Material Management

Material Management

You can use filtering to retrieve all materials in the document. Every Material object in the Document is identified by a unique name.

The following example illustrates how to use the material name to get material.

Code Region 19-5: Getting a material by name 

FilteredElementCollector elementCollector = new FilteredElementCollector(document);
elementCollector.WherePasses(new ElementClassFilter(typeof(Material)));
IList<Element> materials = elementCollector.ToElements();
 
Material floorMaterial = null;
string floorMaterialName = "Default Floor";
   
foreach (Element materialElement in materials)
{
    Material material = materialElement as Material;
    if (floorMaterialName == material.Name)
    {
        floorMaterial = material;
        break;
    }
}
if (null != floorMaterial)
{
    TaskDialog.Show("Revit","Material found.");
}
Note: To run the sample code, make sure the material name exists in your document. All material names for the current document are located under the Manage tab (Project Settings panel
Materials).

Creating Materials

There are two ways to create a new Material object in the API.

  • Duplicate an existing Material

  • Add a new Material.

When using the Duplicate() method, the returned Material object is the same type as the original.

Code Region 19-6: Duplicating a material 

private bool DuplicateMaterial(Material material)
{
        bool duplicated = false;
        //try to duplicate a new instance of Material class using duplicate method
        //make sure the name of new material is unique in MaterailSet
        string newName = "new" + material.Name;
        Material myMaterial = material.Duplicate(newName);
        if (null == myMaterial)
        {
                TaskDialog.Show("Revit", "Failed to duplicate a material!");
        }
        else
        {
                duplicated = true;
        }
        
        return duplicated;
}

Use the static method Material.Create() to add a new Material directly. No matter how it is applied, it is necessary to specify a unique name for the material and any assets belonging to the material. The unique name is the Material object key.

Code Region 19-7: Adding a new Material 

//Create the material
ElementId materialId = Material.Create(document, "My Material");
Material material = document.GetElement(materialId) as Material;

//Create a new property set that can be used by this material
StructuralAsset strucAsset = new StructuralAsset("My Property Set", StructuralAssetClass.Concrete);
strucAsset.Behavior = StructuralBehavior.Isotropic;
strucAsset.Density = 232.0;
            
//Assign the property set to the material.
PropertySetElement pse = PropertySetElement.Create(document, strucAsset);
material.SetMaterialAspectByPropertySet(MaterialAspect.Structural, pse.Id);

Deleting Materials

To delete a material use:

  • Document.Delete()

Document.Delete() is a generic method. See Editing Elements for details.

Parent topic: Material