What Revit Wants + Black Grid AI

Learn the Revit API from the best Revit programmer in the world

September 25, 2013May 7, 2017 Luke Johnson

Most of you already know how highly I recommend Harry Mattison. He is completely at peace with the Revit API, and he knows instinctively how to solve Revit coding challenges that are out of reach for most of us.

For less than $150, you can learn the Revit API from the master, at https://www.udemy.com/revitapi/

Harry was an employee of Revit Technology Corporation and Autodesk from 1998 to 2012 and spent four of those years developing and testing new Revit APIs in areas such as the Family Editor, Massing, Analysis Visualization, Dynamic Model Update, and Views & Schedules.

I have personally started reviewing the classes, and the level of expertise targeted by this course is very appropriate — intermediate to advanced Revit users, with a comprehension of basic programming techniques. Not too basic, and not too complicated 🙂

Making an Adaptive Grid in Revit (revitbeyondbim video)

September 25, 2013May 7, 2017 Luke Johnson

It uses nested “divided path” components that are repeated in X and Y directions…

via
http://revitbeyondbim.wordpress.com/2013/07/18/making-a-adaptive-grid-in-revit/

Statistics for Exchange App Store

September 25, 2013May 7, 2017 Luke Johnson

Check it out:
https://autodesk360.geckoboard.com/dashboards/23708A59DAE03700

via
http://adndevblog.typepad.com/autocad/2013/08/gecko-board-for-autodesk-exchange-app-publishers.html

Materials – Assets, Transparency and Self Illumination

September 25, 2013May 7, 2017 Luke Johnson

Daniel Stine hosted the interestingly named RTC class:
Mastering Materials: Getting What You Want from Revit

In a recent Cadalyst article, he gives a few good material tips. Here are just 3 of them:

1) Material Assets
Think of a material as a container. Some of the information represents elements you can touch and see when the building is complete, while some does not. Assets are modules, if you will, that better define a material. These modules are optional and can be added or deleted as needed; however, most materials have an appearance asset, which cannot be deleted.

2) Material Transparency in Elevations (vs 3D views)
In any elevation view, materials are not transparent, as you can see in the left-hand image below (regardless of what Visual Style is set to). Even turning off the glass material in a view’s Visibility Graphics Overrides (VG) will not allow you to see through the “opening,” as seen in the second image. The trick here is to edit the opening in the family so it is transparent in elevation, as shown in the third image.

To achieve that, simply select the opening and check Elevation on the Options toolbar.

3) Self Illumination
A surface with a self-illuminating material will actually add light to a scene. In the image below, the self-illuminating low wall in the center of the room is the only light source. This material can also be used to get a very white surface when nothing else seems to be working.

Revit 2014 – crash on initial startup FIX

September 24, 2013May 7, 2017 Luke Johnson

In our case, we had to add local PC “Users” permissions for Full Control to this file:
“C:ProgramDataAutodeskApplicationPluginsADSK-IFCExportUI2014.bundlePackageContents.xml”

I recommend that you review each PackageContents.xml in the ProgramData location to check for appropriate permissions.

Key lines from journal:
‘ 0:< Autodesk Revit 2014
‘ 0:< 64-bit load point = C:Program FilesAutodeskRevit 2014
‘ 0:< this journal = C:UsersljohnsonAppDataLocalAutodeskRevitAutodesk Revit 2014Journalsjournal.0008.txt
‘ 0:< ::0:: Delta VM: Avail -54 -> 8387401 MB, Used +8 -> 186 MB, Peak +39 -> 218 MB; RAM: Avail -15 -> 12989 MB, Used +13 -> 241 MB, Peak +14 -> 242 MB
‘ 0:< Exception occurred
‘C 24-Sep-2013 09:05:39.639; 0:< ExceptionCode=0xe0434352 ExceptionFlags=0x00000001 ExceptionAddress=000007FEFD17940D
‘ 0:< System (MB) [Available / Total ] [Revit Memory Usage (MB) ]
‘ 0:< RAM Statistics: 12989 / 16291 241=InUse 242=Peak
‘ 0:< VM Statistics: 8387402 / 8388607 186=InUse 218=Peak
‘ 0:< Unconverted MessageBox “An unrecoverable error has occurred. The program will now be terminated. All of your data has been recently saved, so there is no need to create recovery files.”

Basic fix method found at:

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2013/09/revit-crash-at-startup.html

Running VBS scripts as Administrator on Windows 7

September 24, 2013May 7, 2017 Luke Johnson

To add the right click menu option for VBS files:

Download this file
Extract it
Right click on ElevateWSHScript.inf and click Install
Done

You can now right-click on VBS files and use the Run as Administrator option.

Full write up at:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2007.06.utilityspotlight.aspx

Use Ctrl + scroll wheel in various Revit dialogs to Zoom in and out

September 23, 2013May 7, 2017 Luke Johnson

Just hold down Ctrl button while scrolling with mouse wheel… I have tested this (non exhaustively) on Revit 2013 and Windows 7, and it works fine on the following dialogs:

the Properties Palette (wow!)
the data section of the Type Properties (Edit Type) dialog
Family Types
the Family Parameters part (lower section) of the Family Category and Parameters dialog
IFC Export and Import Options dialogs
Fill Patterns settings
Sheet Issues/Revisions

Thanks to this tweet for the heads-up:

@paulfaubin discovering #revit tricks! Ctrl+scroll on family type window to zoom in and out.
— Matias Cena (@onbeesknees) September 18, 2013

Reconcile Hosting is a Dockable UI Panel for re-hosting orphaned elements

September 23, 2013May 7, 2017 Luke Johnson

Have you ever used Reconcile Hosting? When you click the appropriate button in the Ribbon, a new UI panel appears (see image below). You can also assign a Keyboard Shortcut to this panel, although it doesn’t appear as a checkbox item in the View — User Interface list.

You can use the “Sort” button to change the way the list is sorted, and the Show button will take you directly to the appropriate place in the Model to view and “Pick New Host”.

Simply viewing the Reconcile Hosting panel gives you the View Name and Element ID of the orphaned elements.

The panel can be closed by using the X in the top right corner.