The Building Coder

Transform Utils, DirectShape Builder and DevDays Online Webinars

Revitalizer shared two important hints: a performance issue using ElementTransformUtils and a problem reporting mechanism built into the TessellatedShapeBuilderResult method GetIssuesForFaceSet. First, though, let's highlight an even more important upcoming event, the series of DevDays online webinars – Register now for Autodesk DevDays online webinars – Avoid using ElementTransformUtils for batches – Finding cause of DirectShape generation problem... 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 →

Do Not Reuse an Existing GUID

Several Revit API objects make use of a GUID to uniquely identify themselves. When you copy and paste source code including any such GUID, you need to take care to replace the original GUID by your own one... 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 →

Disjunct Planar Face Outer Loops

I am attending the Forge DevCon conference in Darmstadt, Germany, right now, and putting the final touches to my presentation on Rational BIM programming using Revit and Forge at the European Autodesk University on Wednesday. We discussed several different approaches to retrieve the outer loop of a planar face. Richard Thomas recently shared a possible solution to determine the outer-most EdgeLoop. He now posted a new approach: I found a more straightforward and likely reliable way of getting outer loops of planar faces. This method also allows for faces made up of disjointed parts... 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 →

Unit Abbreviations

Håvard Dagsvik of Symetri implemented code to automatically generate a dictionary mapping the Revit DisplayUnitType to corresponding UnitSymbolType display strings. The developer guide describes these classes like this – UnitType – type of physical quantity to be measured, for example length or force (UT_Length or UT_Force) – DisplayUnitType – units and display format used to format numbers as strings or convert units (i.e. DUT_METERS) – UnitSymbolType – unit symbol displayed in the formatted string representation of a number to indicate the units of the value (i.e. UST_M)... Read more →

Forge, Installed Version, Move Group, Name Filter

A biggish post rather late in the week... still answering too many cases – Forge for AEC demos and sample code – Determining the starting view – Detecting installed Revit version – Detecting installed C3D version – Moving items inside a detail group – Filtering for family instances and types by family name... Read more →

WPF Revit Family Browser and Vacation

I am away on vacation. In the meantime, Roman Lavrov shared his Revit Family Browser, saying: I am working on family browser for Revit using Revit API and WPF. Your blog helps me a lot, so I decide to share my work with you. I think, some ideas will be useful for other coders. If you have time, please take a look my program on GitHub at github.com/RomanLavrov/RevitFamilyBrowser... 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 →

Add-In Templates Supporting Edit and Continue

Last week, I presented Andrey Bushman's new Visual Studio templates for Revit add-ins. Furthermore, we discussed many aspects of edit and continue in the past, including the solution to use the Add-in Manager. These two topics have now met and united, because Andrey added support for that and a bunch of other new functionality in his commit... Read more →

RevitLookup with Reflection Cleanup

Last week, I presented a drastic change to RevitLookup using Reflection to provide more complete coverage of all the Revit database element methods and properties. Victor Chekalin took a critical look at this new version and cleaned it up significantly. Now all is well and order has been restored again – Shock and gripe – Commit summary – 1. Methods and properties extraction – 2. Show enum values – 3. Drill down into SymbolGeometry – 4. Remove duplicate get_ property getter method – 5. Fixed Fine DetailLevel bug – 6. Visual style of separator – Download and access to old functionality – Reaction and read-only assurance... Read more →

New Visual Studio Templates for Revit Add-Ins

I have been maintaining a simple Visual Studio Revit add-in wizard for a number of years. Now Andrey Bushman implemented a set of more advanced and convenient Visual Studio templates for creation of Revit add-ins for his own use. The discussion of those led us to once more revisit the topic of the Visual Studio settings for debugging Revit add-ins – New Visual Studio 2015 templates for Revit add-ins – Use Managed Compatibility Mode or Enable Native Code Debugging? – Machine learning software engineer job in Switzerland – FreeCodeCamp... Read more →

RevitLookup Reflection Cross-Version Compatibility

Today, I present a large and drastic contribution to RevitLookup from Andy @awmcc90 McCloskey of RevDev Studios that will help significantly in supporting both past and future releases of Revit – Drastic changes making use of object inspection via Reflection – Cross version compatibility – Removal of events and unused functionality – Commit summary – Snoop / CollectorExts – Utils – Tests – File Changes – Download... Read more →

Schedule Parameters and Shared Parameter GUID

Lots of information on, from and about schedule parameters, and a new elegant solution to a long-standing challenge – Direct access to shared parameter GUID – Getting parameter information from a schedule... Read more →

RevitLookup Supports Spot Dimension and Escape

RevitLookup sports two new useful enhancements since adding support for the NuGet Revit API package in mid-December – Close all forms using the Escape key – Support for spot dimension... 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 →

Restoring a Missing Project Information Element

Some people have recently reported that they encountered models lacking the ProjectInfo project information singleton element. Apparently, it was possible in previous versions of Revit for a faulty or malicious add-in to simply delete this element. That obviously causes problems for other add-ins and Revit itself, who rely on its presence. Luckily, it is not hard to fix. Here is the latest discussion addressing this issue... Read more →

Forge Formats, Webinars and Fusion 360 Client API

I updated the WebGL and Forge introduction for BIM programming and its GitHub source for the presentations in the coming days at the RTC Revit Technology Conference Europe and the ISEPBIM Forge and BIM workshops at ISEP, in Porto, implemented two little curl wrapper scripts to help me list the supported file formats, explored why they changed and updated the hackathon webinar overview. Before getting to that, I'll also highlight a helpful note by Christian on how to access the 'Symbolic Representation' setting – 'Symbolic Representation' setting parameter – Forge intro for BIM programming – cURL wrapper scripts to list Forge file formats – Updated Forge file formats – Forge hackathon webinar series and Fusion 360 Client API recording... Read more →

UnitUtils Converting Units for Unit Weight

Here comes a quick clarification of the units used for the UnitWeight built-in parameter PHY_MATERIAL_PARAM_UNIT_WEIGHT. One example usage is to calculate the total weight of rebars in a project... 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 →

The pyRevit IronPython Script Library

Two weeks ago, Maltezc raised a question on the availability of a version of RevitLookup for Python. I am not aware of any Python version of RevitLookup, but you can certainly call into RevitLookup from RevitPythonShell. Maltezc pointed out the pyRevit IronPython script library. Ehsan Iran-Nejad, pyRevit creator and maintainer, now wrote a blog post describing this powerful and popular collection... 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 →

Tracking Element Modification

How to determine and track element modification? I implemented a solution! – Two approaches – Task analysis – Modification tracker – Creating an element state snapshot – Determining which elements to track – Implementation – Geometrical comparison – String formatting – Retrieve solid vertices – GetTrackedElements – retrieve elements of interest – GetElementState – store element state – Creating a database state snapshot – Report differences – External command mainline Execute method – Sample runs – Demo recording – Download... Read more →

Shared Project Parameter GUID Reporter

I am still busy on the Revit API discussion forum, when not involved in other important seasonal preparations. Now let's look at the overdue solution to determine the GUID of a shared project parameter – Issue – Implementation – Download – Discussion – Solution. A long discussion between CoderBoy, Scott Wilson and Ning Zhou on reporting on project parameter definitions – need GUIDs was resolved back in 2013 and never published... Read more →

Flatten All Elements to DirectShape

I am still busy preparing my presentations for Autodesk University and making slow progress due to handling too many Revit API issues in between. And blogging, as well. Here is a new cool sample contributed by Nikolay Shulga, Senior Principal Engineer in the Revit development team. In his own words – Name: Flatten – Motivation: I wanted to see whether DirectShapes could be used to lock down a Revit design – remove most intelligence, make it read-only, perhaps improve performance – Spec: converts full Revit elements into DirectShapes that hold the same shape and have the same categories – Implementation: see below – Cool API aspects: copy element’s geometry and use it elsewhere – Cool ways to use it: lock down your project; make a copy of your element for presentation/export – How it can be enhanced: the sky is the limit... Read more →

WorksharingUtils

Rudolf 'Revitalizer' Honke frequently requested better documentation of the Revit API `*Utils` classes, e.g., when he pointed out the handy utility classes back in 2013. This is still an interesting and somewhat poorly documented area in the Revit API, as we can see from the discussion below – WorksharingUtils and the WorksharingTooltipInfo class – Ten interesting C# features – A new acronym – TL;DR... Read more →

Fill Pattern Viewer Fix and Add Materials for 2016

@kfpopeye discovered and fixed an issue with complex fill patterns in the venerable old WPF Fill Pattern Viewer Control, part of the AddMaterials Revit add-in to load new materials into a project based on a list defined in an Excel spreadsheet – Original implementation for Revit 2011 – Reimplementation for Revit 2014 – Improved error messages and reporting – WPF FillPattern viewer control – Check for already loaded materials – FillPattern viewer benchmarking... 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 →

Revit Add-In Wizard GitHub Installer

I recently mentioned the unrestricted VendorId in Revit 2016, and pointed out that I would like to update the Visual Studio Revit add-in wizards accordingly. I now went ahead and did so, adding a couple of other enhancements as well along the way – oh, and I did some work on putting my personal calendar online, as well: Sharing a calendar via GCal, Google API, and GitHub Pages. Visual Studio Revit add-in wizards on GitHub. Updated VendorId tag value. Wizard... Read more →

Revit Future and Saving User Configuration Settings

I encountered the need and implemented solutions to save user configuration data several times over in the past. Today, prompted by a recent query, I'll point out two of them, and some other exciting and interesting stuff as well: Anthony Hauck on Futures for Revit. The Most Popular Programming Languages 2015. Saving User Configuration Settings. Text Format Configuration File Storage and Parsing. .NET XML Configuration File Storage and Parsing. Anthony Hauck on Futures for Revit BIMThoughts is a podcast platform... Read more →

Dynamo, Centroid & Volume Calculation Migration Blitz

My French colleague Olivier Bayle, co-author of the French AEC-related Village BIM blog, just re-raised the topic of my old solid centroid and volume calculation add-in. Let's also point out one or two of the numerous topics we tackled in the past few days on the Revit API discussion forum: Graphically displaying the centre of gravity using Dynamo GetCentroid on GitHub and blitz migration across four Revit API releases Finding the orientation of welded pipe outlets How to set the... Read more →

ADN Labs Xtra, Multi-Version Add-Ins and CNC Direct

Let's discuss some more Revit add-in migration aspects and yet another completed migration task: ADN Revit API training labs Xtra migration Multi-version add-ins and CNC Direct ADN Revit API Training Labs Xtra Migration I recently mentioned that the official ADN Revit API Labs Training Material for Revit 2016 is available from the Revit Developer Centre and the Revit API Training GitHub repository. They are used for our standard two- or three-day hands-on Revit API introduction training courses. They are also... Read more →

CNC Direct – Export Wall Parts to DXF and SAT

I implemented the Revit ExportCncFab add-in back in 2013 to export Revit wall parts to DXF or SAT for CNC fabrication. The full source code, Visual Studio solution and add-in manifest lives in the ExportCncFab GitHub repository. The project was prompted by William Spier, who recently published a nice 12-minute YouTube video Revit to CNC Direct describing and demonstrating its practical use and application: In William's words: "Asked Jeremy to write a DLL that allows users to export multiple objects... Read more →

Geometry Creation and Line Intersection Exceptions

Today, let's look at some geometry related questions, a small enhancement of the line intersection we discussed two days ago, NURB spline and solid creation: Creating a NURB spline GeometryCreationUtilities, moving and copying solids Line intersection enhancements Built-in parameter checker for Revit 2016 1001 discussion forum posts Creating a NURB Spline This question was raised by anarchyfree in the Revit API discussion thread on a NurbSpline creation error: Question: I'm working on a Revit plugin that in part accepts curves... Read more →

RevitLookup in Python Shell and Multi-Release Solution

Here is some exciting news from Daren Thomas on RevitLookup and the Revit Python Shell. The Python and Ruby shells came up a couple of times recently, and I also mentioned Daren's initial thoughts on making the RevitLookup snoop functionality easily accessible from within the interactive Python IDE: Curved wall elevation profile implementation in Python Live development Revit 2016 Python shell and RevitLookup incorporation Revit 2016 Ruby shell This idea has now come to fruition, and more easily than one... Read more →

Transferring a Wall Type

Let's look at transferring a wall type from one document to another. In fact, we already did so, way back in 2011, as an example about how to possibly approach the task of at least partially programmatically transferring project standards. Now Parley submitted a comment on that, saying: Question: We could still really use this... This post originally was from 2011. Any update on API access for this tool? Answer: Glad to hear it sounds useful to you. Well, nothing... Read more →

Add-in Migration to Revit 2016 and Updated Wizards

I updated my Visual Studio Revit C# and VB add-in wizards for Revit 2016. Before presenting them, a quick important note on how to approach resolving issues that you may encounter migrating your existing add-ins: Please read What's New in the Revit 2016 API! Revit add-in wizards for Revit 2016 Revit add-in wizard customisation Revit add-in wizard usage Download and installation Please Read What's New in the Revit 2016 API! Every major Revit API release so far enhanced the existing... Read more →

List All Import Instances

Have you ever wondered whether you have any duplicate imported CAD instances in your model? My colleague Nikolay Shulga from the Revit development team implemented a nice little end user utility to answer this question. By the way, Nikolay and I go back a long time, way back in the beginning of the IAI and IFC project, decades ago, in previous lives... In Nikolay's own words: A while ago I wrote a prototype app to list ImportInstance objects in a... Read more →

State of the View and Data API, vA3C and Edge Ids

Today, let's take a look again at the current state of the View and Data API, vA3C and a case or two from the Revit API discussion forum: View and Data API news RvtVa3c enhancement filters parameters Defining keys or geometric references for curve vertices View and Data API News Question: I am interested in the Autodesk View and Data API that you wrote about last year. I am wondering what the current state and plans are for the Autodesk... Read more →

List and Switch Design Options Using UI Automation

Yesterday, we discussed a Revit add-in using .NET UI Automation to retrieve the current state of the Revit thin lines setting. Today, let's look at another application demonstrating use of that functionality to determine, list and set the Revit design options from a stand-alone executable application. Once again, this sample is presented by Revitalizer, aka Rudolf Honke of Mensch und Maschine acadGraph, who already contributed numerous other examples making use of the .NET UI Automation library to hack the Revit... Read more →

Thin Lines Add-in Using UI Automation

Revit add-in developers have repeatedly requested access to the Thin Lines setting provided in the Revit user interface, leading to Revit API discussion forum threads on view thin lines, exported image line weight (thin line) and rendering setting and a Revit API wish list item CF-192 – As an add-in developer, I need the API ability to detect and modify the "Thin lines" setting, so that the user can automatically get the environment configured in the way they like. Happily,... 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 →

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 →

Determining the Face Tangent at a Picked Point

Happy Valentine's Day! I keep repeating how much I love all kinds of geometric problems – besides my sweetheart, of course – merci filmool fier di scheeni Bliemli! Unfortunately, there are far too few of them around :-) Happily, Jordi just raised one in the Revit API discussion forum thread on an API C# question, providing another welcome opportunity to make use of the Face Project and ComputeDerivatives methods: Question: I'm coding a plugin for Revit 2015 that inserts a... Read more →

Displaying Progress Bar and Generating Animated GIF

A frequent request for Revit add-ins performing time-consuming tasks is to display a progress bar. My own progress bar implementation is provided by the ADN MEP sample application AdnRme, originally dating way back to 2009 and earlier still. Now Limin He of FM:Systems encountered and resolved an issue with his progress bar in VB.NET, raising the following comment on the topic of the new exceptions raised by multithreading in Revit 2015: Question: We came across the same issue described above... Read more →

Wall Elevation Profiles in The Building Coder Samples

Last week, I presented a stand-alone command by my colleague Katsuaki Takamizawa to retrieve wall elevation profiles. His implementation provides a nice little example of using the ExporterIFCUtils.SortCurveLoops method and differentiates between outer and inner loops. It can be used in almost exactly the same way as the first wall elevation profile implementation presented in 2008. After publication, Katsu-san and I discussed what to do next and unearthed a couple of interesting aspects: Response: Thank you very much for publishing... Read more →

Getting the Wall Elevation Profile

I am back from the vacation in Italy, which I enjoyed very much, especially another visit to the wonderful coast of Amalfi. To quickly share an interesting new result using the Revit API, here is a solution by Katsuaki Takamizawa to retrieve the wall elevation profile. It also provides a nice little example of using the ExporterIFCUtils.SortCurveLoops method that we just recently documented. Says Katsu: I created some sample code for finding the wall elevation profile and determining its outer... Read more →

ExporterIfcUtils Curve Loop Sort and Validate

Joel Spahn raised a pertinent question on sorting face loop edges that was kindly picked up and answered by Scott Conover and Angel Velez from the Revit development team: Question: It would be nice to know exactly what the following methods do: SortCurveLoops: sorts a set of curve loops such that outer and inner loops are separated. Remarks: Outer loops are separated and inner loops are grouped according to their outer loop. Loops are assumed to be non-intersecting, and there... 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 →