Through the Interface

Autodesk Platform Services – the platform formerly known as Forge – has a brand new service that's soon going into beta: the AEC Cloud Information Model API.

This API will allow you to access design parameters in Revit models hosted in the cloud with no need to pass by an instance Revit.

The managed beta will give you access to data extracted from a fixed set of Revit sample models that is then hosted in the Autodesk Construction Cloud. It'll be a great way to understand how the API works and provide feedback to the engineering team to steer the offering in the direction that makes sense for your business.

Here's what you'll be able to do with this beta:

• Navigate to a hub, project, into a design and all the way down to an entity, its parameters, and their values

• Query across designs within a project to retrieve entities that match specified filter criteria. Example - Extract volume of concrete across Revit models for a project

• Query design entities based on their classifications (Category like door, window, pipe etc.), property groups (Dimension, Materials & Finishes, Identity Data, etc.) and properties (Parameter Name, Value, etc.). Example – Retrieve dimension and material information for all the windows in a design

• List all available property groups and properties available in a design

The API access will be via GraphQL, which seems to be the best way to access design data, right now: it's proven very effective for the Fusion Data API, for instance.

The instructions to sign up for this API are at the bottom of the blog post – you just need to provide some information by email and you'll be signed up.