We already mentioned that null entries may be returned when retrieving materials from the document settings Materials collection. This raised a couple of more points, e.g. more on the null entries and using LINQ and filtered element collectors to retrieve...

Here are two unrelated topics that came up related to openings and the use of LINQ with the Revit API. The issue on requesting non-visible objects to be included when retrieving geometry was discussed a few times in the past,...

Happy New Year 2012 and welcome back to our explorations of the Revit API! I had a nice winter break, and I hope you did too. Let us start again by picking up an idea I recently mentioned for exporting...

I was able to recuperate a bit from the previous weeks' travels and conferences in Milan this weekend, where I did very little except feel exhausted and ill. Now I am fine again, though, and arrived safely for the developer...

Today is the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, at least in the parts of the world I normally frequent. Just as the sun reached the end of its descent, we finally reached the end of our conference...

We held the DevLab in Munich yesterday before rushing off to get to Milano in the evening. I slept a little bit in the taxi and plane on the way here. I was still dead tired on arrival at the...

Back in September, a little Revit add-in named Dynamo made the rounds through the blog/twitter-sphere. Dynamo is an early exploration into programming for Revit. It was created by Ian Keough, Solution Architect at Vela systems. Ian developed some serious Revit chops while working as an engineer at Buro Happold. He created Dynamo in his spare time and released it as an open source project under the Apache license on gitHub. Dynamo allows you to place and control family instances hosted on points using a familiar node wiring diagram interface – instead of having to write code. The installation is a bit wonky, so here are the steps:

1. Go to the Dynamo repository on github.
2. Click on DynamoInstall or DynamoInstall_32bit (depending on your Revit install)
3. Click on Release
4. Click on both the msi file and setup.exe. For each, click “View Raw” and that will allow you to download the file
5. Run setup.exe and restart Revit. I will post instructions soon on getting it going in Vasari.

Ian clearly admits: It’s incredibly buggy, feature incomplete, and completely undocumented. Regardless, this little science project is really cool and has generated a lot of interest internally as well as at Autodesk University last month. If you were were not lucky enough to attend Matt Jezyk and Zach Kron’s “Energizing Supermodels” course at AU, stay tuned. We will soon share some more cool stuff you can do with Dynamo. In the meantime, I put together a short video to introduce the add-in and show how to get started.

_tom

eTransmit for Revit – Technology Preview 1.1

The eTransmit for Revit team is pleased to announce that a new version of the eTransmit for Revit technology preview is now available for free download from Autodesk Labs.  This preview is available worldwide and will expire after June 30, 2012.

What’s new in 1.1?

You might recall that back in July we did a user survey to gather feedback from those of you who had tried eTransmit for Revit.  One of the things that we heard very clearly is that there are a number of people who were experiencing problems using the initial version.  Based on this, our biggest focus for this version was fixing issues.  For a complete list you can review the release notes and known issues, but highlights include:

• eTransmit will no longer crash when you try to create a transmittal on a network drive.
• The progress bar now updates correctly when there are errors and warnings (previously it gave the impression that the transmittal had failed when there were only warnings).

In addition, there is one new feature.  In version 1.1, you can use eTransmit even if you have one or more models open. 

Known issues:  Unfortunately, transmitted models still do not open correctly if you double-click on them from the operating system.  To open a transmitted model correctly, use Revit’s file open command.  This and other known issues are listed in detail in the release notes and known issues.

 What else did we learn in the user survey?

The survey certainly confirmed that eTransmit for Revit is a useful tool that saves time.  Most of the respondents envisioned using it to share models outside your firm a few times per week and many respondents would use it for archiving models as well.

As part of this survey, we asked participants to prioritize twenty-five wishlist items.  Based on the ranking, the top 25% are:

1. Offer an option to automatically run the purge unused command on all of the Revit models when creating the transmission package.
2. Offer an option to delete particular types of views (such as "all detail views" or "all sections") in all of the Revit models when creating the transmission package.
3. Allow me to remember different combinations of eTransmit settings and save them in named profiles for re-use.
4. Allow me to exclude individual files from the transmission package
5. Offer an option to delete all the sheets in all of the Revit models when creating the transmission package.
6. allow me to upgrade a model and all of its links to the current version of Revit.

The orange bars indicate the total points assigned to each request based on the number of users who classified it as “most important”, “very important”, etc.  Our team can’t promise anything about the future of eTransmit for Revit, but we did want to give you some idea of what your feedback has said.  Many thanks go to everyone who participated in the survey or offered suggestions via other avenues.

Thanks for taking the time to try eTransmit for Revit.   Suggestions, problems, and questions are all welcome at Labs.Revit.Etransmit@autodesk.com.

 

Got a note last night about a new version (1.1).  Check out what the eTransmit team has been up to:

eTransmit for Revit – Technology Preview 1.1

The eTransmit for Revit team is pleased to announce that a new version of the eTransmit for Revit technology preview is now available for free download from Autodesk Labs.  This preview is available worldwide and will expire after June 30, 2012.

What’s new in 1.1?

You might recall that back in July we did a user survey to gather feedback from those of you who had tried eTransmit for Revit.  One of the things that we heard very clearly is that there are a number of people who were experiencing problems using the initial version.  Based on this, our biggest focus for this version was fixing issues.  For a complete list you can review the release notes and known issues, but highlights include:

• eTransmit will no longer crash when you try to create a transmittal on a network drive.
• The progress bar now updates correctly when there are errors and warnings (previously it gave the impression that the transmittal had failed when there were only warnings).

In addition, there is one new feature.  In version 1.1, you can use eTransmit even if you have one or more models open. 

Known issues:  Unfortunately, transmitted models still do not open correctly if you double-click on them from the operating system.  To open a transmitted model correctly, use Revit’s file open command.  This and other known issues are listed in detail in the release notes and known issues.

 What else did we learn in the user survey?

The survey certainly confirmed that eTransmit for Revit is a useful tool that saves time.  Most of the respondents envisioned using it to share models outside your firm a few times per week and many respondents would use it for archiving models as well.

As part of this survey, we asked participants to prioritize twenty-five wishlist items.  Based on the ranking, the top 25% are shown here:

 

The orange bars indicate the total points assigned to each request based on the number of users who classified it as “most important”, “very important”, etc.  Our team can’t promise anything about the future of eTransmit for Revit, but we did want to give you some idea of what your feedback has said.  Many thanks go to everyone who participated in the survey or offered suggestions via other avenues.

Thanks for taking the time to try eTransmit for Revit.   Suggestions, problems, and questions are all welcome at Labs.Revit.Etransmit@autodesk.com.

 

Let’s look at a quick troubleshooting scenario around interior elevations, which appear distorted.

You have an interior elevation of a room which looks like this in 3D:

However the interior elevation is displaying the cabinets as transparent:

This type of display inconsistency is often related to large coordinates in the model.

Once the distance range passes outside the 20 mile “box” you could potentially run into this behavior.

Revit 20 mile origin limit for imported and model geometry

Walls which appear transparent, or are displaying elements behind them, is often the same underlying issue.

The process below should help better determine if a stray element is creating large coordinates in the model:

1. Open a 3D View > Enable every Visibility \ Graphic Overrides Category for all Disciplines
2. Set the View Phase Filter to None
3. Verify all Worksets are visible in the 3D View
4. Reveal Hidden Elements
5. Set Discipline > Coordination
6. Zoom to Fit

If the view appears blank on zoom this indicates there are 2 or more elements a far distance from each other.

For example, the model may be in one location where a stray plumbing fixture was inadvertently moved further away, causing coordinates well over 20 miles.  Cross select portions of the view to see if any stray elements are selected.

Hopefully, if you can isolate and delete the element [or correct the location] the interior elevation appearance should return to an expected state.

Taking a break from news and design to share some techniques for roof making in Revit.

In northern climates roofs are often steeply pitched to shed snow.  Many structures in New England have collapsed because they failed to follow that simple move.   In this post I'll explore some methods to create this particular pitched roof condition:

One method is to create two roofs and join them.

Joined Roofs

First create a footprint roof.

Next create an extrusion roof choosing a vertical workplane. In the example below the pitch is the same as the main roof and the bottom of the roof sketch starts at the top of the main roof eave soffit.

Once the extrusion roof is created you can adjust its start and end points and use the Join/Unjoin Roof  tool to attach the far end of the extrusion to the face of the main roof.

There are a couple issues with this setup.

1. The main roof is still present under intersecting roof. If the roof is not made from trusses you must use the Dormer Opening tool or an in-place void family to cut it out.
2. If you want the fascia of the intersecting roof to be aligned with fascia of the main roof you will see the following error when you attempt to align them:

Revit doesn't like this condition yet there are always alternatives...

Roof Shape Editing

Below I deleted the intersecting roof, removed the slope arrows from the main roof, and used the shape editing tools to Add Split Lines as my ridge lines.  The Modify Sub Elements tool can then move points up to the desired height.

Roof Slope Arrows

Last I'll share a rather obscure and old way of achieving this roof that might help you win a revit knowlege contest at AU next season.

In this scenario you make a roof sketch with 3 lines on the south boundary - two slope defining and one not.  Next over the non-slope line draw two slope arrows that point to each other.  For accuracy I drew one slope line, set the properties for its head and tail, then mirrored it to create its twin.

The fasicas are aligned, the space under the perpendicular roof is open and all with one sketch!

I'm certain there are other ways to acheive this condition.  Feel free to share or point out other posts on the net.

_erik

We held a DevLab in Gothenburg yesterday with lots of interesting things to discuss with our Scandinavian developer guests. Today we are in Munich, Germany. So is Kean :-) One of the topics that came up yesterday is a thing...

Yesterday evening we had dinner together with developer partners at Heaven 23 again, the same place we visited last year, with its unique reflection-accessible cloud. Today we are holding a DevLab here in the Autodesk office in Gothenburg in Sweden,...

On Saturday we left Paris and arrived in Göteborg, or Go:teborg as the local tourist office appears to like spelling it. On Sunday we went for a trip on one of the public transportation ferry boats out to Vrångö. From...

I had an absolutely magical experience in Israel before leaving Tel Aviv Thursday afternoon. Among many others at the developer conference on Wednesday, we met with Dima Brickmann of Omnitech, and he suggested going for a short visit to Jerusalem...

I really enjoyed my little outing in Tel Aviv on Tuesday evening to the 5Rhythms City Wave offered by Rivi Diamond. Confusing Ramat Gan with Tel Aviv and First Hebrew Characters Getting there turned out to be unexpectedly adventurous, because...

Today we are en route to Tel Aviv in Israel after the successful conference held in Moscow yesterday. In Tel Aviv I even have a personal activity lined up, besides the official reason for going there to hold another conference...

AU went very well for me, and I think this was the one I liked most of all so far, to my own surprise. Now I am already at the next conference in Moscow, from where I continue to Tel...

Kean pointed out a few of the things going on here at AU, many of which directly affect me well. It is so exciting to meet all these people here doing impressive things and with innovative empowering projects, and also...

We posted back in May about the My First Revit Plug-in Series.  This is a great way for all of you non-programmer types to get your feet wet (and I mean SOAKED) in the Revit API. Now they have added VB.net samples to help lower the bar even further. The explanations in the lessons are still written for C#, but now depending on your language preference you can now follow along in VB.Net.

And if you are so inclined, a little event called Autodesk University is going on right now in a quite corner of Nevada. If you were not able to make it out there this week, starting today is AU Virtual. There are a number of courses related to coding in the Revit API. Check out the archive as well, which includes an Introduction to the Revit API from AU 2010.

Happy Coding!

_tom