Revit External Services—Make Built-in Features Behave Your Way

Revit software’s External Services framework enables developers to tailor the behavior of built-in Revit software features to the level that was not possible with conventional external command-based add-ins. External Services have been used as a base to support customized MEP (mechanical, electrical, and plumbing) calculations, access externally stored data, replace built-in export/import filters, and many other features in Revit software. As Revit software continues to grow there are new external services introduced with every major release, which gives developers new opportunities to provide their solutions on top of the Revit core functionality. Unfortunately, this feature has not been well adapted by the external public yet, quite possibly due to the lack of comprehensive documentation—which is exactly the gap this class will attempt to fill. We’ll explain the framework’s main ideas and clearly illustrate the most anticipated uses. We will also present a hands-on coding approach as an example of a simple MEP friction calculator.