Python

[michael.montagne]

I've run across some old threads (mostly by GuyR) mentioning python for Revit. Is it possible to use python for Revit programming? How exactly would one go about that?

-mjm

[mmason.65315]

I haven't had a chance to really test it - but I suspect that you'd have to do something like this:

0. First, we're talking about "IronPython" the one that works with .NET. Install the framework.

1. Have a C# or VB.NET application that implemented the IExternalCommand interface.

I don't think Python can do this, so I think you'd need a wrapper, which then called Python...

2. Call a function in a python script, passing in the Application object.

You can find some of these examples on the web - it looks like you're Creating an Instance of the python engine, creating a module, then reading the contents of a PY file into the module. You can then call a method in the Python class, and hopefully pass the Application object.

It's all going to be a little tricky, especially using the IronPython CLR classes to dynamically reference the Autodesk.Revit library.

I don't know when I'll get enough time to try it out - I hope someone does and posts a sample project here!

-Matt

[GuyR]

Michael,

As I've talked about before I've had a python binding working for Revit since the first version of the API (V8 ). The first versions used CPython which opened Revit to the huge number of python libraries that exists on the web. With Microsoft getting behind IronPython and Revit moving to .NET2 I ported the effort to IronPython.

My initial reason for doing this was to try and open the API to a wider audience, the casual programmer. However, I quickly came to appreciate 2 huge issues.

1.. While python is easy to read and write, to create anything of substance requires a lot of knowledge using .NET and winForms. So python didn't really help .
2.. A good intellisense editor was needed for writing scripts, unless you had VStudio standard and above, or a photographic memory .

Last year MS started rewriting IronPython using an 'intermediate' layer called the DLR. This will make it easier creating dynamic languages for .NET. However, the hosting and embedding solution is changing a lot. I haven't tried porting to the current IP2 alpha. And as of today there has been no mention from MS on what if any editing solutions will be supported for the DLR.

Given most casual programmers are going to be using VStudio express there hasn't been much point releasing this work. I'd just be having to support a less than usable solution. Late last year I became aware of an editing solution for IP1.1 which might solve 2 above. Sometime in the next month I'll have a look at it and if it's workable I'll release my code for all.

HTH,

Guy

[Nic M.]

There seems some evolution in this
http://code.google.com/p/revitpythonshell/

also Jermy mentioned it on his blog "the building Coder"

[TroyGates]

This looks very promising. Its a python interrupter that allows you to run python scripts against your Revit model/database. I could see this used for a lot of different types of analysis and model discovery applications.