The Building Coder

Parameters versus Properties

In his comment on reading material asset data, Alexander Buschmann points out that this same information can be accessed without retrieving, reading and converting the data directly from the undocumented built-in parameters. Instead and more comfortably, you can use the following official properties on the appropriate classes: Material material = null; foreach( Material mat in e.Materials ) { material = mat; break; } PropertySetElement pse = doc.GetElement( material.StructuralAssetId ) as PropertySetElement; StructuralAsset asset = pse.GetStructuralAsset(); double a = asset.WoodBendingStrength; double... Read more →

Changing Viewport Type

Here is a question on setting the type of an element by using the built-in ELEM_FAMILY_AND_TYPE_PARAM parameter value, explored by Bettina Zimmermann of NTI Cadcenter A/S: Question: I'm inserting viewports on sheets and I'd like to change the viewport type to my own defined type. How can I this programmatically? By default, the API call creates a new viewport with type "Title w Line". I'd like to change that to e.g. my own type "Test". Here is my own self-defined... Read more →

Set Detail Curve Visibility

Mostly, the Revit API limits an add-in to pretty high-level operations, encapsulating and protecting the parametric BIM from reckless modifications. For the nonce, here is a little bit of nitty-gritty bit manipulation anyway, in a utility method provided by Scott Conover: Question: Why is there no DetailCurve.SetVisibility method exposed, similar to ModelCurves.SetVisibility? The UI has this functionality, and I would find very good use for it in reinforcement detailing. I want to programmatically create a detail family representing a certain... Read more →

Installing a Macro and Closing the Active Document

You can close an open Revit document programmatically. Unfortunately, though, this only works for all except the last one. People keep running into this issue, of course. It even motivated René Gerlach to implement a workaround using SendKeys.SendWait to send an Alt-F4 keystroke to Revit to close the active window, and Arnošt Löbel to warn gravely against its use and even publish a Windows message workaround disclaimer. Well, happily, such an adventurous workaround is not at all required. Another workaround... Read more →

Accessing all Elements in a Schedule

Here is a quick little post, with a surprisingly short and simple answer to a short and seemingly difficult Revit API question. Before getting to that, I will just mention that I arrived safe and sound in Paris for a developer conference here. I had a walk in the sunset on the north bank of the Seine from the Gare de Lyon along the industrial areas on Quai de Bercy and crossed the river over the new-built Pont National to... Read more →

AU Classes on Python, UI, Server and Framework APIs

Thursday was another very full and fruitful day at AU. I gave my third and last class, the most exciting one in my eyes, on some UI and integration aspects. I was unable to attend Iffat May's class introducing Python and using it in Revit and Vasari via RevitPythonShell, but I love her material so much I am including it anyway. Adam Nagy presented a class addressing cloud and mobile development and the Revit Server API. Finally, Arnošt Löbel provided... Read more →

AU Classes on the View, MEP and Link APIs

Wednesday was my first normal and full AU day, after completing the developer conference and DevLab activities. I was able to attend two interesting classes held by Revit API developers Steven Mycynek and Arnošt Löbel, and present my own Revit MEP API one. Here they are in chronological order: CP3133 Using the Revit Schedule and View APIs by Steven Mycynek CP4108 Revit MEP Programming: All Systems Go by Jeremy Tammik CP3455 Managing Revit Links with the Revit API by Arnošt... Read more →

Geometry Object Subcategory

I received and have started installing and learning to use my new laptop, which is a Mac, I'm finishing up my preparations for Autodesk University, and I'm working on preparations for upcoming developer conferences, so you can imagine there is rather a lot to do and 24 hours per day seem very limiting. I love the Unix shell! Goodbye, DOS box. Thank goodness my colleague Joe Ye answered a case that I found interesting and would like to share with... Read more →

Drive Revit through a WCF Service

Today, a special titbit for you: How can I access Revit functionality from an external process? As we have underlined many times in the past, the Revit API does not support any kind of asynchronous access. The Idling event, however, provides a possibility to work around this limitation. Daren Thomas, the author or RevitPythonShell, even presented a neat and clean pattern for semi asynchronous Idling API access. Now Victor Chekalin, aka Виктор Чекалин, presents another very neat sample providing such... Read more →

UIView, Windows Coordinates, ReferenceIntersector and My Own Tooltip

Here is my well-meant contribution to making this the most exciting Wednesday of your entire week. For the first time in history, the Revit 2013 UIView class provides a possibility to convert back and forth between Revit model coordinates and Windows device screen points. I imagined making use of that right away when I read about the UIView class, and mentioned it when discussing UIView and Windows device coordinates. I am still a bit surprised that I have not yet... Read more →

DivideParts in F# and Line Styles

My internet connection died last night. After worrying and testing quite a bit last night and this morning, I laid a temporary cable from my neighbour's router. Shortly after I finished, my own connection came back up again, after about 14 hours downtime. Murphy's law remains valid, as always. Very reassuring :-) There is lots of building work going on nearby, so probably they broke it and fixed it with no explanations given. Anyway, I am back to normal now... Read more →

Parts, Assemblies, PartUtils and DivideParts

Let's end this eventful week with another big and imporant topic that we've neglected for much too long. So far, I presented just one single example of using the PartUtils class, and other information provided on it by a Google search is also awfully scarce. Piotr Zurek of CADPRO Systems Ltd improved the situation by raising and promptly answering the following question: Question: I wonder whether you have any sample code showing how to use the PartUtils.DivideParts method. I'm trying... Read more →

Set View Section Box to Match Scope Box

Here is a case that I really like, demonstrating two interesting aspects: How to retrieve the exact geometric location, size and orientation of the scope box. How to set the exact geometric location, size and orientation of the 3D view section box. In fact, we show how to use the manually adjusted scope box to define the view section box, i.e. specifying exactly how the model is cut in the current 3D view. I actually already showed how to set... Read more →

Titbits of the Week

Here are a couple of things to round off this warm week (a least here) that I think might be of interest to us all: Identical document GUIDs Journal file path Opening a background document Creating a perspective view Identical Document GUIDs Every Revit document now has a GUID, which can be retrieved from the UniqueId property on the ProjectInformation singleton class. It would be very useful if that could be used to reliably and uniquely distinguish and identify documents.... Read more →

Vacation Time and Various Notes

To tell the truth, today is not a vacation day, but the Swiss national holiday, right in the middle of my vacation. In my last post, I mentioned various urgent and important issues that I still wanted to take care of. I am very happy to tell you that these items all felt a lot less urgent and important after immersing myself in a couple of days of vacation in Avignon to visit family and attend some offerings of one... Read more →

View of NewGroup Duplicated Elements

I already mentioned that you can work around the lack of programmatic creation possibilities for some element types by grouping existing ones, creating new instances of that group, and then ungrouping it again. One question that came up in that context is what view the new group appears in: Question: I am using code like this to duplicate one or more elements: void CreateGroup( Document doc, ICollection ids, XYZ offset ) { Group group = doc.Create.NewGroup( ids ); LocationPoint location... Read more →

OBJ Model Exporter with Colours

I discussed the first take of my OBJ exporter last week, still lacking colour support. Adding colours turned out to be more complex than I had expected, and the result as it currently stands includes a couple of kludges, I'm afraid. Still, for a quick hack it does a decent job of getting a rough idea across. For instance, here is the result of exporting the basic sample project rac_basic_sample_project.rvt included in the Revit product distribution: The resulting OBJ file... Read more →

OBJ Model Export Considerations

As I already said, I am getting going with the cloud, and my first project is to export a Revit model to the Wavefront OBJ file format, which seems to be pretty standard and compact. My exploration so far led to a number of observations and other issues: Cloud and mobile DevBlog Selecting model elements OBJ file format Eliminating duplicate vertices XYZ vertex lookup Integer-based vertex lookup Next steps Cloud and Mobile DevBlog Talking about cloud and mobile, we have... Read more →

UIView and Windows Device Coordinates

As I pointed out in the discussion of the new Revit 2013 API features, the add-in integration enhancements include a new View API, and it provides a new UIView class. The UIView class represents a view window, enables you to pan, zoom and determine its size for tiling etc., and may be useful for switchback functionality from other visualization environments, for example. I am very surprised that I have not heard anything more from the developer community about this class... Read more →

Create Section View Parallel to Wall

Here is a nice case that just came up and helped me heal my latent view manipulation phobia. Before getting to that, a short pointer to a non-API issue: The Shanghai Tower is currently being built to become one of the tallest and greenest buildings in the world. Take a look at Shanghai Tower: The Role of BIM in Building the Spirit of the City, a six-minute video explaining the concept and the role of Autodesk BIM solutions in its... Read more →

DocumentChanged versus Dynamic Model Updater

Here is an interesting little overview and comparison of possibilities to react efficiently to the addition of certain elements to the database. Two easy ways to achieve this are by subscribing to the unspecific DocumentChanged event, or by registering a more specific DMU dynamic model updater. If you subscribe to an event or register an updater, it is also important to keep in mind to unsubscribe or unregister when you are done with it. We discussed both of these repeatedly... Read more →

DevCamp Day Two

This morning I presented my second session, on some of the Revit 2013 UI API enhancements, in the Revit API beginner track. After that, I returned back to the Revit API expert one to attend the presentations on modeless interaction and IFC before presenting my final session on the Revit MEP API. Here then are my sessions of today, in chronological order: 1-4 Revit 2013 UI API enhancements 2-3 Asynchronous interactions 2-2 IFC export open source 2-7 Revit MEP API... Read more →

Create Structural Plan View

Today is the last day of the last week before the AEC DevCamp in Waltham. Here are the complete session list and descriptions. I have to submit my material today. Before doing so, one last post on a pure API topic: I mentioned that Revit 2013 introduced a new view API and now includes the possibility to create schedules and section views. Here is a question that came up regarding the new view creation and Onebox and leads to a... Read more →

Change Section View Type and Hide Cut Line

Leo raised a couple of questions on section view creation in his comment which Rudolf Honke very kindly answers thus: 1. Hide view: To hide the cutting line in a plan view, you can use this parameter: viewSection.get_Parameter( BuiltInParameter .SECTION_COARSER_SCALE_PULLDOWN_METRIC ) .Set( 1 ); 2. Generate section view: In Revit 2013, you can use the static method public static ViewSection CreateSection( Document document, ElementId viewFamilyTypeId, BoundingBoxXYZ sectionBox ) In Revit 2012, you can use document.Create.NewViewSection( BoundingBoxXYZ ); 3. Change the... Read more →