The Building Coder

Three topics for today:

• Brussels hackathon and PoiPointer
• View depth override
• Destination BIM contest

Brussels Hackathon and PoiPointer

I returned from the Hackathon Open Data Brussels that I mentioned last Friday, promoting the use of the huge amounts of open data, cf. this impressive list of available data sets.

As said, I participated in the PoiPointer project, with a goal of implementing an app pointing out points of interest of various categories in Brussels, e.g. museums, cultural places, monuments, sculptures, fountains, murals, etc.

We used the schema-less REST driven JSON-based ElasticSearch database and Java for the back end, node.js and JavaScript for the web server, Objective-C for the iOS mobile app, Python for database clean-up and verification and HTML with GitHub in-place website hosting for the project home page.

Here is the project home page and all its GitHub repositories:

• Home page
• Live demo simulation
• Slide deck
• GitHub repositories
• PoiPointer data sources and verification utility (Python)
• PoiPointer marketing, i.e. images, icons, etc.
• PoiPointer node.js server (JavaScript)
• Back end used to sync db with opendata.brussels.be (Java)
• PoiPointer iOS app (Objective-C)
• Home page sources (HTML)
• HackaBXL, the official Brussels Open Data hackathon organisation
• HackaBXL PoiPointer page

I learned lots of new things and will definitely take a closer look soon at implementing some simple cloud-connected database search engine connected with Revit BIM collection using node.js and ElasticSearch.

I love the GitHub web hosting functionality and will certainly make frequent continued use of that as well.

View Depth Override

I received an email asking whether it might be possible to implement a perception of depth on elevation and section views:

Question: I am struggling to provide an automatic perception of depth on elevation and section views.

I would like the objects in the front to be displayed in black and white like Revit normally does. Everything in the background should be a grey of sorts, and the further back, the lighter the grey.

Here is an illustration of what I mean:

• From the section or elevation line, I would like to define a distance or area where everything would show black & white like Revit normal. This distance or depth can be adjusted.
• Further back from the Revit normal area until you reach the depth clipping line, I would like to make a setting that overrides the normal display and allows the user to set a starting grey and an end grey ranging from dark to light. It would be nice if the element projection line thickness could be overridden in the same way.

Here is a discussion on whether Revit elevation views are leaving you flat that might help provide a better explanation of the end result that I am looking to achieve.

I have no knowledge of the Revit API or add-in programming. Do you think that this is possible?

Can this be achieved using API or through an add-in?

Answer: You are in luck, especially since you say that you are not an experienced add-in programmer yourself.

I once happened to notice an add-in that does exactly what you are asking for.

It was published on an Italian blog, though.

I spent quite a while digging around for it and was initially still not able to find it or any way to pick it out from the mass.

Searching for "italian add-in" obviously did not help, and I could not imagine what it would.

Later...

I spent some more time on this and finally found a suitable search term: revit macro distanzia led to puntorevit.blogspot.com, and that in turn led to the mention I had in mind, on the view depth override macro by Paolo Emilio Serra.

I browsed through inpuntorevit a bit more and even discovered a recent update of the view depth override external command for Revit 2015.

By the way, Paolo switched from Italian to English language blogging now, which may or may not simplify things for you, depending on your language preferences :-)

Destination BIM Contest

Are you a BIM champion?

Enter the Destination BIM contest and win the chance to attend Autodesk University 2014.

Contest Details

• When: Content runs from October 17, 2014 until November 3, 2014.
• Who can enter: Anyone using or interested in BIM! Winner is open to US and Canada only.
• How to enter: Contestants fill out form and tell us how their BIM pilot is helping to change their organization on the dedicated contest landing page.
• How to win: winner selected by Autodesk committee by November 7, 2014.
• The Prize: 4 winners. Each receives one pass to Autodesk University Las Vegas, $600 travel voucher and hotel stay.
• Fine print:
• Contestants grant Autodesk permission to use their submission materials and interview content captured at AU
• Winners must participate in interviews and appear in video at AU per schedule determined by Autodesk