By Dennis Collin
With the latest version of Revit 2022 came an updated version of Dynamo. Dynamo scripting has been with Revit for several years now and can be employed to perform a variety of tasks from building structures, scheduling, renaming and renumbering elements, placing views on sheets and so much more.
The latest Dynamo has some noticeable tweaks and many more nodes than its 2021 predecessor. The main graphics preview looks a lot smoother making it easier on the eyes, the 3d grid preview lines look a lot smoother whereas on older versions the grid lines and preview geometry sometimes look jagged. The Workspace Preferences Manager now can be undocked from the main Dynamo window, package versions and status can be viewed more easily. The package manager itself seems to more responsive and displays the list of add-on packages much more quickly than earlier versions.
Dynamo’s smart search button (Alt-right click) seems to provide better results when searching for nodes. Other noticeable differences are with the much used Python node. Dynamo now supports a new version of Python, Cpython3. This replaces ironpython2 although scripts in the Ironpython format still seek to work in most cases. The python version is displayed within the python script node. Within the node there is a Migration assistant to help migrate code from IronPython2 to CPython3.
Dynamo’s Python Migration assistant makes it easier to convert IronPython script to CPython format with altered lines being highlighted in colours and can be displayed ‘inline’ as required making the task of comparing code easier. Clicking the Tick button will convert the script to the latest CPython version.
The python script editor itself has had some tweaks in showing the Python version and a save script button which can be performed without exiting the node. This may not seem like much at a casual glance, but these quality-of-life improvements makes the task of scripting so much easier!
The main benefit of Dynamo 2.10 of course, is the addition of many new nodes, over 60 in total, either completely new or significantly enhanced.
Here is a list of notable new or enhanced general nodes:
Geometry >Solid>Byruledloft (with check and repair options)
Import/Export>Data>ParseJSON (enhanced)
List>Inspect>Anytrue & Anyfalse (these nodes were previously found in Clockwork and Orchid Packages)
List>Organise>Shuffle– Cycle a seed value with shuffle options
Math>Functions>Random functions with or without seed values (New)
String>Modify>Totitle node set each word to upper case within string (works well with string replace, New node!)
Revit Nodes
Dynamo has many more nodes for Revit schedules, views and sheets. There are many more sheet creation methods over previous versions, which means creating multiple sheets consistently is much easier. Also, more nodes for automatic placement of dimensions, for example between column grids and openings. There are also improved nodes for tags, with better options for leaders, headers and positions. In previous versions of Dynamo this could only be achieved with Python or a package like Rhythm.
There are almost too many new view and sheet nodes to list, but two notable highlights are Duplicate Sheet and Place Schedule on Sheet by location. These are commonly requested tasks asked by Revit users. These are now available out-of-the-box.
Other nodes include extracting Viewport class and titleblock information from Sheet. Set and retrieve crop box information on views. Previously this could only be done my using packages. (Rhythm or MEPOVER )
In addition, there is also now a node that is a variation on the Setparameterbyname node but specifically for the filling in sheet information.
Regarding Revit Elements nodes have more options in enabling the joining and unjoining of elements. Dynamo can also now access a new API method of cutting holes in floors and ceilings by accessing sketch lines. Additional nodes are now available to create project and shared parameters.
Despite all the new nodes available to Dynamo 2.10 there are still some limitations to what can be achieved with out of the box nodes. Clockwork, Springs, Rhythm, Genusloci, Dynashapes, Archilabs and MEPOVER packages are still useful to have to perform certain tasks. These can all be found with Dynamo’s package manager and many have been updated to work with the latest builds.
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