Need a node to set the active view in a Revit model

[ColinDayOrg]

Issue by andydandy74 Wednesday Oct 21, 2015 at 01:54 GMT Originally opened as https://github.com/DynamoDS/Dynamo/issues/5573

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I thought I could do this by myself using a Python node, but no such luck. Dynamo tells me that setting the active view is currently disabled. Looks like this can only be done via a proper built-in Dynamo node. FWIW, here's my Python code:

import clr
clr.AddReference('RevitAPI')
from Autodesk.Revit.DB import *
import Autodesk

clr.AddReference("RevitServices")
import RevitServices
from RevitServices.Persistence import DocumentManager
from RevitServices.Transactions import TransactionManager

doc = DocumentManager.Instance.CurrentDBDocument
uiapp = DocumentManager.Instance.CurrentUIApplication
uidoc = uiapp.ActiveUIDocument
view = UnwrapElement(IN[0])

TransactionManager.Instance.EnsureInTransaction(doc)
uidoc.ActiveView = view
TransactionManager.Instance.TransactionTaskDone()

OUT = view

[ColinDayOrg]

Comment by andydandy74 Wednesday Oct 21, 2015 at 02:26 GMT

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I just tried a few other things and it seems like any command that is tied to to the UIDoc object is being blocked.

[ColinDayOrg]

Comment by epeter- Monday Nov 02, 2015 at 09:57 GMT

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andreas, that is odd. i think that i succeeded in the change of active views in older versions of dynamo......

[ColinDayOrg]

Comment by andydandy74 Monday Nov 02, 2015 at 11:45 GMT

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peter, if you happen to find your old code could you post it here? thanks.

[ColinDayOrg]

Comment by epeter- Monday Nov 02, 2015 at 15:36 GMT

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andreas i definitely will. 2morrow i am in office and check. best peter Am 02.11.2015 um 12:45 schrieb Andreas Dieckmann:

peter, if you happen to find your old code could you post it here? thanks.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/DynamoDS/Dynamo/issues/5573#issuecomment-152996364.

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[ColinDayOrg]

Comment by ksobon Tuesday Feb 23, 2016 at 17:55 GMT

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@andydandy74 I think this might be an issue of Transactions. If I remember correctly the Revit API documentation states that in order to set a Current View, you need to have all Transactions closed. What you are doing is opposite. Please try ForceCloseTransaction and then set the Active View.

[ColinDayOrg]

Comment by choiie Tuesday Sep 13, 2016 at 12:43 GMT

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@ksobon ForceCloseTransaction() did not work to achieve this functionality. Can somebody chime into this discussion? This seems like pretty basic functionality.

[ColinDayOrg]

Comment by ThomasMahon Monday Mar 20, 2017 at 11:47 GMT

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Just found this thread and thought I'd update it since I've been developing a tool in Dynamo which includes a set view action. I discovered, as @ksobon points out, that activating the view in a transaction is not possible. Its also not possible to set the uidoc.ActiveView property in Revit's Idling even, and that's obviously a problem when trying to do this through Dynamo!

That leaves only one option, the uidoc.RequestViewChange() method. Its a bit limited as it's asycronous, but it works, and ForceCloseTransaction has to be called otherwise it throws the exception @andydandy74 reported.

Here's a code snippet:

#Copyright 2016. All rights reserved. Bimorph Consultancy LTD, 5 St Johns Lane, London EC1M 4BH www.bimorph.co.uk
#Written by Thomas Mahon @Thomas__Mahon info@bimorph.co.uk Package: bimorphNodes
#GitHub: https://github.com/ThomasMahon/bimorphNodes/
#Follow: facebook.com/bimorphBIM | linkedin.com/company/bimorph-bim | @bimorphBIM

import clr

clr.AddReference("RevitServices")
import RevitServices
from RevitServices.Persistence import DocumentManager
from RevitServices.Transactions import TransactionManager

clr.AddReference("RevitAPI")
import Autodesk
from Autodesk.Revit.DB import *

doc = DocumentManager.Instance.CurrentDBDocument
uidoc = DocumentManager.Instance.CurrentUIDocument

TransactionManager.Instance.EnsureInTransaction(doc)
TransactionManager.Instance.ForceCloseTransaction()

view = UnwrapElement(IN[0])
uidoc.RequestViewChange( view )

[ColinDayOrg]

Comment by andydandy74 Monday Mar 20, 2017 at 12:25 GMT

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Nice find, @ThomasMahon !

[ColinDayOrg]

Comment by jtotheb86 Monday Aug 28, 2017 at 09:09 GMT

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@ThomasMahon thanks for your code above. Can you help modifying to accept a Document input, instead of using the current document.

Trying to use this in Dynamo for opening families in the background, setting the active view to a 3D view and saving.

I'm very new to Python script and am struggling