Question

IFC to IFC conversion while modyfing and/or adding properties

  • 30 August 2021
  • 8 replies
  • 26 views

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Hi!

I am familiar with the consept of reading IFC and writing IFC in FME. I also have successfully created a workspace that can read various geometry formats and write to IFC with custom propertysets. Now I'm trying to create a workspace that can read IFC, modify or add propertysets and write back to IFC without breaking the structure of the IFC file. For example, I have a IFC with slabs. I want to add some propertysets to the slabs and write it back to slabs. I have seen the example where you can modify properties for spaces, but I'm having problems applying the workflows to IFC. All in all I think FME has potential for improvement in handling IFC-files in an intuitive way. Does anyone have any good examples of workflows for the described purpose that can be shared?


8 replies

Badge +21

Hi Atle!

 

Do you have a good source of some freely available IFC-files (Norwegian or English) that can be used as a demo? Then I can try to make a short tutorial showing these.

 

I agree that working with IFC-files is a bit tricky for the moment, however it is doable to do a lot with it - just a bit more challenging.

Badge +3

Hi Atle!

 

Do you have a good source of some freely available IFC-files (Norwegian or English) that can be used as a demo? Then I can try to make a short tutorial showing these.

 

I agree that working with IFC-files is a bit tricky for the moment, however it is doable to do a lot with it - just a bit more challenging.

Hi Sigbjørn!

Thanks!

I will upload a simple example file tomorrow! :)

Badge +3

Hi Atle!

 

Do you have a good source of some freely available IFC-files (Norwegian or English) that can be used as a demo? Then I can try to make a short tutorial showing these.

 

I agree that working with IFC-files is a bit tricky for the moment, however it is doable to do a lot with it - just a bit more challenging.

Hello again Sigbjørn,

Here's an example file. I would like to be able to edit existing propertiy values and/or add new property sets and properties.

Feel free to contact me directly at atle.hoidalen@banenor.no if needed! :)

Hi @atle_hoidalen​ ,

I know it has been a while, but is there any update for this topic? Now I'm suffering from keeping the attributes with the same schema. My workspace is quite simple, just reading IFC and writing IFC. I only need to remove some fearture types. So I think it's not necessary to do some touchups. And I'm trying to change some reader/writer parameters to solve the problem. Unfortunately, it doesn't work.

From the IFC reader, we can see some IFC attributes which are regarded as geometry traits (IFMENull).

IFC Property_BeforeAfter running the workspace, I found the all the IFMEAggregate with named "IFCPropertySet" were disappeared. Originally, there are 15 IFMEAggregates, including "Part 0:IMEAggregate (18 Parts)", Part 1 which is IfcMaterial, and Part 2 to Part 14 which are IfcPropertySet. After running the workspace, only 18 Parts are kept from original "Part 0:IFMEAggregate (18 Parts)" and its level is going up to the top.

IFC Property_AfterI'm not sure whether it's related to the setting of Representation Contexts. Do you have any idea? Thank you so much!

IFC Writer_Representation Contexts 

Best Regards,

Qubbie

Userlevel 1
Badge +15

Hi @atle_hoidalen​ ,

I know it has been a while, but is there any update for this topic? Now I'm suffering from keeping the attributes with the same schema. My workspace is quite simple, just reading IFC and writing IFC. I only need to remove some fearture types. So I think it's not necessary to do some touchups. And I'm trying to change some reader/writer parameters to solve the problem. Unfortunately, it doesn't work.

From the IFC reader, we can see some IFC attributes which are regarded as geometry traits (IFMENull).

IFC Property_BeforeAfter running the workspace, I found the all the IFMEAggregate with named "IFCPropertySet" were disappeared. Originally, there are 15 IFMEAggregates, including "Part 0:IMEAggregate (18 Parts)", Part 1 which is IfcMaterial, and Part 2 to Part 14 which are IfcPropertySet. After running the workspace, only 18 Parts are kept from original "Part 0:IFMEAggregate (18 Parts)" and its level is going up to the top.

IFC Property_AfterI'm not sure whether it's related to the setting of Representation Contexts. Do you have any idea? Thank you so much!

IFC Writer_Representation Contexts 

Best Regards,

Qubbie

Hi @qubbiewu​ I am not sure I have an answer to this, but because this thread is old I would suggest posting a new question with this information and refer to this thread in your question. That way you might have better luck getting a response from the larger community! 😊

Badge +3

Hi @atle_hoidalen​ ,

I know it has been a while, but is there any update for this topic? Now I'm suffering from keeping the attributes with the same schema. My workspace is quite simple, just reading IFC and writing IFC. I only need to remove some fearture types. So I think it's not necessary to do some touchups. And I'm trying to change some reader/writer parameters to solve the problem. Unfortunately, it doesn't work.

From the IFC reader, we can see some IFC attributes which are regarded as geometry traits (IFMENull).

IFC Property_BeforeAfter running the workspace, I found the all the IFMEAggregate with named "IFCPropertySet" were disappeared. Originally, there are 15 IFMEAggregates, including "Part 0:IMEAggregate (18 Parts)", Part 1 which is IfcMaterial, and Part 2 to Part 14 which are IfcPropertySet. After running the workspace, only 18 Parts are kept from original "Part 0:IFMEAggregate (18 Parts)" and its level is going up to the top.

IFC Property_AfterI'm not sure whether it's related to the setting of Representation Contexts. Do you have any idea? Thank you so much!

IFC Writer_Representation Contexts 

Best Regards,

Qubbie

Hi @qubbiewu​. Not sure if this is going to be helpfull, but i bulk edit a lot of IFCs as part of my job and we gave up on doing it with FME.

I mainly use https://developers-staging.bimdata.io/api/introduction/overview.html. It looks very technical at first, but i found it easier to edit data compared to the FME writer. We use FME just for the REST calls and reading/writing data from a database.

 

Btw, geometry attributes can be extracted using the GeometryPropertyExtractor

Hi @qubbiewu​ I am not sure I have an answer to this, but because this thread is old I would suggest posting a new question with this information and refer to this thread in your question. That way you might have better luck getting a response from the larger community! 😊

Hi @Evie Lapalme​ thank you for your reminder. I'm going to do so.😃

Hi @qubbiewu​. Not sure if this is going to be helpfull, but i bulk edit a lot of IFCs as part of my job and we gave up on doing it with FME.

I mainly use https://developers-staging.bimdata.io/api/introduction/overview.html. It looks very technical at first, but i found it easier to edit data compared to the FME writer. We use FME just for the REST calls and reading/writing data from a database.

 

Btw, geometry attributes can be extracted using the GeometryPropertyExtractor

Hi @davidrasner5​ Many thanks. Let me explore. It did look very technical😆

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