AEC DevBlog

Autodesk App Store BIM 360 Hackathon

We are excited to announce the Autodesk® App Store BIM 360 Hackathon – a virtual web based event.  This hackathon is a great way to quickly climb the BIM 360+Forge API integration learning curve with Autodesk engineers close at hand (virtually).

Now is a great time to get started working on integration with BIM 360 – with the new ability to create your own folders in BIM 360 using Forge just enabled in the last week.  You can now quickly and easily build a “presence” for your company and apps data within BIM 360.  During the hackathon introduction webinar on August 15th, we’ll be talking about what you can do right now to integrate with BIM 360.

The Autodesk® App Store BIM 360 Hackathon consists of two segments:

1. A series of web training sessions related to the Autodesk Forge platform and BIM 360 - open to anyone interested in learning about these APIs.

2. An online hackathon where developers can develop new apps that integrate with BIM 360 for submission to Autodesk App Store.

This is an online hackathon so you can participate from anywhere in the world on your own schedule.  There’s no cost to participate—but there is a reward!  You may find yourself quickly building an app that works with BIM 360—and if you submit it to the App Store by September 30 and it is accepted for publication by October 31 you will receive $500 for one eligible app per entrant.  Another reason to work on BIM 360 integration sooner rather than later is that we’ll be launching a BIM 360 app “Showcase” on www.autodesk.com plus a BIM 360 app storefront in the Autodesk App Store in the next few weeks.  Both offer a great way to get maximum exposure for your business with Autodesk BIM 360 customers (when there are just a few dozen apps so you don’t risk getting lost in the crowd later when there are hundreds of apps).

You may attend the educational webinars without publishing an app. Click here for Webinar only registration or get full details and register for the Hackathon at https://bim360hackathon.devpost.com/. If you register for the Hackathon you be will automatically registered for the webinars. Webinar's will be recorded so that you can view them at your convenience.

Visit the pages on the Hackathon website to learn more about the opportunities, resources and publishing in the Autodesk App Store and if you have questions send us an email.

Revit SDK Sample’s Assembly Reference Updater

By Madhukar Moogala

While I was learning Revit API through SDK samples, I see there is a huge Samples folder with about 180 project files.

I thought it will be good idea to quickly update the references of each project to correct Revit install folder.

There is an executable which does this and is included in SDK samples folder, for some reason it is not working for me.

I created a simple python script, which creates an .User object file having Projects references directed to Revit path.

#This simple app creates .user file corresponding to every .csproj | .vbproj
##With following text
#<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
#<Project ToolsVersion="14.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
#  <PropertyGroup>
#    <ReferencePath>D:\Program Files\Autodesk\Revit 2018\</ReferencePath>
#  </PropertyGroup>
#</Project>
#Created by moogalm(@galakar), ADN, Autodesk.

import os,shutil
import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
revitSampleDir = input("Revit SDK Samples Folder, for E.g \"D:\Revit2018\Samples\" :")#"D:\\Revit 2018 SDK\\Samples"
userFile = revitSampleDir+"\\user.txt"#"D:\\Revit 2018 SDK\\Samples\\user.txt"
revitInstallDir = input("Revit Install Folder :")#"D:\\Program Files\\Autodesk\\Revit 2018\\"
project = ET.Element("Project",ToolsVersion="14.0",xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003")
propertyGroup = ET.SubElement(project,"PropertyGroup")
referencePath = ET.SubElement(propertyGroup,"ReferencePath").text = revitInstallDir
tree = ET.ElementTree(project)
tree.write(userFile, encoding='utf-8',xml_declaration=True,method= 'xml')
for root, dirs, files in os.walk(revitSampleDir):
    for filename in files:
             if filename.endswith(('.csproj', '.vbproj')):               
                shutil.copy(userFile,os.path.join(root,filename +".user"))
                print(os.path.join(root,filename +".user"))

BIM 360 Webinar - June 15, 2017 - Grow Your Business By Integrating Your Apps with BIM 360

By Virupaksha Aithal

Learn how to grow your business by integrating your apps and services with BIM 360 - join our upcoming BIM 360 webinar - June 15, 2017

• Is BIM important to you and your customers? 
• Want to learn about the opportunity to grow your business and gain competitive advantage by building integrations with Autodesk’s fast growing product (revenue and users) – BIM 360®?
• Want to get first mover advantage by integrating with BIM 360 now?
• Want to reach the 100k+ (and growing fast) design and construction cloud innovators using BIM 360 right now?

 
If yes, join us for a one hour webinar on June 15, 2017 where we walk you through the opportunity to integrate your apps and services with BIM 360 including:  

• Business growth opportunity working closely with Autodesk
• Integration options
• A few simple code sample demonstrations
• How to get started

Over the next several months, Autodesk is investing heavily in promoting partners that have apps that integrate with BIM 360 – on bim360.autodesk.com, in a new BIM 360 store front in the Autodesk App Store, at the Forge DevCon, and during Autodesk University.  Attend this webinar and learn from Jim Quanci, Senior Director, Software Partner Development at Autodesk, how you can engage with us today to build a powerful valuable BIM 360 integration, create competitive advantage – and leverage Autodesk’s marketing and sales machine around BIM 360.
 
Please register for “Integrate your apps and services with BIM 360” on June 15, 2017 8:00 AM PDT at: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/2561148892546524162

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Navisworks API: Export Model or Model Items to FBX

By Xiaodong Liang

Navisworks product can export whole model to FBX. 

There is not a direct way to export some model items only. However, it can be workaround by hiding unnecessary items, and exporting. Then, only those visible items will be exported.

The snapshot below is after the FBX is translated by the services of Autodesk Forge, and rendered in Forge Viewer. I simply played with the Autodesk app that is based on the related technologies of Forge: https://a360.autodesk.com/viewer/

From API perspective, no direct method to export FBX, but you can find out the built-in plugin of Exporting and execute it. The code snippet below is a demo. 

 

 

public override int Execute(params string[] parameters)
{   
  //********
  // hide unnecessary model items. remain those items you wanted to export
  //********

  PluginRecord FBXPluginrecord =
               Autodesk.Navisworks.Api.Application.Plugins.
         FindPlugin("NativeExportPluginAdaptor_LcFbxExporterPlugin_Export.Navisworks");

  if (FBXPluginrecord != null)
  {
        if (!FBXPluginrecord.IsLoaded)
        {
               FBXPluginrecord.LoadPlugin();
        } 

         //save path of the FBX
         string[] pa = { "c:\\temp\\mytest1.fbx" };

         //way 1: by base class of plugin

        //Plugin FBXplugin =
       //           FBXPluginrecord.LoadedPlugin as Plugin;

             
       //FBXplugin.GetType().InvokeMember("Execute",
       //    System.Reflection.BindingFlags.InvokeMethod,
       //    null, FBXplugin, pa);

       //way 2: by specific class of export plugin

       NativeExportPluginAdaptor FBXplugin =
            FBXPluginrecord.LoadedPlugin as NativeExportPluginAdaptor;

                FBXplugin.Execute(pa);
       }

 
    return 0;  
 }

CloningHelper moved to AecCoreMgd.dll

Q. I cannot find CloningHelper in ACA/AME 2017.  

A. The CloningHelper class has been moved to new assembly “AecCoreMgd.dll”. Please include reference to AecCoreMgd.dll.

#ForgeDevCon and Forge Accelerator

By Jaime Rosales (@afrojme)

We are only a month and a half away from the first Forge Developer Conference, and things are starting to wrap up nicely with the various tracks, which will target a wide variety of industries for the Future of Making Things enthusiasts. Forge DevCon covers a wide range of class themes for application development in product design and manufacturing. Our team of experts are curating more than 50 classes to help you influence the FOMT, including how to apply disruptive technologies to every part of the design, make, use, and manage lifecycle phases in the manufacturing, engineering, and building industries. This is a great opportunity if you follow in the category of a true Maker.

Here is a list of the tracks and sessions that will make Forge DevCon a memorable experience.

1. Virtual and Augmented Reality

    - Tony Parisi (@auradeluxe), one of the early pioneers of VR will be speaking about an Intro to WebVR.

    - Autodesk Researcher and Evangelist, Kean Walmsley (@Keanw) showing us his latest proyects with Collaborative VR using the cheapest of the VR devices on the market, Google Cardboard.

2. Forge Basic 

    -  A dedicated track to the use of Forge API’s and its various applications to create game changing business for you to explore. Drones, Photogrammetry,        Design Data and Visual Reporting are some of the topics to discuss.

3. AEC

   - A meeting point for people who are concerned with our built environment. Topics in this track include cloud-based collaboration for construction and building management; workflows connecting Building Information Modeling (BIM) with fabrication; and Generative Design, and if you have been working with any of these API’s you probably already know Mikako Harada or Jeremy Tammik (@jeremytammik)

Continue…

I could continue talking more in detail about the rest of the tracks, but my post is intended to talk and announce the open call for proposals of the event that will follow DevCon.

As part of our Forge DevCon week, we've scheduled our next Autodesk Forge Accelerator (formerly known as the Autodesk Cloud Accelerator) for June 19-24 inclusive in our San Francisco office . If your application is accepted, you will spend the week in our office working on your projects that make use of Autodesk Forge APIs - with the help of the ADN DevTech team and members of the Autodesk engineering teams. The Autodesk Forge APIs include the View & Data, AutoCAD I/O, BIM 360, RecCap Photo and Fusion 360 APIs - as well as a number of new APIs that will be launched at the conference. You can find a full list of APIs at forge.autodesk.com.

To apply for this program, you will need to submit a proposal of not more than 2000 words describing the project you'd like to work on and how it will make use of the Autodesk Forge APIs. More information on how to apply is available here.

Instead of setting a deadline for proposals, we'll be accepting suitable projects as they come in, so don't wait too long!

This will be the 4th Cloud Accelerator in San Francisco and let me tell you, every single one has been an amazing experience, not only for the attendees to get to work shoulder to shoulder with Autodesk experts, but for us also has been a great experience to create new partners and definitely friends for life.

I'm looking forward to receiving your application.

We're deliberately holding this Accelerator the week after Forge DevCon, so you can come for the conference, spend the weekend at the hackathon (details to be announced soon), and then attend the Accelerator - all in one trip. Why not register for the Forge DevCon today and enjoy the rainiest and foggiest Summer of your life .

Using LISP with AutoCAD Architecture and MEP

Occasionally, we still seem to get questions about using LISP with AutoCAD Architecture (ACA) and MEP (AME). ACA and AME dropped DXF/LISP support since ADT 2004. This blog post gives you a little bit of history and reasoning behind the decision. 

As new people joins, they sometimes assume whatever AutoCAD supports will be automatically extended to verticals. As it's been a while since we had this discussion, I'm bringing up this topic for the sake of people who are new to AutoCAD community.   

The hard fact is that LISP uses DXF code to function, and ACA/MEP do not implement DXF. If you try to use LISP to access AEC objects, it simply does not return values. (Please see the earlier post for details.) 

You can still use LISP as a vanilla AutoCAD. While AutoCAD is not adding any enhancement to LISP, the functionality it has already should remain. Same for VBA; ACA and AME do not support VBA/ActiveX. You can use it only to the level that access non-AEC objects.  

If you are trying to customize ACA and AME, we recomend .NET API.

Mikako

 

It’s alive!! Navisworks 2017 API

by Jaime Rosales (@afrojme)

We know that April is a month for your beloved Autodesk tools to be updated to a new year. Since Navisworks 2017 was released not too long ago, it was not going to take long until we welcome Navisworks SDK 2017 to join the list of releases.

In case you missed What’s new in Navisworks 2017, you can check it out here - http://help.autodesk.com/view/NAV/2017/ENU/?guid=GUID-93E5BAF0-72B8-41EC-8C3A-C7EF5E6AAB5D

If you are a Navisworks API Enthusiast go and grab your kit now. Here is the link for the direct download or head over to the Developer Network site to grab it here.

 

 

Cheers,

About IPointCloudAccess.ReadPoints method

By Augusto Goncalves (@augustomaia)

Forge DevCon

First of all, early bird registration is due to end on April 15th, so you don't have much time to buy your ticket at the low cost of $499. If you're a student, you can come for FREE- just sign up for a student ticket using a .edu email address.We're still working on the agenda. Visit this link for a list of the classes we currently have planned.

IPointCloudAccess.ReadPoints method

After some discussions for specific questions asked by some developers, this blog post summarizes what have being discussed.

When drawing point cloud, Revit calculates the total number of points that can read in the current view and camera, divide the number into several blocks and ask the IPointSetIterator to fill the block by calling ReadPoints(). Revit keep asking for the points until all the blocks as filed or there no points returned. This happens for every view change or camera change. The ReadPoints() method implementation needs to case about the points returned to each call with consideration of LOD.

Most engines implemented the LOD. The figure below shows the context of calling readPoints, and a typical implementation of this interface. The rule is simple:

1. The filter can be used to identify the volume of point cloud to be read.
2. For each call of readPoints, it returns the denser points compared to last call.

This pseudo code is the abstraction from a REAL engine and it works well in Revit.

RevitAPI: How to create wall sweep?

中文链接

By Aaron Lu

Wall Sweep's API class is WallSweep, but there is no method like NewWallSweep under Document.Create object, so how to create it via API?

The answer is using static method Create of WallSweep:

public static WallSweep Create(Wall wall, ElementId wallSweepType, WallSweepInfo wallSweepInfo);

Code example:

var doc = commandData.Application.ActiveUIDocument.Document;
var uiSel = commandData.Application.ActiveUIDocument.Selection;

try
{
    var reference = uiSel.PickObject(Autodesk.Revit.UI.Selection.ObjectType.Element, "Pick wall");
    var wall = doc.GetElement(reference) as Wall;
    ElementType wallSweepType = new FilteredElementCollector(doc)
        .OfCategory(BuiltInCategory.OST_Cornices)
        .WhereElementIsElementType()
        .Cast().FirstOrDefault();
    if (wallSweepType != null)
    {
        var wallSweepInfo = new WallSweepInfo(WallSweepType.Sweep, false);
        wallSweepInfo.Distance = 2;
        using (Transaction transaction = new Transaction(doc))
        {
            transaction.Start("create wall sweep");
            WallSweep.Create(wall, wallSweepType.Id, wallSweepInfo);
            transaction.Commit();
        }
    }
    else
    {
        TaskDialog.Show("ERROR", "no wall sweep type is found");
    }
}
catch (Autodesk.Revit.Exceptions.OperationCanceledException)
{
}

1. First, pick a wall as the host
2. then filter out all the wallsweep type and choose the first one
3. create the argument object WallSweepInfo by calling the constructor of WallSweepInfo, note that we can continue to customize it by setting its properties, e.g. in this example, by calling 'wallSweepInfo.Distance = 2' to set the distance of the wall sweep to the bottom of the hosted wall
4. Finally, call WallSweep.Create function to create the wall sweep