Benchmarking library for Revit

Write performance benchmarks for your Revit add-ins using the BenchmarkDotNet, and share reproducible measurement experiments.

Installation

You can install this library as a NuGet package.

The packages are compiled for specific versions of Revit. To support different versions of libraries in one project, use the RevitVersion property:

<PackageReference Include="Nice3point.BenchmarkDotNet.Revit" Version="$(RevitVersion).*"/>

Writing your first benchmark

Start by creating a new class inheriting from RevitApiBenchmark:

public class MyBenchmarks : RevitApiBenchmark
{

}

Add one or more methods marked with [Benchmark]:

using BenchmarkDotNet.Attributes;

public class MyBenchmarks : RevitApiBenchmark
{
    [Benchmark]
    public void MyBenchmark()
    {
        
    }
}

This is your runnable benchmark. The base class ensures the benchmark executes within Revit's single-threaded API context.

Running your benchmarks

You can run your benchmarks with a simple configuration. BenchmarkDotNet uses the Release configuration by default to run, which will cause a failure when running benchmarks for Revit, where API multi-versioning is required. In this case, use the WithCurrentConfiguration() extension for the Job, which will run the benchmark for your selected Solution configuration.

using BenchmarkDotNet.Configs;
using BenchmarkDotNet.Jobs;
using BenchmarkDotNet.Running;
using Nice3point.BenchmarkDotNet.Revit;

var configuration = ManualConfig.Create()
    .AddJob(Job.Default.WithCurrentConfiguration());

BenchmarkRunner.Run<MyBenchmarks>(configuration);

Important

You must have a licensed copy of Autodesk Revit installed on your machine to run benchmarks, with a version that matches the selected Solution configuration.

Application-level benchmarks

Benchmark Revit application‑level operations:

using BenchmarkDotNet.Attributes;

public class RevitApplicationBenchmarks : RevitApiBenchmark
{
    [Benchmark]
    public double Create_XYZ_Distance()
    {
        var point = Application.Create.NewXYZ(3, 4, 5);
        return point.DistanceTo(XYZ.Zero);
    }
}

Benchmarks using global hooks

BenchmarkDotNet provides [GlobalSetup] and [GlobalCleanup] hooks, but due to library limitations, it cannot be assigned twice. If you need these hooks in your benchmarks, for example to open the Document, use OnSetup/OnCleanup overrides instead:

using BenchmarkDotNet.Attributes;

public class RevitDocumentBenchmarks : RevitApiBenchmark
{
    private Document _documentFile = null!;

    protected sealed override void OnSetup()
    {
        _documentFile = Application.OpenDocumentFile($@"C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Revit {Application.VersionNumber}\Samples\rac_basic_sample_family.rfa");
    }
    
    protected sealed override void OnCleanup()
    {
        _documentFile.Close(false);
    }

    [Benchmark]
    public IList<Element> WhereElementIsElementTypeToElements()
    {
        return new FilteredElementCollector(_documentFile)
            .WhereElementIsElementType()
            .ToElements();
    }

    [Benchmark]
    public IList<Element> ElementIsElementTypeFilterToElements()
    {
        return new FilteredElementCollector(_documentFile)
            .WherePasses(new ElementIsElementTypeFilter())
            .ToElements();
    }

    [Benchmark]
    public List<Element> WhereElementIsElementTypeToList()
    {
        return new FilteredElementCollector(_documentFile)
            .WhereElementIsElementType()
            .ToList();
    }

    [Benchmark]
    public List<ElementType> WhereElementIsElementTypeCastToList()
    {
        return new FilteredElementCollector(_documentFile)
            .WhereElementIsElementType()
            .Cast<ElementType>()
            .ToList();
    }

    [Benchmark]
    public List<ElementType> WhereElementIsElementTypeOfTypeToList()
    {
        return new FilteredElementCollector(_documentFile)
            .WhereElementIsElementType()
            .OfType<ElementType>()
            .ToList();
    }
}

BenchmarkDotNet v0.15.8, Windows 11 (10.0.22631.6199/23H2/2023Update/SunValley3)
AMD Ryzen 5 5600 3.50GHz, 1 CPU, 12 logical and 6 physical cores
.NET SDK 10.0.100
  [Host]    : .NET 8.0.22 (8.0.22, 8.0.2225.52707), X64 RyuJIT x86-64-v3
  MediumRun : .NET 8.0.22 (8.0.22, 8.0.2225.52707), X64 RyuJIT x86-64-v3

Job=MediumRun  BuildConfiguration=Release.R26  IterationCount=15  
LaunchCount=2  WarmupCount=10  

Method	Mean	Error	StdDev	Allocated
WhereElementIsElementTypeToElements	122.0 μs	4.54 μs	6.80 μs	5.55 KB
ElementIsElementTypeFilterToElements	412.0 μs	7.52 μs	11.26 μs	5.71 KB
WhereElementIsElementTypeToList	122.1 μs	2.84 μs	4.17 μs	5.7 KB
WhereElementIsElementTypeCastToList	122.6 μs	2.41 μs	3.45 μs	5.76 KB
WhereElementIsElementTypeOfTypeToList	122.0 μs	2.19 μs	3.20 μs	5.76 KB