Roadmap, CI for RTF, Geometry Library

Lots going on, and off to Rome next week for the Forge accelerator.

Meanwhile, here are three of the many topics recently discussed:

Revit Public Roadmap – September 2018

Sasha Crotty updated the Revit Public Roadmap – September 2018.

Check it out to see where Revit is heading, and get some idea about why and how.

To help drive development, please submit your wishes to the Revit Idea Station at www.autodesk.com/revitideas.

There is a tag for API related wishes.

Configuring CI to use the RevitTestFramework RTF

We recently discussed some Revit Unit Test Framework Improvements.

Mark Vulfson now added additional notes to that, on configuring CI to use the RevitTestFramework RTF.

Check them out if you have any interest in this specific topic, or even just continuous integration in general.

Revit Geometry Library Limitations

People often ask why the Revit geometry library is not as full-fledged as some others, e.g., AutoCAD ObjectARX AcGe.

Here are some thought of mine on that subject from a twitter discussion on geometry library with Hoss Zamani:

Question: This is an excerpt of the awesome Building Coder blog by @jeremytammik in 2008.

Read-only geometry library limitation in 2008

Ten years later, Revit still doesn't provide a solid geometry library through its API? Is it only me that finds this absurd?

Answer: Yes. :-)

Response: Lol. Apparently you're right   :-)

But why is it that developers are expected to have their own math library?

Why does a software, one of whose main uses is to create geometry, make it so hard to create and manipulate geometry through its API?

Answer: Because the main purpose of Revit is NOT to create geometry, like a geometry library, freeform, unrestricted.

Its one and only purpose is to manage a BIM, which is almost exactly the opposite of freeform unrestricted geometry.

Therefore, if you want to create geometry yourself, you really will need your own geometry library, and Revit will not do very much to help.

Although, on the other hand, its geometry library is gradually also adding some read-write access.

Previously, it was totally and purely read-only.

Many thanks to Hoss for raising this pertinent question!