Call for beta participation – AEC Cloud Information Model API

Farzad Towhidi

Shilpa Ghanmode

Mike Engel

Matt Arsenault

Autodesk is working towards its vision to provide a leading platform for better design-to-make data management across the different industries we serve using Cloud Information Model (CIM). Our newest CIM for Architecture, Engineering & Construction called AEC Cloud Information Model will be available for an early preview beta offering in November 2022. In this program, you will be able to extract valuable building design parameter data directly from published sample Revit models.

What can you do with AEC Cloud Information Model API in this managed beta?

Navigate to a hub, project, into a design and all the way down to an entity, its parameters, and their values
Query across designs within a project to retrieve entities that match specified filter criteria. Example - Extract volume of concrete across Revit models for a project
Query design entities based on their classifications (Category like door, window, pipe etc.) and properties (Parameter Name, Value, etc.). Example – Retrieve dimension and material information for all the windows in a design
List all available properties in a design

For this beta, participants will be querying design data extracted from sample Revit models uploaded to a test project under a beta account on ACC Docs.

Using the first preview of AEC Cloud Information Model API you can build capabilities without the need of writing an application specific plugin (Revit), such as the following:

Identify anomalies within design files for better quality control
Develop quantifications and schedules

And we are excited to see what other use cases you have for these API.

GraphQL

As you start exploring the API, you will quickly see that we have chosen to expose this data through a more natural approach by using GraphQL. Why not REST APIs as we usually see? Design Data, specifically related to AEC industry is complex, diverse, and varied. Through the use of GraphQL, this data can maintain its diversity while providing a flexible & structured way to access and query it. Providing a more intuitive and domain-specific way that is human readable, returns only the data you want and avoids the complexity of dealing with multiple Rest API calls between different services.

Duration of this managed beta:

~ 10-12 weeks

What can you expect during the event?

We will provide you with documentation on this new feature, and it will be available through the developer portal
We will also provide you with code samples for example workflows and a Data Explorer that can be useful to work with queries, understand the syntax and the data that is available
We will be in contact with you to assist you during this event via emails, slack, and meetings
We will be sending out surveys throughout the event to gather your valuable input on the API and to drive future deliverables

How to enroll?

If you are interested in participating in the Managed Beta, secure your seat by sending an email to aec-cim-beta@autodesk.com with the subject line “Interested in AEC Cloud Information Model API – Managed Beta participation” with the following information: