Introduction

Hello and welcome to CodedBIM! my name is Nasim Naji, I’m an architect from Iraqi Kurdistan and I’ve been working in the field of computational design for a while now. I have created countless custom workflows and solutions to aid me in my day to day challenges as an architect throughout my college years and beyond. I’m also a self taught C# and python programmer who thinks programming can help absolutely anyone and everyone to be more productive. and in some cases, even help them achieve results which are otherwise extremely time consuming, risky or outright impossible. even though I’ve occasionally used the knowledge in some rather cute personal projects outside of my field and profession, but the fact of the matter is, I mainly use software development and computer programming to aid me in my architectural career.

I have always felt that, the main strength of BIM, and it’s biggest advantage over traditional CAD solutions lies in the way it stores, handles and manipulates information in a raw and realistic way, and with the high level of complexity that BIM solutions such as Revit offer, I naturally had a desire to be able to freely and efficiently manipulate the model in meaningful ways. I first realized this fact when I started using an outstanding Autodesk product called Dynamo.

---

Dynamo’s node based user friendly interface can be used by architects and everyone else with minimum coding background….

Dynamo is a visual programming and non-destructive computational geometry modeling software which is available both as a standalone and an addin for Autodesk Revit and some other Autodesk products. with the innovative and user friendly node-based user interface of dynamo, I was introduced to the amazing world of visual programming and I can daringly say that I could never go back to using Revit without Dynamo. it has helped me tremendously over the years, both in school activities that were meant to be mostly artistic, as well as strictly realistic and accurate real world projects…

As amazing as dynamo is, and as much as I think that it helps smoothen out the learning curve of programming for AEC and it makes it easier to get into topics such as computational design, generative design, parametric architecture etc… but there is only so much that a visual programming tool can do. after using Dynamo for a while it quickly became obvious to me that learning a traditional software programming language can be extremely useful. for those of you who don’t know, Dynamo allows the user to write python code within it, so that’s where I started. one of the greatest advantages of writing python within Dynamo was the fact that now I had access to the Revit API and I could talk to Revit directly (if you don’t know what that is, Revit API is a set of Revit tools and functionalities that the developers have exposed for us to program). after learning python which is a relatively simple, but an extremely powerful language nevertheless, I slowly worked my way up from there, and I started experimenting with another more strongly typed language called C#, which quickly became my favorite language for writing Revit plugins and custom Dynamo nodes.

---

Now that you, the dear reader, know a little more about me and my past experiences, this brings us to CodedBIM and it’s purpose. CodedBIM is my first blog ever, and the main motivational force behind it’s creation is to serve as a platform, on which I can share my experiences in this field with the world, and hopefully potentially help others along the way. I really hope that you’ll enjoy your stay on my weblog and that we’ll be able to bring about an amazing community of professionals who are willing to excel in their work through exploring different alternatives and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Thank you very much for your time…

Nasim Naji Salim