Distinguishing AnnotationSymbol from other FamilyInstance members

[Anonymous]

I have an addin that will copy all of the schedules and legends from one sheet to another.  I am trying to expand the functionality to also copy the key plan (which is not part of the titleblock . . . it could be, but it is the corporate standard to not have it be for a variety of good and bad reasons).  My problem is that when I get a list of the FamilyInstances for the sheet like so:

            RDB.FilteredElementCollector coll2 = new RDB.FilteredElementCollector(doc, v.Id);
            var symbolInst = coll2
                .OfClass(typeof(RDB.FamilyInstance))
                .ToElements();
//                .Where(x => );
            foreach(RDB.FamilyInstance anno in symbolInst)
            {
                RDB.BoundingBoxXYZ xyzLoc = anno.get_BoundingBox(v);
            }

I end up with symbolInst having 2 members, one is the keyplan symbol, and the other is the titleblock.  I would like to filter out the titleblock somehow with the where clause, but I don't know how to exclude something . . . I was hoping to do a not OfCategory, but I'm blanking on how to do that.

When I stop the debugger and look I see that the keyplan symbol shows a value of "Autodesk.Revit.DB.AnnotationSymbol" but that is not allowed in the OFClass(typeof(XXX)) (it throws an error, thus I am using the base class FamilyInstance instead.  I could filter out with a test in the loop that follows, but I can't figure out how to test anno for being an AnnotationSymbol (or not an AnnotationSymbol).

Any ideas? Attached is a screen shot from the debugger Autos showing symbolInst expanded with 2 members, the value fields are shown as "Autodesk.Revit.DB.FamilyInstance" and "Autodesk.Revit.DB.AnnotationSymbol", but I don't know how to test for what "type" anno is within the loop.

[jeremytammik · Accepted solution]

>  I was hoping to do a not OfCategory, but I'm blanking on how to do that.

You can do a NOT OfCategory.

LogicalAndFilter Class

http://www.revitapidocs.com/2017/3e334aaf-2b39-58bd-d2cc-94e9c89bac57.htm

ElementCategoryFilter Constructor (ElementId, Boolean), where the Boolean argument can specify 'inverted':

http://www.revitapidocs.com/2017/3590e7e3-3e05-2d1a-f2af-8033eeb8996b.htm

Cheers,

Jeremy

[Anonymous]

Thanks Jeremy! As usual you provide good help.  It turns out that I can also just do this:

RDB.FilteredElementCollector coll2 = new RDB.FilteredElementCollector(doc, v.Id).OfClass(typeof(RDB.FamilyInstance));
var symbolInst = from e in coll2.ToElements() where e is RDB.AnnotationSymbol select e as RDB.AnnotationSymbol;
foreach(RDB.AnnotationSymbol s in symbolInst)
{
     // do stuff in here
}

which I adapted from one of your building coder posts dealing with filtering for non-native classes.

[jeremytammik]

Ah yes, of course:

http://thebuildingcoder.typepad.com/blog/2010/08/filtering-for-a-nonnative-class.html

Sorry I did not spot that and point it out explicitly myself right away.

Cheers,

Jeremy