Revit STL Exporter Released as Open Source

Here is one of the most surprising and promising recent news items for Revit API developers, published yesterday by Emile Kfouri on BIM Apps ↗: The Revit STL exporter is now open source ↗.

Look at Emile’s post for the complete story, including:

• Introduction, motivation, and explanation.
• Definitions of STL, stereolithography, and open source.
• STL exporter history.
• User feedback.
• Future.
• Open source license and participating parties.
• How to get started.

Exciting news!

Adding a Parameter to a Family

To add an unrelated technical note, here is a very quick little question that crops up from time to time:

Question: How can I a parameter to an existing family?

Answer: You can add a real family parameter directly using the FamilyManager AddParameter method taking the arguments string, BuiltInParameterGroup, ParameterType, Boolean.

Alternatively, you can create a shared parameter definition and add it to family using the FamilyManager AddParameter method taking the arguments ExternalDefinition, BuiltInParameterGroup, Boolean:

• AddParameter(String, BuiltInParameterGroup, ParameterType, Boolean) adds a new family parameter with a given name.
• AddParameter(ExternalDefinition, BuiltInParameterGroup, Boolean) adds a new shared parameter to the family.