Changing a Revit Beam

santiago.diaz.ames · 9 January 2025 03:24

Objective: Change a Revit Beam in C# via Speckle
Issue: Revit Beam pulled into Speckle ignores my changes in its BaseLine.

I have a Revit Family that includes structural steel members (HSS beams and columns).
I am placing Instances of this Revit Family in various locations and orientations, then creating a Speckle model with these Revit Instances.

As I pull the Speckle model into Revit, the Revit Family Instances appear in the correct positions and orientations. However the Revit Beams default to an origin location and orientation.

I realized that the Revit Beams are different to the Revit Instances, in that the beams don’t use a Transform Matrix, but instead are defined by a BaseLine property that has Start and End XYZ properties.

I’ve tried to set those XYZ coordinates to the coordinates I need. However, when I send the collection into Speckle, these XYZ coordinate changes I made are being ignored, apparently.

What am I missing?
Are there any examples of defining Revit Beam Speckle Objects in C#?
Any help is greatly appreciated.

jonathon · 9 January 2025 09:08

Please share as much as you can. Before and after models and any code used.

teocomi · 9 January 2025 13:44

As Jonathon says, we’d need more information to help you.
Here you can see the logic that in v2 connectors turns a Speckle beam into a Revit one:

github.com

specklesystems/speckle-sharp/blob/ff929b3ea50abaa51608eaeb47009bc2a6a32107/Objects/Converters/ConverterRevit/ConverterRevitShared/PartialClasses/ConvertBeam.cs#L17


      
          using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
          using DB = Autodesk.Revit.DB;
          
          
namespace Objects.Converter.Revit;
          
          
public partial class ConverterRevit
          {
            // CAUTION: this string needs to have the same values as in the connector
            const string StructuralFraming = "Structural Framing";
          
          
  public ApplicationObject BeamToNative(Beam speckleBeam, StructuralType structuralType = StructuralType.Beam)
            {
              var docObj = GetExistingElementByApplicationId(speckleBeam.applicationId);
              var appObj = new ApplicationObject(speckleBeam.id, speckleBeam.speckle_type)
              {
                applicationId = speckleBeam.applicationId
              };
          
          
    // skip if element already exists in doc & receive mode is set to ignore
              if (IsIgnore(docObj, appObj))
              {

Beams and Structural Columns are line based elements, but Architectural columns are point based instead.