A chance to win your custom designed Revit app!

Have a great idea for a new add-on for Revit but have no way of creating it? Here’s your chance! Harry Mattison over at the BoostYourBIM blog is offering the chance for exactly this! For a chance to win a custom built Revit API app designed by YOU, all you have to do is enter his competition:

“To celebrate the posting of Image-O-Matic on the Autodesk Exchange, I am sponsoring a great contest!

1. Download Image-O-Matic from the Autodesk Exchange and use it to make a great video showing the animation of a Revit family or phased model.
   For a Vasari installer, visit http://boostyourbim.wordpress.com/products
2. Email me for a free license so Image-O-Matic will be able to make large image files. Or purchase a license for only $4.99 at http://boostyourbim.wordpress.com/products
3. Upload your video to YouTube
4. Leave a comment on this post with a link to your YouTube video

Contest ends February 15. Two winners will be chosen through a poll that I will post here after February 15 – one winner for phasing, one winner for instance parameters.

Each winner will get to design one Revit API app that I will build to their specifications!

The app should be approximately as complex as Image-O-Matic and I will collaborate with the winners to agree on the final design.  The winners will get a free, unlimited license to use them. Boost Your BIM will retain ownership of the app and its source code, but maybe I will share the source with the winners if I am feeling generous. 

For more info on the lift family shown in this video and other amazing Revit projects by Marcello Sgambelluri, visit http://therevitcomplex.blogspot.com/“

All you need to do to enter is, have an awesome, fully parametric Revit family that you have designed yourself, download Harrys Image-O-Matic tool and create a short animation video, as seen above. This is a great opportunity to have that Revit add-in you’ve always wanted, coded by a very experienced Revit API user. Visit the Boost Your BIM blog today to find out more!

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BoostYourBIM – Making the Revit API Accessible for All

Have you ever tried to write Revit API code? Have you heard about the API and wonder how it could help you? Want to learn more? If so, visit the new blog BoostYourBIM by Harry Mattison where you are welcome to learn and ask questions about the greatness of the Revit API.

Harry joined Revit Technology Corp in 1998 and spent his last few years at Autodesk as a software developer on the Revit API team. Now Harry has set out on this own and would like to help more people appreciate and benefit from the Revit API.

Learning the Revit API can be a daunting task, but BoostYourBIM breaks it down into manageable, bit-sized pieces and shares lots of C# code that you can copy, adapt, and re-use. So please visit http://boostyourbim.wordpress.com, read some posts, and submit some comments about what intrigues you about the Revit API.

Learning to code… again – with Codecademy

Before taking my University education in Copenhagen to become an Architectural Technologist, I was studying at UCLAN in Preston on a ‘Computer games programming and design’ course. During this time my interest turned from the actual programming of games to the surroundings and buildings involved inside a computer game. My development and research of ‘game buildings’ as I called them, sparked my passion for architecture and more importantly making me want to change directions completely towards building construction. 

Aside from my passion for design and my newly found interest in Architecture, I found the programming side of the degree to be a real challenge which was one of the factors for me wanting to change direction. Years down the line and my Architectural Technology degree completed, I suddenly have the urge to learn how to program again! I have a few reasons for this:

1. I don’t want to be beaten by it – second time lucky.
2. I would like to learn some more about the API development side to Revit. 
3. I have found a site called Codecademy.com which makes it simple to learn!

Codecademy is a website which anyone can join for free. ‘Hands on’ tutorials and exercises are written by the founders and advanced members of the community for other members to learn from. Through guided exercises you learn the very basics of programming all the way up to advanced code which you will be able to write yourself to create small programs – with this fundamental knowledge you will have the skillset to go on to writing bigger programs. – That is the idea anyway!

  

Above is an example image of the console in Codecademy where you will write your code – You will be given written exercises on the left side of the page, and have this console on the right side. You will be given tips and prior knowledge to help you learn. The console itself will also give you tips as to where you have made mistakes. Once you have entered the right code, you can ‘Run’ it and it will give you a progression link to the next exercise. 

“Codecademy is a team of hackers working hard to build a better way for anyone to teach, and learn, how to code. We’re determined to succeed in realizing our mission to turn a world of tech consumers into one of empowered builders.”

 The website has a whole bunch of different courses to choose from, for example the Javascript course which I am currently working on. A python course and a website builder course covering CSS HTML etc. I would definitely recommend Codecademy to anyone who is interested in learning more about programming or wants to test their current knowledge. Beware, it can get quite addictive!