Streaming Grasshopper Points into a Revit Conceptual Mass

This will be the first of a series of posts where I will explore various strategies for moving geometric and analytical data between software platforms...

While often times sufficient, I have sometimes found the standard means of Importing/Exporting model information using file formats to be quite cumbersome and limiting... especially in the case of Revit where it is next to impossible to modify or build from linked/imported files

Below is a basic example of streaming a list of XYZ coordinates from Grasshopper into a *csv file and then using that file to create reference points in a Revit conceptual mass... A custom script was written using the Revit API to read the CSV file and make the points.


Here is the Revit API code (in VB.NET) for reading the *.csv file :

Dim XYZfile As String = "insert file path here"

If File.Exists(XYZfile) Then

Dim FileReadXYZ As New StreamReader(XYZfile)

Do While FileReadXYZ.Peek <> -1
Dim XYZLine As String = FileReadXYZ.ReadLine()
Dim XYZData As String() = XYZLine.Split(",")
Dim XYZ As Autodesk.Revit.Geometry.XYZ
Dim RefPt As Autodesk.Revit.Elements.ReferencePoint

XYZ = revit_app.Create.NewXYZ(Convert.ToDouble(XYZData(0)), Convert.ToDouble(XYZData(1)), Convert.ToDouble(XYZData(2)))
RefPt = revit_doc.FamilyCreate.NewReferencePoint(XYZ)
Loop

End If