FamilyInstance.ByPoint overwrites

[DaveP]

I’m writing a graph to lay out seating along a curve.
Without getting into too much detail, I select an element and use Curve.PointAtParameter to divide it up.
Then I use FamilyInstance.ByPoint to place chairs along the curve.

The weird thing is that if I run the graph a second time using a different curve, Dynamo deletes the first run families and places only the families from the second run.
Even if I close Revit completely, re-Open the project and re-run the Graph, it moves the Instances from the previous run.

I check the Element IDs, and it turns out the the second run creates the same IDs as the first run.
So, am I missing something with the FamilyInstance.ByPoint node? Am I doing something else wrong?
How do I get subsequent runs to create new Instances without overwriting the old?

[Kulkul]

Hi @DaveP

@DaveP

How do I get subsequent runs to create new Instances without overwriting the old?

Use Dynamo Player.

[DaveP]

I need to have input - Select an Element for the Path - so I can’t run it automatically

Also, just found this thread

FamilyInstance.ByPoint node issues

I’ve been trying to troubleshoot a script and have identified the ‘FamilyInstance.ByPoint’ built-in node as the problem. To prove what I’d been seeing, I created a basic script to test things and have managed to replicate the issues that I’m having. If I use the node to create a new family instance, then it works just fine. However, when I then move the new instance of the family to another position and then re-run the script, in theory creating a new instance, then rather than creating anothe…

But their “Close and re-open” solution didn’t work for me

[Kulkul]

@DaveP

I need to have input - Select an Element for the Path

Use “Pick Model Elements” Custom node from Rhythm package to select elements in each run. Hope that makes sense!

[DaveP]

Thanks for the quick responses
Found another thread the has a link to GitHub. (Which you were an active participant on ! )

Place new family instance each run

Hello @Kulkul! I am trying to use this node to allow me to place several hanger instance along a pipe, reading rotation, elevation and other parameters and writing onto the new instances. Now the “FamilyInstanceByPointinTrasaction” works for one instance per run? What can I modify in the script to make it work for multiple instances? Thanks Regards, JT [image] [image]

It says that this is “working as intended” for that node.

I’ll try the Rhythm node / Player trick after lunch
BRB!

[john_pierson]

I am actually going through this same thing now. Does my node really allow this?

[Kulkul]

@john_pierson Yep!

[Tomasz_Puchala]

Hi,
rewrite code from the first post.

Place Family By Point Bug?

Hello, My brain is dead. Is it bug or my fault? Location point of created element is random or coordinates are doubled. I’ve tried set.location node from SpringNodes, even modified it and moved transaction inside ‘for’ loop. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. Thank you. [image]

I posted whole this code somewhere else in aanother post, but cannot find it.
Basically you need to open & close transaction for every change, that’s why it’s inside ‘for’ loop. Or mby I’m totally wrong, but at least it works this way Marking solution for dynamo player is kinda wrong, cause u won’t run dynamo player in revit 14/15/16

[DaveP]

Hmmmm…
I’m going to have to re-work a few things.
I’ve got two inputs in my original - one to pick the family and another to pick the path.
First time I tried to run it with Player, it just spun away & I had to use Task Manager to kill it.
So I’ll have to either give up on selecting the family, or pipe that in some other way.

[john_pierson]

Running through this problem my self.
My solution is:

1. Run in Dynamo

2. Cut/Paste in place elements in Revit

3. Run again in Dynamo

[DaveP]

Thanks, John.
Perhaps you know why I have to bother with this, though. I asked over here

Issue: Node FamilyInstance.ByPointAndLevel retains links to placed elements indefinitely

about why the FamilyInstance.ByPoint node bonds itself to the Instances & haven’t gotten an answer.
I’m sure there’s some logic but I can’t think of why you would want to always use the same Family for every subsequent run.

[Kulkul]

@DaveP @john_pierson I got this bad boy fixed

Here is the code:

import clr

clr.AddReference("RevitServices")
clr.AddReference("RevitNodes")
import RevitServices
from RevitServices.Persistence import DocumentManager
from RevitServices.Transactions import TransactionManager
doc =  DocumentManager.Instance.CurrentDBDocument

import Revit
clr.ImportExtensions(Revit.Elements)
clr.ImportExtensions(Revit.GeometryConversion)

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


def ptslist(obj1):
	if hasattr(obj1,"__iter__"): return obj1
	else: return [obj1]

famType = UnwrapElement(IN[0])
pts = ptslist(IN[1])
lvl = UnwrapElement(IN[2])


elems = []

for pt in pts:
	TransactionManager.Instance.EnsureInTransaction(doc)
	elems.append(doc.Create.NewFamilyInstance(pt.ToRevitType(True), famType, lvl, Structure.StructuralType.NonStructural))
	TransactionManager.Instance.TransactionTaskDone()
	
OUT = elems

[DaveP]

Works great! Thank you sir.

However, might I be so bold as to make one more request? (I know, I’m greedy)
Can you do the same thing for FamilyInstance.SetRotation?
Apparently, all of the FamilyInstance nodes bind to the initial element, so I had to Freeze that node in my graph.

[Patrick_Pease]

This is fantastic! Ditto @DaveP question on FamilyInstance.SetRotation. Is this something that has been picked up in the past few weeks?

[Luke_Johnson]

Family Instance By Point in Transaction

[zhukoven]

I’ve been struggling with the similar problem for a bit, and here’s what I came up with:

1. Using the ‘Family Instance By Point in Transaction’ node from the Bakery package (authored by @Luke_Johnson), solves the problem with disappearing elements each time you run the graph;

2. Then I modified this custom node to add an activation for the family symbol:
   # Make sure the familysymbol is active if famtype.IsActive == False: famtype.Activate() doc.Regenerate()
   This ensures that your family, that you have just loaded to the project, will be ‘recognized’ by Revit.

3. Placed the ‘FamilyInstance.SetRotation’ at the end of the graph, so that Dynamo firstly places my family instances, and then rotates them.

4. So each time I run the graph, it places new instances of chairs and rotates them:
   

   

And here are the caveats:

5. Using ‘FamilyInstance.SetRotation’ becomes tricky when you need to place families by curve (dynamo ‘curve’ == revit ‘line’). This is because each curve has its direction (oops ), and so does the tangent vector ('Curve.TangentAtParameter) at each point of this curve. And when you try to get rotation angle between tangent vector and i.e. YAxis, you’ll probably get some negative values;

6. Of course, the way your family is built (in terms of directions inside the family editor) will also affect rotation. My graph is still work in progress, and I suppose that it won’t be universal as I previously planned;

7. Instead of using lines, you can get the curves from in-place family by selecting one of its edges. But the problem is that these edges may be cut by walls or other intersecting elements.

[Julie_Kidder]

How would this be modified for placing instances in the view, instead of a level? I’m having a hard time figuring out how to convert revit api notes into python code.

[jacob.small]

Best to start a new topic with the usual ‘this is where I am’ and ‘this is where I want to be’ content and link back here as this is a fairly significant departure and will likely be useful to others in the future.

[Julie_Kidder]

Ok, I’ve done so here: Close transaction with each run of the script using place instance per view