Revit 2018.1 and the Visual Materials API

The Revit 2018.1 update was released last month.

It implements one of the most important and long-standing API wishes, providing programmatic access to materials.

Check out the main new features.

Here is an extracted summary of the main API related ones:

Here are the relevant Revit 2018.1 links:

Revit 2018.1

Revit 2018.1 SDK Update

Question: So, you say, the Revit API has been updated. How can I access the updated API?

Answer: The Revit API is provided by the Revit API .NET assembly DLLs, which are included with the product in the same directory as Revit.exe itself. Install the update and you have the new API at your disposal.

However, that leads to another question, also raised in the Revit API discussion forum thread on the Revit 2018 Update 1 'Visual Materials API':

Question: Where is the API documentation for the API improvements made available in the Revit 2018 Update 1 release?

Specifically, I'm interested in the new 'Visual Materials API'.

Answer: An update 2018.1 to the Revit SDK is provided in the Revit Developer Centre.

Here is a direct download link:

It includes two new samples:

The former will hopefully answer all your questions in full.

The latter was already published separately and briefly discussed in the summary of Revit 2017 and 2018 SDK samples.