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Get CropBox Id in Revit with Python.

Learn how to get CropBox Id in Revit API.

1️⃣ FilteredElementCollector.Excluding()

The first method is quite straight forward and goes like this:

Hide the CropBox
Use FilteredElementCollector(doc, view_id) to collect all elements you can see in the view.
Unhide the CropBox
Use FilteredElementCollector again, but this time exclude elements you collected the first time with .Excluding(element_ids)
Get ElementId of the CropBox from the collection.
Lastly, RollBack your Transactions so nothing has changed.

def GetViewCropBoxElement(view):
    """Function to get a cropbox_id from the given view."""

    tGroup = TransactionGroup(doc, "Py: Get cropbox_id")
    tGroup.Start()

    trans1 = Transaction(doc, "temp")
    trans1.Start()
    view.CropBoxVisible = False
    trans1.Commit()

    shown_elements_ids= FilteredElementCollector(doc, view.Id).ToElementIds()

    trans1.Start()
    view.CropBoxVisible = True
    trans1.Commit()

    cropbox_id= FilteredElementCollector(doc, view.Id).Excluding(shown_elements_ids).FirstElementId()
    
    tGroup.RollBack()

    return cropbox_id

This method is a bit messy because of multiple transactions. So I have another option.

FilteredElementCollector.WherePasses()

I have found an article by Jeremy Tammik - "Efficiently Retrieve Crop Box for Given View" in C#.

So I've translated it to python for people who don't "speak" C# well enough. I encourage you to read his article to better understand the logic behind this function.

Be aware that FilteredElementCollector will grab CropBox and View so be aware of that.

def get_cropbox_id(view):
    """Function to get cropbox_id of a given view."""
    provider     = ParameterValueProvider(ElementId( int(BuiltInParameter.ID_PARAM)) )
    rule         = FilterElementIdRule(provider, FilterNumericEquals(), view.Id)
    param_filter = ElementParameterFilter(rule)
    collector    = FilteredElementCollector(doc).WherePasses(param_filter).ToElementIds()
    if collector:
        for id in collector:
            if id != view.Id:
                return id

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