader alignment. Before getting to that, I'll just briefly mention that I still have unused vacation days from last year to use up, so I am going away again, this time on a desert hike near Zagora in Morocco. No computer, no Internet, no blog... TextNote Leader Alignment Here is one last topic before I leave, contributed by my colleague Katsuaki Takamizawa, with help from Jim Jia and Pawel Madej of the Revit development team: Question:... Read more →

Lots of Clouds

Let me recapitulate my cloud related explorations for my simplified 2D BIM editor, since I will be discussing it again at a web-based BIM workshop later this week. Before getting to that, though, talking about cloud related topics reminds me of some others of completely different nature that are near and dear to me: Clouds in La Palma Cloud Atlas Cloud-based simplified BIM editor Autodesk cloud service overview Updated RevitLookup on GitHub Above, in and under the Clouds of la... Read more →

Revit API Help Online and Hiking on La Palma

Good news for all Revit add-in developers from Peter Boyer of the Dynamo team, working on visual programming for Revit, who brought you the Dynamo Revit Unit Test Framework. He says: We use the Revit API docs a lot, so I decided to build a website that basically just makes the Revit API help file RevitAPI.chm file provided with the Revit SDK more visible on the web: revitapisearch.com I found it makes it easier to point other developers to the... Read more →

DevLab Munich

I arrived in Gothenburg last night. Today I participate in my last DevDay conference for this year. Adam and Jim are continuing to Moscow, where they will be supported by Vladimir and the rest of the team there. Last week we conducted DevDay conferences in Paris, Milano and Farnborough, ending with a two-day stay in Munich to hold a DevDay conference followed by a DevLab workshop. A DevLab is an open event where developers roll up bringing their current work... Read more →

Saving a New Central File to Revit Server

One topic brought up at Scott Conover's worksharing roundtable was the question of how to save a new Revit central file to a Revit Server. Participants even questioned whether this is possible at all with the current API. Well, it is, and we look at the exact steps to achieve that below as well as: DevDay in Farnborough, cabs and flights Saving a new central file to Revit Server Consistent naming of transactions and transaction groups Changing the category of... Read more →

Triggering Immediate External Event Execution

We held our first West European Devday in Paris on Monday and I am now sitting in the airport headed for Milano. En route to Milano, I worked at testing Joe Ye's trick to trigger the Idling event (potential SetRaiseWithoutDelay workaround) to force an immediate execution of my external event. I also added a comment from Guy Robinson on Revit requiring focus that had me worried for a moment. However, the solution is easy! Before we get to that, here... Read more →

Back and Preparing for AU and DevDays Conferences

I returned from my nine-day break and am fully invigorated and happily back with the Revit API. Besides handling questions from developers, I also need to deal with the upcoming yearly conference preparations. On one hand, we have Autodesk University, for which registration opened and I need to prepare my three classes. As you know, AU is completely open and public, based on the released Autodesk products, and addresses both end users and developers. The Autodesk Developer Network ADN, supporting... Read more →