Revit 2011 API: What’s New in Element Creation

Each new version, I go through what is new in the specific API area of element creation. Every CAD API has some logical divisions, from information retrieval, to element creation, to interactivity – and you can tell from how strong each area is what the factory’s focus is in the API.

Revit’s start in this area was weak – the API was more about finding elements and updating parameters than actually creating new elements and geometry. In recent releases, Revit really played catch up – I believe it now supports 101 different element creation methods.

So what’s new in 2011 in this area: in short, not much… This was not an area of focus in 2011, so there’s only a few new things in this specific area:

1. NewTruss() – now available in architecture
2. NewRebarType()
3. NewRebarHookType()
4. NewRebarCoverType()
5. FaceWall.Create()

The last one is of the greatest interest to me personally. This enables you to create a wall based on a face (typically a face that is on a mass element). This is an advanced technique used in Revit to create complex wall shapes.
Two other items deserve honorable mention here as well:

• UIDocument.PromptForFamilyInstancePlacement() – while not technically a “Element Creation” capability, it opens up some significant doors to more interactive design applications within Revit – by letting the end-user help the developer place the family instance visually.
• SolidSolidCutUtils – A new utility class to help with doing solid-to-solid cuts in the modeling environment. This is typically used either for GenericForm kind of family solids or family instances.

All in all, while this category doesn’t seem like it got much attention in 2011, the fact is that with 101 element types that can be created, it has attained a certain level of maturity. For example, if I scan the Home ribbon in 2011 – it is possible to create almost everything that is available on that toolbar (I think the exceptions are: Ceiling, Model Group (you can’t create a new one), Railing, Ramp, Stairs. That’s really not too bad – and the remaining ones are a little on the obscure/complex side.

So let me hear from you by comments? Are you really waiting for one of the missing elements that can’t be created? or are you just reluctant to do API work with geometry creation until it supports 100%? How many different kinds of elements are YOU creating in your app?