The Building Coder

I recently discussed how to generate unit abbreviations, both using a hard coded list and automatically generating them from the UnitSymbolType enumeration values.

I implemented the CmdDutAbbreviation command in The Building Coder samples to test these abbreviations, and also enhanced it to display the Display Unit Type to Unit Types mapping that we added in the meantime.

Victor Chekalin, or Виктор Чекалин, reacted to this analysis and adds:

Thank you for your investigation.

But... There is a big 'but' :-)

Your method with UnitSymbolType is not completely suitable for localised applications, e.g. Russian.

As always, I have solved these little issues :-)

You write above: 'After some further digging on the Revit API help file RevitAPI.chm, I discovered the FormatOptions GetValidUnitSymbols method'. But you did not dig deep enough to find the old GetLabelFor method in the static LabelUtils class.

If you looked at that, you'll see that one of overridden method takes UnitSymbolType as parameter.

And guess what it returns?

Right. The localizable abbreviation for Unit Symbol :-) – exactly what we need.

So, the command to retrieve a suitable localised Unit Type abbreviation becomes much simpler – check out http://pastebin.com/ZZ0mVeYE – regards, Victor:

public Result Execute(
  ExternalCommandData commandData,
  ref string message,
  ElementSet elements )
{
  DisplayUnitType n = DisplayUnitType.DUT_GALLONS_US;
 
  for( DisplayUnitType i = DisplayUnitType
    .DUT_METERS; i < n; ++i )
  {
    var validUnitSymbols = FormatOptions
      .GetValidUnitSymbols( i );
 
    foreach( var validUnitSymbol in validUnitSymbols )
    {
      if( validUnitSymbol != UnitSymbolType.UST_NONE )
      {
        var abbrUnitTypeLabel = LabelUtils.GetLabelFor(
          validUnitSymbol );
 
        Debug.Print( "{0} - {1}", abbrUnitTypeLabel,
          LabelUtils.GetLabelFor( i ) );
      }
    }
  }
  return Result.Succeeded;
}

Jeremy adds: I updated The Building Coder samples and integrated Victor's enhancement to the existing CmdDutAbbreviation command.

The relevant code looks like this now and lists both the official Revit API LabelUtils and hard-coded abbreviations plus the valid unit symbols for the first 26 display unit types:

  MapDutToUt map_dut_to_ut = new MapDutToUt();
 
  DisplayUnitType n
    = DisplayUnitType.DUT_GALLONS_US;
 
  Debug.Print( "Here is a list of the first {0} "
    + "display unit types with official Revit API "
    + "LabelUtils, hard-coded The Building Coder "
    + "abbreviations and valid unit symbols:\n",
    (int) n - 1 );
 
  string unit_types, valid_unit_symbols;
 
  for( DisplayUnitType i = DisplayUnitType
    .DUT_METERS; i < n; ++i )
  {
    List<string> uts = new List<string>(
      map_dut_to_ut[i]
        .Select<UnitType, string>(
          u => u.ToString().Substring( 3 ) ) );
 
    int m = uts.Count;
 
    unit_types = 4 > m
      ? string.Join( ", ", uts )
      : string.Format( "{0}, {1} and {2} more",
        uts[0], uts[1], m - 2 );
 
    valid_unit_symbols = string.Join( ", ",
      FormatOptions.GetValidUnitSymbols( i )
        .Where( u => UnitSymbolType.UST_NONE != u )
        .Select<UnitSymbolType, string>(
          u => LabelUtils.GetLabelFor( u )
            + "/" + Util.UnitSymbolTypeString( u ) ) );
 
    Debug.Print( "{0,6} - {1} - {2}: {3}",
      Util.DisplayUnitTypeAbbreviation[(int) i],
      LabelUtils.GetLabelFor( i ),
      unit_types,
      valid_unit_symbols );
  }

On my system, this generates the following output in the Visual Studio debug output window (copy and paste somewhere or view source to see truncated lines in full):

Here is a list of the first 26 display unit types with
official Revit API LabelUtils, hard-coded The Building
Coder abbreviations and valid unit symbols:

    m - Meters - Length, SheetLength and 19 more: m/m
   cm - Centimeters - Length, SheetLength and 20 more: cm/cm
   mm - Millimeters - Length, SheetLength and 20 more: mm/mm
   ft - Decimal feet - Length, SheetLength and 19 more: '/foot_single_quote, LF/lf
  N/A - Feet and fractional inches - Length, SheetLength and 19 more:
  N/A - Fractional inches - Length, SheetLength and 20 more:
   in - Decimal inches - Length, SheetLength and 20 more: "/inch_double_quote
   ac - Acres - Area, HVAC_CrossSection: acres/acres
   ha - Hectares - Area, HVAC_CrossSection: hectare/hectares
  N/A - Meters and centimeters - Length, SheetLength and 17 more:
  y^3 - Cubic yards - Volume, Piping_Volume: CY/cy
 ft^2 - Square feet - Area, HVAC_CrossSection and 2 more: SF/sf, ft²/ft^2
  m^2 - Square meters - Area, HVAC_CrossSection and 2 more: m²/m^2
 ft^3 - Cubic feet - Volume, Piping_Volume and 2 more: CF/cf, ft³/ft^3
  m^3 - Cubic meters - Volume, Piping_Volume and 2 more: m³/m^3
  deg - Decimal degrees - Angle, SiteAngle, Rotation: °/degree_symbol
  N/A - Degrees minutes seconds - Angle, SiteAngle, Rotation:
  N/A - General - Number:
  N/A - Fixed - Number, HVAC_Factor, Electrical_Demand_Factor:
    % - Percentage - Number, Slope and 4 more: %/percent_sign
 in^2 - Square inches - Area, HVAC_CrossSection and 2 more: in²/in^2
 cm^2 - Square centimeters - Area, HVAC_CrossSection and 2 more: cm²/cm^2
 mm^2 - Square millimeters - Area, HVAC_CrossSection and 2 more: mm²/mm^2
 in^3 - Cubic inches - Volume, Piping_Volume and 2 more: in³/in^3
 cm^3 - Cubic centimeters - Volume, Piping_Volume and 2 more: cm³/cm^3
 mm^3 - Cubic millimeters - Volume, Piping_Volume, Section_Modulus: mm³/mm^3
    l - Liters - Volume, Piping_Volume: L/l

Quite a nice correspondence, I think.

Note that the official Revit API LabelUtils abbreviations are localised, as Victor underlines, whereas the hard-coded ones obviosuly are not.

This discussion once again highlights several aspects:

• The Revit API provides a huge amount of functionality, sometimes more than you expect.
• Some functionality is not always obvious to find.
• The various *Utils classes contain many of these hidden gems, as Rudi likes to point out.

The updated version described above is published as release 2014.0.105.2 and includes the release 2014.0.105.1 Display Unit Type to Unit Types mapping.

Full Moon Celebration

I often take the opportunity of spending a couple of hours enjoying infinite space, time, air, fire, earth, and sometimes water by celebrating the full moon with a little fire on a hill nearby with a good view all around.

I did so last night as well, and it was very nice.

Here is a farewell picture of the full moon early this morning: