Image courtesy of Hobart, Yañez, Ramos, Maguey, and Martínez

Applied Dynamics: Using Dynamic Model

Update in the Autodesk® Revit® API
Scott Conover
Software Development Manager, Revit API
Objectives

 Register dynamic updaters

 Add triggers to invoke the updaters when a target element has
changed
 Implement a dynamic updater to react to model changes
 Store/update application specific data from updaters
 Use the document changed event to keep external application
data synchronized
Agenda

5 minutes Dynamic changes

20 minutes Dynamic Model Update

5 minutes DocumentChanged event

10 minutes Failure processing

10 minutes Idling event

Static vs. Dynamic changes in the Revit API

A static change refers to an action that A dynamic change refers to changing

changes the model as an effect of an
one-time explicit request made by the
end user. Revit is in between
commands, sort of idling, ready to
accept a new transaction.
the model as an reaction to something
happening in or with the model. Revit is
already about to make a change, is in
the midst of a change, or has just
completed a change.

a) By executing an external command a) An event handler

b) By clicking on a ribbon widget b) A dynamic update callback
c) By executing a macro
 Actions taken by the user ultimately
 The end user is the direct trigger for a cause the dynamic change, but the
static change. application has control over what actions
it should react to

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Frameworks for dynamic change

Four Revit API frameworks support dynamic code affecting what

happens at the model level:

Dynamic model update Something is being changed

DocumentChanged event Something has been changed

FailuresProcessing event Something has triggered a warning or error

Application Idling event Nothing is being currently changed

All of these events have special relationships with the

Transaction and Failure reporting frameworks.
Frameworks for dynamic change
Application.Idling

Transaction.Start()
model changes

Transaction
Transaction.Commit()
Dynamic Update – loop Starts

committing
Updater1.Execute()
Updater2.Execute()
Dynamic Update – loop Ends
Failure processing
Application.DocumentChanged

Application.Idling
Dynamic model update
Adding logic to regeneration
Dynamic Model Update

 Updates the document while the user is making changes

 React to changes that already happened
 Make changes to Revit elements
 Keep external data stored in the model in sync
 Part of the transaction process
 Runs when a transaction is committed
 Not executed when a transaction is undone or redone
 Invoked for desired changes only, controlled by filters
 It’s best for performance if updater is only called when actually needed
Simple updater

Changing wall type

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IUpdater interface

 The interface
public interface class IUpdater
 All methods except Execute() invoked {
only once at the time of registration, UpdaterId GetUpdaterId();
to get information about the updater:
void Execute(UpdaterData data);
 Id

 Name ChangePriority
GetChangePriority();
 Additional info (used in user messages)

 ChangePriority String GetUpdaterName();

 Execute() is invoked every time a

String
particular updater is triggered GetAdditionalInformation();
};
 Revit holds a reference of the
updater instance (so it is not
garbage collected accidentally)

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Registering updaters

 Best times to register:

 During the OnStartup method of an IExternalApplication (application-
wide)
 During the DocumentOpened callback (document-specific)
 During the Module_Startup of a VSTA macro

 Otherwise users may be prompted about a missing updater for

a document
Updater Id

 Consists of the AddInId plus an updater-specific GUID

 Why it’s required:
 Revit needs to know what application an updater belongs to
 Only the owning application can register and unregister an updater
 Updater information is cached in the Revit documents which are
modified by the updater
 Only manifest files support AddInIds (not Revit.ini), so only
manifest-registered applications can register updaters.
Application vs. Document registration
 Application-wide updaters
 invoked on changes in any
document
 cannot be used with explicit
trigger scopes (element ids)
 can trigger on elements which
pass a given ElementFilter
 Use for general purpose
applications
 Document-level updaters
 invoked only for changes in the
target document
 can trigger on specific element
ids
 can also trigger on elements
which pass a given ElementFilter
 Use for special logic for a
certain project, or for
documents where a specific
tool was run to create or
modify a special set of
elements
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Change Priority

 Determines the order of execution of registered updaters

 Highest priority: GridsLevelsReferencePlanes
 Lowest priority: Annotations

 Setting a wrong priority could slow down Revit

 Making a change of higher priority (when executing an updater) is possible
 Because higher priority items were changed, additional updaters (including your
own) will have to be called again to potentially react to changes
 Could result in a circular dependency

 Priority is requested only once during updater registration

Update Triggers
Required for Revit to know what changes an updater is interested in
When a trigger is engaged, the corresponding Updater is called by
invoking its Execute() method

Change
Scope
type
Trigger

An updater without triggers will never be executed

Triggers for an updater cannot be modified while inside the Execute() method
Trigger - Scope

 Part of the document to trigger on

 Can be Application-wide or Document-wide
 Can be explicit (set of element IDs) or implicit (filters)
 Explicit scope only Document-wide
 Ids are not checked against the document
 Ids are not synchronized after reload latest
Trigger - ChangeType
Specifies the kind of change in which the updater is interested
 Addition and Deletion
 Parameter – changes of values of element parameters
 Set using a specific Parameter from an element
 Trigger fires for any document (for BuiltInParameters)
 Trigger fires for source document only (for shared parameters)

 Geometry – shape and location in space

 Any encapsulates every change
 Except for addition and deletion
Execution of an updater
 Evaluated at the end of every transaction
 Execute() method called for each updater whose trigger matches
 Execute() may be invoked more than once in a single transaction
 Due to actions of other updaters
 There is a limit in place to prevent an infinite loop

 Updaters not invoked for undo and redo

 Revit will restore all document changes

 Added vs. Deleted vs. Changed elements

 Net change is reported
 Added, then changed – added is reported
 Added, then deleted – not reported

 Finding what trigger was hit

 IsChangeTriggered()
 Use if there is more than one trigger on a particular updater
Forbidden operations during Dynamic Update
 Calling certain methods
 If they start a transaction
 If they must be called outside of a transaction
 UI methods
 If they affect a bi-directional interdependency between elements (this
restriction is due to possible inconsistency of worksets) Rare; APIs
which cause them are listed as forbidden in the documentation
 Modifying the current transaction
 Modifying the current transaction group
 Changing updater registration and triggers
Competing updaters

 Updaters prohibited from explicitly changing the same data

 Can be indirectly changed (due to regeneration)

 Data is the “same” if:

 Belongs to the same element
 Represents the same portion of the same element

 Examples:
 Two updaters change different parameters of wall – OK
 Two updaters change height parameter – forbidden
 Two updaters change the curve driver of a wall - forbidden
 Even if one moves it in X, one moves it in Y
Missing updaters

 Revit
 Remembers updaters
 Checks for remembered updaters
on document open
 This is for protection of data
integrity of the document

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Misbehaving updaters

Unhandled exceptions Loop caused by interaction of

two updaters
 The first one that makes a
change again in the last allowed
cycle
 Number of allowed cycles =
number of updaters + 2
 If a faulty updater is removed, the
cycle is repeated one more time. If
there is a change from another
updater, that one will be removed
as well, and so on

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Updater examples

Building relationships between elements

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Updater examples

Custom family behavior

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Document Changed Event
What just happened?
The DocumentChanged event

 Raised at the end of any transaction

 Even if rolled back or empty
 Raised when rolling back a group
 All transactions enclosed by the group will be included
 Raised for every undo and redo
 Multiple transactions at once

 Not raised if non-persistent data changes (for example: )

 Loading/creating a new shared parameter file
 Accessing analysis visualization framework entities
 View operations
The DocumentChanged event
 At this time, the transaction framework is not expecting further
changes (so the event is read-only with respect to the
document)

 Purpose of this event is to keep non-document data in synch

with Revit
 External databases
 External UI
 Analysis visualization
The DocumentChanged event

 List of Added / Deleted /

Modified element ids is
available
 Any of the lists can be empty
 Net change is reported
 Added, then changed – added is
reported
 Added, then deleted – not reported
 Cumulative within all
transactions being
processed
 When multiple transactions undone
or redone, all net changes are
reported

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 Failure Processing
Posting and reacting to problems
Defining and posting failures

 Failure definition defined in OnStartup()

 Post failure message during open transaction
 Assigned severity (warning, error, corruption)
 Assigned problematic elements for highlighting
 Assign resolutions
 API-supported resolutions:
 Rollback of transaction (“cancel”)
 Deletion of failing elements
 “Delete other elements” resolution
Reacting to failures

 Three options
 FailuresPreprocessor
 Specific transaction
 Suppress warnings or handle errors possibly raised by your transaction
 FailureProcessing
 Global event
 See and react to warnings and errors before user does
 FailureProcessor
 Final handler for failures
 Normally, Revit’s UI acts as the FailuresProcessor for the session
 Implementing this interface will allow your application to handle all errors instead
(UI will not be used)
 Idling Event
Let me make changes gradually…
Idling event

 Raised continually whenever the interactive user is not doing

something else
 Not raised when user in a Revit tool
 Not raised when there is any open transaction
 Not raised in modes where API commands are not supported
 Perspective views
 Schedule views
 In-place family editing
 Not raised when there is no active document
Idling event

 The Idling event callback allows you do almost anything:

 Start a transaction
 Make model changes
 Regenerate
 Commit transactions
 Read Revit data

 When coding, remember that this event happens in between

user actions
 Callback actions should be small and contained
 Large modifications or calculations will be perceived by user as making
Revit unresponsive
Idling event

 The Idling event provides the

framework to support
asynchronous calculations
 Multithreaded processing
 Calculations in the cloud
 Response to modeless dialog
boxes

 All Revit interaction needs to

happen during the Idling event
Idling event driven external
callback calculation with AVF
 Extract and cache data needed
for the calculation before
returning control to Revit
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Q&A

 Special thanks to:

 Arnost Lobel, Revit API Software Developer, who developed much of
this course initially
 Harry Mattison, Revit API Software Developer, whose code was the
basis for the Idling and Failure Handling samples
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