Programmatic Access to Duct Sizes

Here is a nice little MEP related blog post on accessing duct sizes through the API to round off the week.

It was provided by our MEP expert Martin Schmid, who says:

I recently heard from a couple of developers that they had difficulties accessing the Duct Size settings in Revit.

In the user interface, you can see them by selecting Manage > MEP Settings > Mechanical Settings > Duct Settings > Round/Oval/Rectangular.

I threw together a macro to check for myself… maybe this would be helpful to publish so the results turn up in web searches…

I think this is a great idea and completely agree, so I implemented an external command ListDuctSizes calling Martin’s method of the same name to share with you:

  /// <summary>
  /// List all duct sizes, thus proving that the duct 
  /// size settings available in the Revit UI through 
  /// Manage > MEP Settings > Mechanical Settings > 
  /// Duct Settings > Round/Oval/Rectangular are 
  /// indeed available via the API.
  /// </summary>
  void ListDuctSizes( Document doc )
  {
    DuctSizeSettings settings
      = DuctSizeSettings.GetDuctSizeSettings( doc );
 
    foreach( KeyValuePair<DuctShape, DuctSizes> pair
      in settings )
    {
      Debug.Print( pair.Key.ToString() );
 
      foreach( MEPSize size in pair.Value )
      {
        string value = FormatUtils.Format( doc,
          UnitType.UT_HVAC_DuctSize,
          size.NominalDiameter );
 
        Debug.Print(
          "  {0}: used in size lists/sizing: {1}/{2}",
          value,
          size.UsedInSizeLists.ToString(),
          size.UsedInSizing.ToString() );
      }
    }
  }

Here is some of the output that it generates in the Visual Studio debug output window:

Round
  3": used in size lists/sizing: True/True
  4": used in size lists/sizing: True/True
  4": used in size lists/sizing: True/True
  ...
  88": used in size lists/sizing: True/True
  90": used in size lists/sizing: True/True
Rectangular
  3": used in size lists/sizing: True/True
  4": used in size lists/sizing: True/True
  4": used in size lists/sizing: True/True
  ...
  94": used in size lists/sizing: True/True
  96": used in size lists/sizing: True/True
Oval
  3": used in size lists/sizing: True/True
  4": used in size lists/sizing: True/True
  5": used in size lists/sizing: True/True
  ...
  143": used in size lists/sizing: True/True
  144": used in size lists/sizing: True/True

For the sake of completeness, here is ListDuctSizes.zip containing the full source code, Visual Studio solution and add-in manifest for this simple command.

Many thanks to Martin for sharing this, and a happy weekend to all!