Using API to change color (and/or material) of DirectShape

[dante.van.wettum]

When importing an my IFC file, all elements get converted to DirectShape elements.

But they now get colored fully black when viewing in shaded mode, and there seems to be no way to really change this.

Only workaround is to overwrite graphics per view, but i rather work to a more solid solution/

Is there some way to change the color of the DirectShape elements? From what i understood, an material could not be applied to a DirectShape.

EDIT:

when i import more IFC's from the same source, but with different export settings, it seems sometimes i get different color results.

So i can conclude that the color is somewhere stored within these DirectShape elements. I still can not seem to find where, and if it can be changed though API

[jeremytammik]

Dear Dante,

Thank you for your query.

The best way to control the colour of a direct shape element is probably by setting an appropriate category or subcategory on it.

As you presumably know, there are many ways to control the material and colour of a Revit element.

• http://thebuildingcoder.typepad.com/blog/about-the-author.html#5.24

If you prefer setting the colour explicitly, you can look at

• http://thebuildingcoder.typepad.com/blog/2011/03/change-element-colour.html
• https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-api-forum/how-change-the-color-a-element/td-p/5651177

Here is some code for that:

  Color color = new Color(0, 0, 0); // RGB (0, 255, 255)
  OverrideGraphicSettings ogs = new OverrideGraphicSettings();
  ogs.SetProjectionLineColor(color);
  ogs.SetProjectionFillColor(color);
  ogs.SetCutFillColor(color);
  ogs.SetCutLineColor(color);
  doc.ActiveView.SetElementOverrides(fiProfile.Id, ogs); 

However, controlling the material and colour via the direct shape category is much more BIMish!

Here are other discussions of direct shape topics in general:

• http://thebuildingcoder.typepad.com/blog/about-the-author.html#5.50

I hope this helps.

Best regards,

Jeremy

[Revitalizer]

Hi,

if your IFC DirectShapes do not provide Material parameters you can set, and if you cannot change their categories,

then you could try to

• read their geometry
• create new DirectShape Elements using this geometry
• delete the original IFC DirectShapes

The advantage is that you have more control over the DirectShape's properties on creation time.

Revitalizer