TM

Getting Started with the Revit API

Kristian Parsons

Westfield Design & Construction

Revit Technology Conference 2010

About the Speaker

Currently software developer for Westfield Design. Customising Autodesk products for seven years. Customising Revit for over two years. Started out by teaching myself simple LISP routines. Self taught VBA, VB.NET and C#.

Revit Technology Conference 2010

Class Outline

This class will cover the following topics: Glossary and Definitions Microsoft Visual C# Express Environment List of Add-Ons Examples:

"Hello World" program "Text Case" program "Text Align" program Adding tools to the Ribbon

Revit Technology Conference 2010

Glossary and Definitions

The following terms will be used in this class: Variable - An object that stores a value of a given type. Type - A storage format that can contain a specific range of values. Statement - A single instruction in the program. Function - A set of statements that perform a task. Class - A collection of related variables and functions. API - Application Programming Interface, an interface provided by Autodesk

that allows custom software to interact with Revit. IDE - Integrated Development Environment, combines coding tools with

debugging and compilation tools (such as Visual Studio). SDK - Software Development Kit, a set of tools, samples and documentation

to assist with using the API.

Revit Technology Conference 2010

Microsoft Visual C# Express Environment

Why C#? C# is one of the most commonly used programming languages. The majority of SDK samples are in C#. The majority of online examples are in C#.

Visual C# Express Components: Toolbox Solution Explorer Properties Main Document Window

Revit Technology Conference 2010

Microsoft Visual C# Express Environment

Revit Technology Conference 2010

List of Add-Ons

Annotation Tools: Text Case - changes the case of text objects to; Upper, Lower, Sentence or

Title Case. Text Align - aligns selected text objects with another text object. Text Box - draws a bounding box around selected text objects. Find & Replace - standard find and replace tool.

DWG Export - uses built in DWG Export, but applies company standard filenames and settings.

Usage Log - writes all saves to a centralised database.Room Height Updater - calculates room height based on associated floor and

ceiling objects and writes this value to a shared parameter.Family Browser - modeless dialog for searching and loading families.

Revit Technology Conference 2010

“Hello World” Example

Basic steps:1.Select "New Project..." from the "File" menu.2.Select "Class Library" as the project type.3.Add a reference to the "RevitAPI.dll" (set "Copy Local" to false).4.Add a reference to "System.Windows.Forms".5. Implement interface "IExternalCommand" (use intellisense).6.Add a pop-up message saying "Hello World".7.Return "Cancelled" since we do not edit the Revit model.8.Update the "Revit.ini" file to include our add-on.9.Debug the program.

Revit Technology Conference 2010

“Text Case” Example

Basic steps:1.Select "New Project..." from the "File" menu.2.Select "Class Library" as the project type.3.Add a reference to the "RevitAPI.dll" (set "Copy Local" to false).4. Implement interface "IExternalCommand" (use intellisense).5.Check if the user has already selected some textNote objects.

a. If not, use a filter to select all textNote objects in the project.6.Loop through all selected textNote objects changing the case to upper case.7.Tell Revit that we changed something in the database.8.Update the "Revit.ini" file to include our add-on.9.Debug the program.

Revit Technology Conference 2010

“Align Text” Example

Basic steps:1.Select "New Project..." from the "File" menu.2.Select "Class Library" as the project type.3.Add a reference to the "RevitAPI.dll" (set "Copy Local" to false).4. Implement interface "IExternalCommand" (use intellisense).5.Make sure that the user has selected some textNote objects

a. If not, throw an error.6.Ask the user to select a single textNote object to align the others to.7.Loop through the selected textNote objects changing their position to align

with the selected one.8.Tell Revit we have changed something in the database.9.Update the "Revit.ini" file to include our add-on.10.Debug the program.

Revit Technology Conference 2010

“Add Tools to Ribbon” Example

Basic steps:1.Select "New Project..." from the "File" menu.2.Select "Class Library" as the project type.3.Add a reference to the "RevitAPI.dll" (set "Copy Local" to false).4. Implement interface "IExternalApplication" (use intellisense).5.Add a new Ribbon panel.6.Add two new buttons to the new panel using our text tools.7.Update the "Revit.ini" file to include our add-on (and remove precvious

entries).8.Debug the program.

Revit Technology Conference 2010

Resources

Online Blogs:

Jeremy Tammik (http://thebuildingcoder.typepad.com/) Rod Howarth (http://blog.rodhowarth.com) Matt Mason (http://cadappdev.blogspot.com/)

Discussion Groups: Autodesk (http://discussion.autodesk.com/forums/forum.jspa?

forumID=160) AUGI (http://forums.augi.com/forumdisplay.php?f=218)

ADN (not free) (http://adn.autodesk.com/)Offline

SDK Samples RevitAPI.chm API Developers Guide

Revit Technology Conference 2010

Kristian Parsons Westfield Design & Construction

Questions