How to get a material's AssetProperties by Asset schema

[ebarMLN7G]

I am trying to read the content of AppearanceAssetElement instances for a given material. I am following the instructions give in Boris Shafiro AU presentation about Schemas (https://www.autodesk.com/autodesk-university/class/New-API-Modify-Visual-Appearance-Materials-Revit-...) and I have a few questions, I get the asset like this:

ElementId appearanceAssetId = material.AppearanceAssetId;

var appearanceAssetElem = document.GetElement(appearanceAssetId) as AppearanceAssetElement;

Asset asset = appearanceAssetElem.GetRenderingAsset();

First question. What's the appropriate way to get the schema of an asset? I can "guess" the schema by looking at asset.Name. That gives me something like "CeramicSchema" which I assume means this asset belongs to Autodesk.Revit.DB.Visual.Ceramic schema, but is there an enum or static field that would be more reliable?

So now I can get the properties like this:

AssetProperty certamicPattern = asset[Ceramic.CeramicPattern];

but that wouldn't capture all the asset properties, in fact, with this strategy I would lose more than half of the asset properties. Some of them are from the SchemaCommon, but then there are some that I am not quite sure which (if any) schema they belong to, these are a few names that I get when simply iterating over all the asset properties:

- AdvancedUIDefinition

- AssetLibID

- ExchangeGUID

- ImplementationGeneric

- ...

Should I simply Ignore everything that doesn't fit into SchemaCommon or Ceramic schema? Is there a schema somewhere that I am missing?

Thank you so much for the help!

[ebarMLN7G]

One important detail that i forgot to mention is that I need to store the information in an external format and I need to know in advance what all the property assets are. That's why the schema are so helpful for me. I can look at a schema's property and predetermine all the property assets that I need to collect.

[jeremytammik]

Dear Ehsan,

Thank you for your query.

You escalated it manually twice to ADN, the Autodesk Developer Network technical support.

Before you did so, it was already escalated automatically as well, since you submitted this thread using an email address registered as an ADN member.

All threads submitted here by ADN members are automatically escalated to ADN.

We now have three identical ADN cases for this:

• 15094157 [How to get a material's AssetProperties by Asset schema]
• 15097692 [How to get a material's AssetProperties by Asset schema]
• 15098327 [How to get a material's AssetProperties by Asset schema]

I am closing the latter two as duplicates of the first.

My colleague Jim Jia is exploring the first for you.

Thank you for refraining from duplicating cases in future.

Best regards,

Jeremy

[JimJia · Accepted solution]

Dear Ehsan,

>> Is there an enum or static field to identity what kind of the asset belongs to?
Per communication and investigation, I am sorry to say that there is currently no straightforward API access to this functionality. You have to get this information from another way, for example, you can get it from Name property or UIDefinition asset property.
If you still think this is important to you, it's recommended to post your request in official vote forum here: http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/idb-p/302/tab/most-recent

>> More items are found while iterating over all asset properties, why?
The reason is like what you said, there are some common properties in assets. It's also useful part of Autodesk entire Material library, this is not Revit specific. Some other software may use them for certain purpose. 

Besides, this page has similar discussion on material&texture API, FYI:

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-api-forum/revit-api-materials-and-textures/m-p/5538937#M9081

[ebarMLN7G]

Hi Jeremy, sorry for the inconvenience, was not aware of how the escalating system works.  

Best,

Ehsan

[jeremytammik]

Dear Ehsan,

Thank you for your update.

No problem at all.

Glad that Jim's answer resolves your question.

Basically, all I wanted to say is:

All threads submitted to this forum by ADN members are automatically escalated to ADN cases, so you do not have to do anything extra yourself at all  🙂

Cheers,

Jeremy

[longt61]

Hi everyone, it has been a while since, is there any update with the mapping of Material class and Schema?