topic Re: Revit Icons Support High-Resolution Display in Revit API Forum

Revit Icons Support High-Resolution Display

ricaun — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 15:20:07 GMT

Hello everyone!

Some weeks ago I was investigating how high resolution images work in Autodesk Products. Autocad dynamic changes the icon depending on the resolution of the monitor, and I want to do the same thing inside Revit to make the icons more clear if the user has a high resolution monitor.

Autocad uses a different approach that I was not aware of, all the icons are stored in a zip file and the image does not have explicit extension but is a ‘tiff’ file. Tiff file allows you to have multiple images with different sizes and different dpi.

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/autocad-forum/looking-for-icon-definitions/m-p/13136339/highlight/true#M1141560

This approach allows multiple resolutions of the same image in a single file, exactly as the Autodesk Icon Design Guidelines suggests. 5 DPI png images (100%, 150%, 200% 300% and 400%) to support clear displays on high-resolution monitors.

By default C# support loading ‘tiff’ files without any external libraries, so it was really simple to extend my library ricaun.Revit.UI to support ‘tiff’ files and select the best image in high-resolution monitors.

https://github.com/ricaun-io/ricaun.Revit.UI

And to have some samples I update the Autodesk.Icon.Example project with tiff files. Below .ico images and .tiff images in 200% scale monitor.

https://github.com/ricaun-io/Autodesk.Icon.Example

I will start updating all my plugins to use tiff files instead of ico files to support high-resolution monitors. Here is some video of how I’m creating the tiff file.

Now I just need to convince Autodesk to update Revit to have images to support high-resolution monitors, like Autocad does. That’s a Revit idea.

Re: Revit Icons Support High-Resolution Display

ricaun — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 15:54:54 GMT

Revit Idea:

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/revit-icons-support-high-resolution-display/idi-p/13230658

Re: Revit Icons Support High-Resolution Display

jeremy_tammik — Fri, 27 Dec 2024 16:31:56 GMT

Thank you very much for sharing the interesting information and submitting the Revit idea, @ricaun !

Re: Revit Icons Support High-Resolution Display

MiWolff — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 09:00:28 GMT

Why not just establish SVG as standard format for all icons and be ready for all resolutions?

Re: Revit Icons Support High-Resolution Display

ricaun — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 10:51:42 GMT

Actually is this 5 PNG scale images or a SVG if you look closer in Autodesk Icon Design Guidelines.

Not all programs support SVG, is kinda possible to use a SVG in Revit but requires some external library that has some limitations.

Because Autocad use the 5 PNG scale images, probably is the most reliable way to show high resolution images in Ribbons.