Tuesday, August 23, 2011

IfcOpenShell needs your help!

Building Information Modeling is about collaboration, Open Source Software is about collaboration. This makes IfcOpenShell, being open source BIM software, about collaboration2 (I'm no math genius though, there might be an error somewhere in this equation). Therefore IfcOpenShell needs your help, this blog post is about what can you do to help improve IfcOpenShell, the open source IFC implementation.

Write code
The issue tracker is running over with interesting things to develop, but feel free to come up with and implement your own ideas. There's stuff for everyone, whether you are a python hacker or a C++ hacker. Contributions can be submitted as Pull Requests on our github page.

Create IFC files
Preferably these are isolated test cases of things that either work or do not work in IfcOpenShell. If they do not work, please be so kind to upload them to the issue tracker and state what you'd expect to see and what you witnessed instead.

Add feature requests and submit bugs
Feature requests are to be posted in the issue tracker as well, handle with care though, as the most interesting ones might take some time to be implemented due to understaffing.

Write documentation
Like every other open source project our wiki is rather empty. Let me know if you want to do something about it. 

Build binaries
IfcOpenShell can be used on a lot of different platforms and operating systems, but currently builds are not frequently released on the website. With your help we can provide up to date binaries on our website for your favorite operating system.

Discuss
Come join us at the newly opened developers forum, where features, bugs and everything related to IFC and the building and construction industry in general can be discussed.

Provide a financial incentive
This last one is rather tricky, but of course, might you feel like it, there is the possibility to make a donation in order to urge us to develop faster, better and nicer features. But honestly, a small donation of your time to do one of the above would be appreciated even more.


Thomas
IfcOpenShell admin
http://ifcopenshell.org

30 comments:

  1. Hi my name is Rafael. I am architect. Congratulation for this project. I think that is very interesting. I have posted about this project on my blog and read your interview in LGW. I am going to download your addon for Blender and will test it. I want to involve in your project, as well. I don't know to write code but I can help with the wiki. ;)
    My blog: bitacoravirtual.cl

    ReplyDelete
  2. I've tried Blender IFC, and it is awesome.
    Donated =)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Paul,

      Thank you very much :)

      Kind regards,
      Thomas

      Delete
  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Awesome stuff^^ Donated 100 =)
    Btw, is support of newer Blender version in your plans?
    An 2.73 is about to be ready)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for your continued support!

      You are very right. A new release of IfcOpenShell and IfcBlender is way over due. Blender by now is many versions ahead and because they moved to Python 3.4, the addon is no longer compatible. But in addition, IfcOpenShell has many improvements to its code base, which users, who do not compile themselves, currently do not benefit from. A new release is very high on my list.

      Kind regards,
      Thomas

      Delete
    2. Awww, update! Awesome =)
      Donated 100. Also, posted you on Blendernation:
      http://www.blendernation.com/2015/02/28/bim-file-importer-ifcopenshell-0-4-0-has-been-released/

      By the way, I have a question. I'm an AutoCAD AutoLISP programmer (yeah, sweet 1970's) an I was succed to convert autocad polyline to IFC Ceiling, that opens with your converter and Solibri. That was pretty awesome, because Solibri provides calculations on objects from IFC files =)

      How do you think, is it theoretically possible to write basic IFC objects (simple walls, ceilings, doors and windows) from Blender 3D for purposes like this?

      Delete
    3. Hi Paul,

      Thanks for your continued support and for spreading the word!

      My opinion is that writing IFC files from Blender would only be feasible in very specific scenarios, like the one you describe. Which in itself is very cool, one can never have too many parenthesis! But a lot of information that is necessary to constitute a valid and meaningful IFC file simply has no place in a geometrical mesh-based application such as Blender. Apart from all the attributes, also consider the material layer set of a wall for example. Also, the hierarchical nature of IFC [to have a Project > Site > Building > Storey and Windows parented to Openings parented to Walls] would impose a high burden on the modeller, but is necessary for BIM authoring tools like Revit to make sense of the exported file.

      Have you tried importing your meshes into FreeCAD and export IFC from there?

      Kind regards,
      Thomas

      Delete
    4. Yeah, indeed, Revit rejected my IFC because of abscense of project information =)
      However, Revit is not my goal, because it's modeling is imperative as Sketchup (you know, everyhing should be done to be done. manually). AutoCAD and B3D are much more functional, so they give me ability to perform nasty deadlines, that Revit will never get, I guess.
      It is impossible even to make and count our building facades in Revit, despite the fact that they are pretty simple, but there are a lot of cuts, and a lot of them. Meanwhile, B3D gives me ability to do this work for 5-6 buildings in a week from scratch, including materials count. Business produces cruel deadlines =)

      Well, I understood importance of structural cleanliness for IFC files when I was parsing some of them, and I understand all troubles, that may cause attempts to get pure project from B3D, but, fortunately, Revit project is not my goal =)
      I think about modeling of complex, maybe organic, but single objects, elements for Revit import, or fast linear buildings scratches for dirty calculations in Solibri.
      Everything I found till I got here about IFC development was mostly Java parsers, so I appreciate your work so much.
      Honestly, I installed FreeCAD a couple of months and didn't know about it's ability to write IFC... I will check it up =)

      Sorry for bad eng, and Thank you for your answer!

      Delete
    5. Hi Paul,

      I definitely see your point, some applications do tend to impose their own way of working onto the user.

      In the earlier days, IFC has obtained a bit of a bad name simply because some implementations (I will not name names of course) were not as conforming as they could have been, resulting in limited interoperability and frustrated users. I would be reluctant to introduce this situation again.

      At the same time I do understand the need for more lightweight IFC workflows, both in terms of writing as well as reading and analysis. I would also advise to also take part in the discussions on the FreeCAD forum and see whether where that is heading suits your need: http://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=7222 I have understood the upcoming FreeCAD 0.15 release will feature many improvements in IFC importing and exporting. You might want to try a development snapshot of that version.

      Kind regards,
      Thomas

      Delete
  5. I am a student on BIM and I'd like to join in the project.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi,

      IfcOpenShell is an open source software project and can benefit from contributions from the community in many ways. Let us know what it is you would like to work on.

      Kind regards,
      Thomas
      IfcOpenShell

      Delete
  6. Hi there,

    I am a Bachelor on Architecture and currently enrolled on a MSc Computer Science Engineering program.
    My research group has an homemade middleware of VR which interfaces with Blender. Currently we're developing tools for the AEC context for real-time visualization and we're focusing on BIM info.
    I have been a developer for this middleware for some time now and I'd like to know how I could help with this.

    Best regards,
    Tiago Pedro
    ISTAR-IUL

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Tiago,

      Thanks for your message. Quite a lot has changed since this blog post, but help and contributions are still very welcome. How you can help depends mostly on what you would like to do. For example, there is a qtviewer project [1] that has been abandoned, even before something was really delivered, feel free to take ownership of that, as maybe that's closely related to your previous experiences. But if you have other ideas, feel free to pitch in!

      [1] https://github.com/IfcOpenShell/IfcOpenShell/tree/master/src/qtviewer

      Kind regards,
      Thomas
      IfcOpenShell

      Delete
  7. Hello.
    I wonder how to export the blender for revit using ifc. Already got the opposite way it worked satisfactorily.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi,

      Currently IfcOpenShell is not able to export IFC from Blender. The question is whether it would be meaningful, as a lot of necessary semantics for a valid IFC file would be missing. For further reference, also check the discussion above.

      Kind regards,
      Thomas

      Delete
  8. Hi there,
    I am looking for a way to change attributes in Psets in IFC-Files. Can IFCOpenShell for python help me with this? Couldn't find a documentation.

    Johannes

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi,

      Definitely. This article is more about creating them in the first place: http://academy.ifcopenshell.org/creating-a-simple-wall-with-property-set-and-quantity-information/ but maybe it provides a starting point. Help on the documentation is always welcome. If you have more questions, maybe the project page on github is more suitable as it is more related to the code: https://github.com/IfcOpenShell/IfcOpenShell/issues

      Hope that helps,

      Kind regards,
      Thomas

      Delete
  9. Hi! Can you update Blender's plugin to current B3D version?
    Thank you in advance)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for your continued support. The new official 0.6 release is taking longer than expected, I will try to do another 0.5.0-preview2 with updated Blender version during the coming week.

      Kind regards,
      Thomas

      Delete
  10. Hi, just wandering if "IfcOpenShell 0.5.0 preview 2" will be released for "3ds Max 2014 64bit" any time soon?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi, unfortunately we don't have the resources to keep releasing builds for 3ds max. Their SDKs are not freely available. Luckily, the conversion for IFC to Collada using IfcConvert [1] provides the same or better results and allows much more configuration options. Importing Collada (DAE) into 3ds max seems to work seemlessly as well. In case you favour a graphical user interface over a command line executable there is a user-contributed graphical front-end for IfcConvert available here [2]. Hope that helps, kind regards, Thomas

      [1] http://ifcopenshell.org/ifcconvert.html
      [2] https://sourceforge.net/p/ifcopenshell/discussion/1782717/thread/55558229/#2435

      Delete
  11. Hi Thomas. Thank you for the library. I wonder is it possible to create a material takeoff (Quantity, Area, Volume) with the library? I try to look around but can't find any.
    Regards, Patana

    ReplyDelete
  12. Definitely. There's tooling to calculate area and volume (or extract it from the explicit IfcPropertySet definitions associated to elements) and you can traverse the associated materials. Keep in mind that IfcOpenShell is a library for software developers, so expect to do the groundwork yourself, but it's quite manageable. There might be similar topics going on in the forums or open your own thread https://sourceforge.net/p/ifcopenshell/discussion/

    ReplyDelete
  13. Hi Thomas,

    The current ifcCovert tool notes the name of elements in the export OBJ files. Is there any way to get GUID instead of the name?

    Thank you for the great tool,
    Issa

    ReplyDelete
  14. Thomas,

    I also have another question. Does the IfcConvert code use multi-threading? I am wondering how one can make the conversion faster.

    Thank you,
    Issa

    ReplyDelete
  15. Hello, can this python module, copnvert IFC files to CSV ? Thank you

    ReplyDelete
  16. Dario, yes, inherently the python module can access the data and therefor definitely output a CSV (or any other arbitrary format).

    However for something a bit more user friendly you may prefer this tool from NIST which integrates IFC with Excel: https://www.nist.gov/services-resources/software/ifc-file-analyzer

    ReplyDelete
  17. Las Vegas Hotel and Casino - JTG Hub
    JTG Room - 광명 출장마사지 JTG is your ticket to Vegas and it 전라남도 출장안마 will open a whole new 삼척 출장안마 era for 익산 출장샵 you! 영주 출장안마 The property is owned by the Jt. JTG International and owned by the

    ReplyDelete