After mentioning a very simple example of using the Revit Structural analytical model to find connected structural elements two days ago, here is a presentation of some more advanced structural optimisation in case you are interested in going further in this area, beyond the pure Revit API:
Al Fisher and Shrikant Sharma of UK-based Buro Happold Engineers published a whitepaper on
exploiting the Autodesk Robot Structural Analysis Professional API for structural optimisation.
Its introduction says:
Access to an open API (application programming
interface) can assist in the automation of common
and repetitive tasks, helping to save time and
costs. The open API provided with Autodesk Robot
Structural Analysis Professional software enables
programmatic control of Robot, through which
sophisticated bespoke tools for structural design
optimization can be developed.
Within the construction industry, there is constant pressure to deliver projects more
effectively on multiple fronts. This is most notable in the desire to reduce project time
scales, while also consistently increasing capability and design quality.
This double-edged challenge leads designers to continually seek more effective ways
of working. In this white paper, we demonstrate the use of Robot Structural Analysis
Professional API to increase efficiency through automation of design processes, which
can help reduce time scales and simplify workflow.
Furthermore, with this automation capability, innovative design processes such as
rationalization, standardization, and design optimization become possible.
The whitepaper covers the following topics:
- Overview of Robot Structural Analysis Professional API
- Introduction to Optimization
- Analysis Automation and Optimization
- Implementation and Case Studies
- Summary
- About the Authors
Hi, I'm working towards my first Robot add-on but I'm having a hard time finding the right resources I need: sdk, docs, samples, etc.
Could you point me in the right direction?
Thank you!
Posted by: Dan | February 09, 2011 at 04:32
Dear Dan,
The SDK for Robot Structural Analysis RSA is public and available from the RSA installation DVD under \\DVD\support\SDK. So if you have RSA installed, it should be right there at your finger tips.
Cheers, Jeremy.
Posted by: Jeremy Tammik | February 09, 2011 at 12:23
Hi, thanks for your help.
I have one more question though. I have RSA 2011 x64 but when I try to install the SDK from 'RSA_SDK.exe' it says that it can't find RSA installed. Do I have to install the 32bit version?
Thank you!
Posted by: Dan | February 11, 2011 at 05:37
Dear Dan,
It tells me that I don't have RSA installed either, even though I am on a 32 bit system. In my case, however, that is true :-)
Sorry, I cannot tell you anything more. Please try it out and let us know. Thank you!
Cheers, Jeremy.
Posted by: Jeremy Tammik | February 13, 2011 at 14:57
Hi,
It seems that for now the SDK does not work with the 64bit version of the RSA. There are no issues with the 32bit version so there's little to worry about.
Cheers,
Dan
Posted by: Dan | March 23, 2011 at 05:32
Hi Jeremy,
I would like to develop an RSA solution that is complied in Visual Studio and then executed on different machines. How do I deal with library references? Obviously the .dll's are not guaranteed to be in the same location on every machine...
Thanks in advance,
Posted by: Konstantin | December 15, 2014 at 09:21
Dear Konstantin,
I should think that there are a number of possible solutions.
The simplest thing to do is probably to copy all the required assemblies to the same location as the add-in executable on each machine.
Hopefully, they are not used by several different clients.
Cheers, Jeremy.
Posted by: Jeremy Tammik | December 22, 2014 at 01:15