I don’t recall hearing anything along those lines, and I wouldn’t plan on it happening. Based on my knowledge, that would involve a pretty substantial redesign of how Dynamo is integrated with Civil 3D.
I found the post I half-remembered reading in relation to your publishing Camber 3.0 and the external nodes…
It’s not quite what I thought. This sounds like the Dynamo team were thinking about how to pull data from other drawings…rather than being stuck with the Current Document node?
Either way, sounds like the stuff of dreams.
I think that might be some wishful thinking on Jacob’s part 
But hey, who knows! I would certainly be happy if it happened.
I can (and do) ask. It’s clearly doable, but it isn’t necessarily easy.
Oddly enough this is why the document input was included in the initial set of nodes, as opposed to the Revit side where pretty much everything was built for the active document.
1 Like
Thank you very much @mzjensen . Can you tell me please if there are any plans to update this also for DBText?
Hi @mzjensen, Thank you for this node.
The output from this node is a string with some formatting text. Is it correct? I would like to have string output without formatting text.
I’ll add it to the list.
It is the same behavior as the out-of-the-box node:
And it is consistent with what is shown in the properties palette:
My suggestion is to control the formatting with a text style instead of with overrides.
1 Like
Hi @mzjensen,
I’m trying to use your node “ExternalBlockReference.DynamicPropertyByName”.
But I can only get the values of the first ([0]) in the list of dynamic properties. When I try to get the values of property [1] and below, the node returns null.
Can you check this?
Or maybe you can suggest a proper workflow to get all dynamic property values.
I attach all the source files below.
test_ExternalBlockReference.DynamicPropertyByName.dyn (41.2 KB)
test_ExternalBlockReference.DynamicPropertyByName_file.dwg (809.2 KB)
test_ExternalBlockReference.DynamicPropertyByName_xref.dwg (820.2 KB)
Hi @ana.ortizMPU5K,
Good catch! This was a bug, which is now fixed in v4.2.4. I just uploaded the new version, so it will take ~20 minutes or so before it is available for download on the package manager.
3 Likes
Hi @mzjensen
I’m coming back to you with a question about the functionality of the “ExternalBlockReference.DynamicPropertyByName” node. I’ve been unable to get the values of dynamic properties for which visibility is switched off for the property palette.
In fact, these properties are there, but I turn them off for display when working with dynamic blocks normally.
Can I get the values of such properties through your node or another workflow approach?
Can your current node be modified?
For example, add a boolean variable (true/false) that would return either only visible or all dynamic properties.
I’ve attached all the source files below.
test_ExternalBlockReference.DynamicPropertyByName.dyn (40.5 KB)
test_ExternalBlockReference.DynamicPropertyByName_file.dwg (816.4 KB)
test_ExternalBlockReference.DynamicPropertyByName_xref.dwg (802.9 KB)
Hi @mzjensen,
I would like to change Sample Lines length with the same Dynamo script they were created with, but it is not possible. What is your opinion or advice how to do it?
@Drbohlav - I haven’t implement trace data with the Sample Lines (i.e., the ability to update the object after it is created). It isn’t quite as straightforward as simply updating a “length” value because a Sample Line can have any number of points, and there is no requirement that it is linear. For example:
It’s been on the list for awhile but I haven’t had time to work on it.
1 Like
Hi @ana.ortizMPU5K,
You could always do it with a Python node, but I don’t know of a solution otherwise. My goal was to mimic the behavior of the out-of-the-box node for getting dynamic property values for the current document, which does not include hidden properties. But I can see the need for this capability, and I think your idea to add a boolean input could be a good solution. The input will need to default to ‘false’ so that it doesn’t introduce new results into existing graphs.
1 Like
Hej @mzjensen
Where can I write a proposal to modify the standard (for Civil 3D) out-of-the-box nodes “BlockReference.DynamicPropertyByName” and “BlockReference.DynamicPropertyNames” so that the user can get a list of all dynamical properties and their values (no matter if they are hidden or not)?
I’m not exactly sure. Your best bet is probably to message one of the Dynamo team members here on the forum and see if they are able to forward your request on to the Civil 3D team.
However, I am fairly certain that it will be faster to try and write your own Python node to do the work, or post on the forum to see if someone is available to help. I don’t think any of the out-of-the-box nodes have been changed since Dynamo was released for Civil 3D back in 2019.
@mzjensen
Any ideas what is the issue seen in the pictures?
None of the named page setup are recognized by the Named Page Setups node, and if I give the name manually the Layout.ByName node returns null values. If I change the manual name to an invalid one it throws the error as it should.
I see that there are page setups defined for model space but none for paper space. I’m curious to hear your thought process behind that? Right now the code is setup to only handle paper space page setups, because I made an assumption that this is the workflow that most people use. But that may not have been a correct assumption, so I’m interested to hear your take.
1 Like
Hi @mzjensen
I want to show you the tricky part when applying your ExternalDocument.LoadFromFile node.
In a nutshell, the point is that if you feed this node with a relative path of a file, the node returns null.
It looks to me like an elegant solution to add to your package an additional node (FoundAt) which would return an absolute file path.
I’ve attached all the source files below.
test_ExternalDocument.LoadFromFile.dyn (8.5 KB)
test_ExternalDocument.LoadFromFile_file.dwg (842.0 KB)
test_ExternalDocument.LoadFromFile_xref1.dwg (803.2 KB)
test_ExternalDocument.LoadFromFile_xref2.dwg (803.2 KB)