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Hi, Just throwing this out there because I'm quite new to this area. Thanks for your time and help!

 

TLDR /question

How can I use FME to extract only the exterior / shell of a 3D model when you cannot rely on the models structure?

 

Background, info

I'm reciving quite a bit of complex IFC models which doesn't always follow the same structure, because they are made up of different models put together, so all the windows might not be in IFCwindows for example, it's best to assume it's scrambled.

 

I want to transform these models to GIS and use in 3D maps. (SHP, GLTF, GLB etc)

When I don't need a lot of the interior details like piping, doors inside the building, chairs, some walls etc I find myself doing a lot of manual cleaning/trimming in SimpleBIM.

I'm wondering if there is a more automated way to use FME to extract only the shell of a building, and perserving the outer detail ofcourse.

Sort of if I could drape a plastic bag over the model and suck the air out, making a mold, new model of only the exterior parts. Or merge the entire building to one big solid blob keeping only its outer extents.

 

Or maybe simulated a 3D scan of the model? Though seems like this would create a whole new geometry.

Any tips or thoughts is greatly appriciated :)

Hi! What about feeding them into PointCloudcombiner and then Boundingboxreplacer?

 


Hi! What about feeding them into PointCloudcombiner and then Boundingboxreplacer?

 

Pointcloudcombiner could maybe be something to explore, thanks! It rejected some of my models though.

 

My bad for saying extent in the question, just the boundingbox is not enough as I need all the geometry detail of the exterior, but just want a lighter model by not having non visible details removed, basically having just the outer shell left.

 

 

 


If you group the PointCloudCombiner by "layer" and the same with the bounding box - you can get a 3D boundingbox for each layer atleast. Or you can also do this per "feature"


I guess you have looked at the IFC-reading properties already - there seems to be some "simplified reading" of the geometry:


@jatjat​  Hey ! I would like to do exactly what you have tried to do and I have not succeeded. I would like to ask you again if you have succeeded in doing this extraction

Thank you


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