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BlenderBIM: Brainstorm of integration of IFCCSV module with rewritten spreadsheet writer module

  1. C by Coen on 7 Feb 2023, edited 8 Feb 2023 # +4 votes

    Hello all,

    The reason I made this thread because a year ago I made a spreadsheet write add-on for Blender as my first add-on ever for BlenderBIM, fast forward a year and a half later and in hindsight I see my code could do with a lot of refactoring. IFC data is way easier extracted using the ifcopenshell.api. Now I want to integrate it somehow with the IFCCSV module of BlenderBIM, since they basicly do the same thing: 'Exporting IFC data to a tabular format' .

    Here are the UIs.

    The UI of IFCCSV

    The UI of Spreadsheet

    The IFCCSV code:

    https://github.com/IfcOpenShell/IfcOpenShell/tree/v0.7.0/src/blenderbim/blenderbim/bim/module/csv

    Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the IFCCSV does not depend on the python modules pandas, ods, xlsxwriter ?

    I saw in the repo somewhere that there is now support for ods and xlsxwriter?

    Will the python pandas module be shipped with blenderbim?

    What I like to achieve with you is the following:

    1. Integrate the UI of IFCCSV and Spreadsheet writer, no idea what the UI will look like, ideas are welcome

    2. Extract the data using pandas, make it software-agnostic, so the tabular data extraction could be used for FreeCAD as well one day, or any other BIM tool using ifcopenshell.

    3. Create a new feature which saves a 'searchset' , I guess a bit like Autodesk Navisworks, or does the IFCCSV already do this?

    4. Refactor code completely from scratch, shouldn't we first make some architecture diagram?

    5. Really take into account performance, pandas seems to be quite good at this.

    Hope to get good tips from the pros here. :-)

  2. A by Ace on 7 Feb 2023 #

    No tips, not a pro, keep it up! I find your spreadsheet editor waaay easier to use than IFCCSV, so look forward to the integration!

  3. M by Moult on 7 Feb 2023, edited 7 Feb 2023 #

    I think it makes sense for the UI to offer an easy mode by default, as well as an advanced mode. The easy mode should be heavily inspired by the spreadsheet UI @Coen has designed :)

    IfcCSV now has optional dependencies on odspy and xlsxwriter. pandas is not required though.

  4. C by Coen on 8 Feb 2023 #

    if I want to develop a module which requires pandas, how could I store/install them in blenderbim?

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