MultiReferenceAnnotation Example

Miguel Angel Alanis asked on the Autodesk Revit API discussion forum for an example of making use of the new MultiReferenceAnnotation ↗.

I put together this blog post to make sure the solution is easily found.

First, a note on something more imminent:

Portathon Day 1

Today is the first day of the Portathon!

• Earn $100 Submitting an Autodesk Exchange App
• Exchange App Videos
• Portathon reminder and video
• Cloud and AppStore usage growth

Wish us all luck and much success, please.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

MultiReferenceAnnotation Creation Sample Code

Back to the main topic:

Question: Is it possible to get an example to create a multi-rebar annotation?

I searched the Revit SDK and found I have to use the MultiReferenceAnnotation class, but I can’t build an example with the current information.

I use the Autodesk.Revit.Creation.Document.Create.NewTag method to create a normal rebar tag, and I notice the independent tag has a property named MultiReferenceAnnotationId.

Answer: Please note the MultiReferenceAnnotation.Create method taking a MultiReferenceAnnotationOptions argument.

The minimum options are probably the type and ElementsToDimension.

Here is an excerpt from an internal test suite. It refers to a couple of hardcoded element ids. Use the documentation to figure out their use:

  var view = GetElement<View>( 124186 );
 
  var rebarList = GetElements<Element>(
    doc, new[] { 280427 } ).ToList();
 
  Assert.IsTrue( rebarList.Count > 0,
    "There are no rebars in the document!" );
 
  IList<ElementId> elementIds
    = new List<ElementId>();
 
  foreach( Element rebar in rebarList )
  {
    elementIds.Add( rebar.Id );
  }
 
  MultiReferenceAnnotationType type
    = GetElement<MultiReferenceAnnotationType>(
      doc, 260544 );
 
  Assert.IsNotNull( type,
    "the MultiReferenceAnnotationType does not exist!" );
 
  MultiReferenceAnnotationOptions options
    = new MultiReferenceAnnotationOptions( type );
 
  options.TagHeadPosition = new XYZ( 0, 100, 0 );
  options.DimensionLineOrigin = new XYZ( 5, 5, 1 );
  options.DimensionLineDirection = new XYZ( 0, 1, 0 );
  options.DimensionPlaneNormal = view.ViewDirection;
  options.SetElementsToDimension( elementIds );
 
  using( Transaction tran = new Transaction( doc ) )
  {
    tran.Start( "Create_Rebar_Vertical" );
 
    var mra = MultiReferenceAnnotation.Create(
      doc, view.Id, options );
 
    var dimension = GetElement<Dimension>(
      doc, mra.DimensionId );
 
    tran.Commit();
  }

Many thanks to Miguel Angel for raising this issue.

Case Newsletter

By the way, I really enjoy the case newsletter ↗ and the fun items it points to, for instance this mental eyeballing exercise ↗ and lawn chair magic video ↗.

Besides the fun stuff, it presents a lot of useful architectural programming news as well.