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Bonsai new release!

M by Moult on 28 Feb 2020, edited 22 Apr 2025 # +7 votes

A new version of the BlenderBIM Add-on v0.0.200228 was released today! It's been a month since the last release, but there are lots of new features!

12D files, which usually have absolute coordinates, are now imported into Blender with an offset to allow you to work in local coordinates for vertical BIM

The BIM audit panel now allows you to select a particular BIMTester feature, and write tests directly from the UI instead of needing a text editor

Your spatial tree can now have geometric representations (most importantly, this allows you to export an IfcSite terrain)

Quick project setup button now sets up spatial objects too

Sites can now export a reference long/lat attribute

When importing, it now remembers what IFC file the data came from (in preparation for partial writes)

Minor bugfixes related to missing items in dropdown menus, curve orientations upon export

Import now associates type products

Bugfix allowing you to import multiple spatial structure elements with identical names

New option to toggle import of opening elements

Improved IFC-to-Code_Aster script

Preset render settings for creating documentation and diagrams

Create dimension annotations in 3D from any orientation instead of for a particular view

New support for IFC projection elements (opposite of void elements)

Allow you to create other types of leaders and section levels from any orientation instead of for a particular view

IfcPolygonalFaceSets are now imported with the correct units (useful for sites and terrains)

Extra checks to ensure exports don't create GlobalId collisions

Allow duplicate names for both mesh and curve data

New option allowing people to maintain parametric behaviour to generate multiple IFC objects, or to bake the results into a single IFC object

New IFCPatch tool, allowing you to patch the data in an IFC file based on a series of preloaded "recipes". These allow you to workaround various limitations in other IFC authoring exports in a safe way without breaking the rest of the IFC data. Recipies include:

Reset spatial element object placement locations

Offset from absolute coordinates to a local system

Remove representations from sites

Offset IfcBuildingStorey elevations

Set reference elevation

BIMTester now shows test results with a percentage success rate

IFC import now imports pset data

2D grids are now imported even though curve data isn't enabled, given the importance of grids. Support added for IfcGrid and IfcGridAxis

New ability to search for IFC objects by their attribute or pset property values with a case insensitive string, with support for regex for super advanced searching

You can select any IFC attribute or pset property and colour code the model by the value for a visual cue when auditing IFC data

Minor UI clean-up to hide panels by default

New import option to toggle import of IfcSpace objects

Handle import coordinate offsetting of IFC2X3 files created from Tekla which are poorly geolocated

Version bump to the latest IfcOpenShell library, which includes fixes for more stable geometry import

Get the latest version today: https://blenderbim.org/

N by Nordlenningen on 14 Mar 2020 #

Dion, I experience problem installing latest version, see picture;

Any advice? Running Blender 2.82@Ubuntu 19.10

M by Moult on 14 Mar 2020 #

@Nordlenningen Yes - the upgrade procedure is a bit finicky at the moment. For now, the easiest approach is to delete all of the plugin files and install cleanly. See here.

The list of files to delete in the add-ons dir is:

blenderbim/

ifcopenshell/

OCC/

pystache/

svgwrite/

deepdiff/

jsonpickle/

lib/ # Note: this only exists on MacOS and Linux

ordered_set.py

pyparsing.py

On Linux and Mac, because of the way the Conda builds currently have relative links to their .so files, you are also required to delete all the lib.so files in your ~/.config/blender/2.81/ folder. It's a pain, I know. However to fix it requires a bit of work on the Conda builds for OCE, which is not really my expertise.

N by Nordlenningen on 14 Mar 2020 #

@Moult Still same problem.

I'll remove Blender and run a fresh one.

N by Nordlenningen on 14 Mar 2020 # +1 votes

Finished, work like a charm....(remove and installing Blender less than 2 snap minutes) :-)

M by Moult on 28 Mar 2020 # +2 votes

A new version of the BlenderBIM Add-on is now released: v0.0.200328! Get the new version today: https://blenderbim.org/

One month since the last release, there have been over 30 fixes, stability improvements, and new features. Highlights include new import features for simplify and merge IFC models, brand new IFC to/from CSV data export and import, basic support for BCF-XML 2.1, and simple construction documentation sheet management.

Latest IfcOpenShell version, with various stability fixes to import more files!

BIMTester can now just generate reports if required

BIMTester can run a single test instead of the entire test suite

Fix import bug with some IFC object types aren't related correctly

New BIMTester test to check if an element doesn't exist

Improved support for IFC2X3 materials without transparency

Fix import bug where IFC spaces with the same name might not be in the right location in the spatial tree

New import option to auto-merge geometry by IFC class

New import option to auto-merge geometry by IFC material

New import option to disable element aggregation

Hidden lines in construction documentation may now be in 3D, useful for showing exploded axonometric views

New IFCCSV tool allows querying an IFC file and exporting attributes and psets and reimporting an updated CSV to the IFC model

IFCCSV tool allows querying using IFC class, attribute, pset, and qto filters, with multiple operators, AND and OR statements

Export fix where sometimes you could create an abstract IFC class

All IfcSpatialElements are now supported including obscure ones like IfcSpatialZone and IfcExternalSpatialElement

IFC exports now support multiple materials on a single object

Fix export bug where some aggregates don't export

Fix import bug where some objects inside a space won't import

New import feature to automatically clean meshes to get nicer topologies

New export feature to export objects inside spaces and any spatial element

New import feature to record the spatial relationship of objects inside spaces (with ability to scale for large projects)

New import feature where quantity take-off quantities are imported

New export feature where you can manually fill out quantities and export them

Fix import bug where materials may be on multiple shape representations

New support for BCF XML 2.1!

View list of BCF topics in the UI, showing basic metadata about each topic

New button to uninstall add-on, to improve the upgrade process

See multiple viewpoints for each BCF topic and launch a camera view for each viewpoint

Any type of curve object is now supported for construction documentation annotation objects

Spatial containers are auto-detected when exporting making it more convenient for users to do quick exports

Support for BCF topic comments

BCF topic reference links, BIM snippets, document references, and related topics are supported with buttons to quickly open both external and internal references

New buttons to quickly view BlenderBIM Add-on homepage, docs, wiki, and forum

Documentation titleblock and view templates heavily optimised to a fraction of the filesize - mere kilobytes!

New UI feature to add new sheets and add views to sheets

New UI features to quickly open sheets and views in external SVG programs / viewers

Views now store view scale in their vector output - in an indsutry where our vector output is non-semantic, which really changes things!

Fix IfcPatch bug for broken ResetAbsoluteCoordinates recipe

New feature to publish sheets with automatic view titles, scales, view numbers, and sheet names

A by agron on 5 Apr 2020 #

HI @Moult

As I was trying to update Blender to the newest version, I accidentally unchecked the Addon BlenderBIM. Now I have the problem that I cannot bring it back again. I get the following error message everytime I try to check the box:

is there hope to bring it back?

M by Moult on 5 Apr 2020 #

@agron - see this reply to @Nordlenningen which should help.

<a class="atMention" data-username="Nordlenningen" data-userid="36" href="https://community.osarch.org/profile/Nordlenningen">@Nordlenningen</a> Yes - the upgrade procedure is a bit finicky at the moment. For now, the easiest approach is to delete all of the plugin files and install cleanly. See <a href="https://blenderbim.org/docs/blenderbim/installation.html" rel="nofollow">here</a>.The list of files to delete in the add-ons dir is:<pre class="code codeBlock" spellcheck="false">blenderbim/

ifcopenshell/

OCC/

pystache/

svgwrite/

deepdiff/

jsonpickle/

lib/ # Note: this only exists on MacOS and Linux

ordered_set.py

pyparsing.py

</pre>On Linux and Mac, because of the way the Conda builds currently have relative links to their <code class="code codeInline" spellcheck="false">.so</code> files, you are also required to delete all the <code class="code codeInline" spellcheck="false">lib.so</code> files in your <code class="code codeInline" spellcheck="false">~/.config/blender/2.81/</code> folder. It's a pain, I know. However to fix it requires a bit of work on the Conda builds for OCE, which is not really my expertise.The latest release now has an uninstall button which should mitigate this problem. It still isn't fully solved - perhaps in the next release.

M by Moult on 13 Apr 2020 # +4 votes

2 weeks later since the last release, over 30 new OpenBIM features and fixes in a brand new BlenderBIM Add-on v0.0.200413 release! Get it today: https://blenderbim.org/

New feature to validate the syntax of IFC files, in case you receive a broken IFC file

New support for viewing and overlaying BCF snapshot images on top of the model to compare issues

More stabilisation fixes on multicore IFC import

Support added for BCF header files

IFC import now supports multiple materials for a single object

More robust material imports for BIM authoring tools that still use the deprecated IfcPresentationStyleAssignment or have missing styles (yes, Revit, that's you!)

Experimental multicore support added to IFCClash

The IFC2CA project has joined the IfcOpenShell umbrella!

BIMTester now bundles test definitions so you get tests out of the box!

IFCDiff now checks inverse relationships for changes too

IFCDiff lets you specify filters for checking specific inverse relationships

BCF snapshots with varying aspect ratios are now supported

The IfcProject entity is now a real object in Blender, which can be queried and exported with all of its metadata

BIMTester now supports the full Project setup MicroMVD definition

New optional GUI in BIMTester for people who don't like command line

IFCCOBie has various fixes for strange formatting on wrapped data

BlenderBIM Add-on dependencies repackaged inside add-on, to allow for native Blender install and uninstall procedures

BlenderBIM Add-on Uninstall feature removed, as it is now obsolete in favour of native Blender uninstall process

IFC spatial elements without any geometric representation are now imported

Invalid Psets without any properties (as created by Solidworks) are now imported

Diff import support has now been upgraded to the non-legacy import mechanism

Rebar is now treated specially to prevent BREP faceting, so it retains its parametric swept disk solid behaviour, and is easier to edit, imports 10 times faster and is 10 times smaller in terms of filesize

IFC import has an optimised spatial tree processing algorithm to handle files which have hundreds of sites and buildings for precinct BIM models

Psets and Qtos can be selected from a filtered list for easy user discoverability instead of having to know the IFC spec

New IfcExportSettings factory to let the BlenderBIM Add-on be integrated with other Blender add-ons like ArchiPack

Improved ArchiPack compatibility - export parametric IFC objects from Archipack!

Repository code cleanup of old experimental files

Fix for potential infinite loop during export

Fixed some invalid schema exports related to void/fill/projection relationships, and material assignment related to linked duplicate objects

New support for import and export of the IFCZIP format

New support for BCF component visibility settings, colouring options, and selection sets when viewing BCF topics

New support for BCF orthogonal camera scale factor

B by bitacovir on 13 Apr 2020 #

Thanks for the hard work. Why don't you use any of these release screenshots in the Home page of the addon web? That picture of a room looks so " default template".

M by Moult on 13 Apr 2020 #

@bitacovir that's a great idea! For now, I've put some screenshots here: https://blenderbim.org/features.html

M by Moult on 28 Apr 2020 # +5 votes

It's another 2 weeks, so here's another 30 new fixes and features in the v0.0.200428 BlenderBIM Add-on release! Get it today: https://blenderbim.org/

Highlights include bundled classification system selection including Uniclass and Omniclass, create and consume property set template definitions, reload IFCs, import/export with CSV, and section planes!

IFC export now supports assigning objects to CAD presentation layers

Fix for incorrect grid placement in some scenarios

IFC group objects are now imported

Rebar profiles now share instances if it has the same radius to optimise rebar imports

Attributes or pset values can now be copied across to objects in bulk

IfcDiff now checks model precision when determining tolerances

IfcPatch now has a recipe to offset and rotate an entire model

Graphisoft XMLs can now be parsed into IFC, now maintained by OSArch

New hierarchical classification system interface, which can read IFC files as input

Uniclass and Omniclass are now bundled with the BlenderBIM Add-on, but a repository is provided to download many more classification systems

IFC files for property set templates can now be loaded and viewed

You can now author property set definitions and property templates in Blender and export them

New workaround for importing Civil 3D files with absolute coordinates

Old CSV-based pset definitions deprecated in favour of IFC template definitions

New feature to create/remove a section plane in real time

Support for as many section planes as you want at any angle

Section planes can be applied to a subset of objects, not all objects

Crash fix to IFCCSV when exporting non-existant attributes

IFCCSV is now able to be loaded as a library to be used in other applications

BlenderBIM now has a built-in UI to export and import from IFC and CSV

IFCCSV now supports exporting IfcClass as a data column

IFCCSV now supports querying inverse spatial and type relationships (e.g. all objects in this container, or all objects of this type)

Import workaround for vendors like DDS-CAD who create widely duplicated style items

UI to visually select objects to be exported to CSV

Section plane colour can now be changed

Support for viewing BCF line annotations

Support for viewing BCF clipping planes

Support for viewing BCF bitmaps

IfcDiff panel now prompts for export folder if you haven't set one already

New feature to reload an existing IFC file

M by Moult on 11 May 2020 # +8 votes
I'm happy to release another BlenderBIM Add-on v0.0.200511 with over 50 new features and fixes. The BlenderBIM Add-on is 100% free and open source software that lets you author and document BIM data fully to ISO standards. Get it today: https://blenderbim.org/

Highlights include improvements to object type imports, IFC document reference and information data improvements, huge improvements to documentation abilities, and support for IFC annotation geometry.

New features:
- Artists now have an option to merge aggregates into a single object to easier object manipulation
- Metadata about aggregates themselves are imported, including attributes, psets, and relationships
- New option to select all objects of the same object type
- Classification hierarchies are now imported and can be browsed in a tree viewer
- Element classification references are now imported
- All document metadata is now imported, not just location
- Document information metadata can now be authored and exported
- Document information metadata can now be imported
- Documents that are not related to objects can now be imported and managed in a UI
- New feature to relate document information and reference entities
- Classifications maintain their hierarchy and do not flatten upon export, allowing for richer (i.e. semi-lightweight) classification exports
- Users can specify a list of IFC files to be cut in a section / plan / view
- Exclude rooms from being cut by default in a section
- New style preset for creating construction documentation graphics
- Grid annotations now work in 3D
- IFC metadata (like materials) is now cached when doing a section cut to improve performance
- New UI to add annotation objects to a view like dimensions, leaders, text, levels, etc
- New font size support for text sizes 1.8, 2.5, 3.5, 5, and 7.
- Rebar is more efficiently created without the need for distinct circle profile objects
- Background renders can be cached when doing a section cut to improve performance, if you are only changing annotation
- Users can now specify a symbol for text annotation, like a label box
- Text annotation now supports variables to extract data from IFC files
- Geometric representation context and subcontext definitions are now imported
- Relevant types are now auto-selected for export for convenience
- Export feature is now more granular to export only specific contexts
- 2D axis representations (i.e. not 3D) are now also supported from both meshes and curves
- Authoring and exporting footprint geomset geometry contexts is now supported
- Authoring and exporting 2D and 3D annotation geometry contexts is now supported
- Authoring and exporting 3D profile geometry contexts is now supported
- Text annotations with variables can have functions applied to them - e.g. to concatenate data, format data, or anything, for example to round text annotation to the nearest decimal point, or force uppercase formatting
- BlenderBIM Add-on importing and exporting can now be done headlessly on a server, to allow for remote server processing of BIM data. There is now a BlenderBIM Add-on continuous integration server, to process IFC test cases: https://ci.blenderbim.org/
- You can now bulk-add smart annotations to many objects at once
- You can now manage the geometric representation contexts per object or object type, to switch, lazy-load representations from an IFC, and create new contexts
- IFC unit settings are now preserved on import, instead of using your Blender settings
- You can now export just a single representation to an IFC file, leaving the rest of the IFC data untouched
- Type representations are now imported as well instead of just elements, with support for mapped geometries
- IfcDoorStyle and IfcWindowStyle metadata (attributes, etc) from IFC2X3 are now imported
- Annotation objects are recognised in the section cutting procedure, and not processed for a boolean cut for a more optimised cut
- Solid line annotation objects are now supported (previously only hidden lines were supported)
- A list of contexts are now imported for each object, and you can switch between them with a new UI
- Section / plan / documentation cuts now recognise annotation objects, and will draw them as 2D linework
- Stair annotations now work in 3D
- New hatch patterns! Sexy.
- New door tag symbol support.
- New breakline annotation.
- IfcAnnotation entities are now supported, to be used as you see fit.
- Documentation sections / plans / views are now exported into IFC as groups
- Text annotation is now exported as IfcAnnotation, with new support for IfcTextLiteralWithExtents
- All other annotation objects (dimensions / leaders / levels / symbols / etc) are now created and exported into IfcAnnotation by default.
New fixes:
- Fix section planes sometimes not cutting through aggregates and appearing at the cursor
- Bug where poor material data may cause a bad section cut fixed
- Lat/longs are now converted to decimal degrees from DMS format
- Materials are re-used on subsequent imports if they already exist to prevent material duplication

C by Cedrus28 on 11 May 2020 #
I have a problem. Impossible to export my cube (test object), ifc classification "wall" "solidwall".

I have this in the system console:

Traceback (most recent call last):

File "C:\Users\C├®dricPrin-Rochier\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.82\scripts\addons\blenderbim\bim__init__.py", line 203, in on_register
```
bpy.app.handlers.scene_update_post.remove(on_register)
```
AttributeError: 'bpy.app.handlers' object has no attribute 'scene_update_post'

Thank you for help.

Work on my personal computer but don t work at my office computer.

M by Moult on 11 May 2020 #

@Cedrus28 I assume you have followed https://blenderbim.org/blenderbim-tutorial.html ?

There may be a bug given that your username has non-standard character glyphs. Can you try exporting the test cube to the C:\ drive directly?

B by brunopostle on 13 May 2020 #

@Moult any tips for getting the SVG output to work? the section planes are made using the older orthographic camera technique, not the newer widget that cuts using an eevee shader? or both? If I create a view, then click on 'Add View to Sheet' I get a FileNotFoundError for the SVG file.

M by Moult on 13 May 2020, edited 13 May 2020 #

@brunopostle the process is not intuitive, and the UI needs a lot of polish. I suspect the feature will continue to change significantly, which is why I have not recorded a demonstration. The function is there, but it requires far too many clicks and is clunky to manage. The section planes that use the Eevee shader are purely for view, and unrelated to a section "cut", which uses an orthographic camera.

A view needs to be created first, which creates a camera, and an IfcGroup for your new view. You will also require an IFC file for the section cut to be performed on, which after you export your model, you can add this IFC file in the output properties, documentation panel, then "add ifc file" and browse to it. You can perform a section cut on multiple IFC files. Then, in the camera settings of that active orthographic camera, you will see a cut section button. This will generate an SVG in your DATA_DIR/diagrams folder.

The section is a combination of a vector cut through the IFC (note: no Blender geometry involved), composited on top of a render taken from that camera view in Blender using standard render settings. There are two view presets which change the render settings if you want a more technical style drawing (note, they do not remember their prior settings, so they are purely there for a one-time convenience - there is no proper graphics settings feature yet).

Only once a view has been created by the "cut section" button, will add view to sheet work. It will be in the DATA_DIR/sheets folder

B by brunopostle on 13 May 2020 #

@moult ah, my problem is I can't export my imported IFC files, I'll try again with the tutorial model

T by theoryshaw on 13 May 2020 #

@brunopostle can you do a quick video demonstration on annotation if you're noodling with it? Will help me too.

Blender noobie, fyi.

B by brunopostle on 13 May 2020 # +1 votes

@theoryshaw I've put it to one side for now, I was hoping to get it working with my home rolled IFC files, but they have lots of problems that I ought to fix first

M by Moult on 13 May 2020 #

Historically, since import and export were built at different speeds, the BlenderBIM Add-on doesn't actually roundtrip itself between import and export (terrible, I know!). In more recent versions this is improving and should start to work for simple files, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was something you imported that you couldn't export without a few tweaks, yet.

M by Moult on 25 May 2020, edited 25 May 2020 # +6 votes
BlenderBIM Add-on v0.0.200525 has been released with yet another 30 new features and fixes. The BlenderBIM Add-on is 100% free and open source software that lets you author and document BIM data fully to ISO standards. It's built by the AEC community, for the AEC community. Get it today: https://blenderbim.org/

Highlights include improved clash detection features, more robust round-tripping including object re-use, basic cove.tool environmental analysis integration, and new experimental IFCXML and IFCJSON support!

New features:
- New feature to convert from local to global (georeferenced) coordinates
- Custom Qto definitions can now be exported
- IfcClash can now patch global coordinates to aid in accuracy of clashes
- IfcClash can now be used standalone or as a library in any project
- IfcClash is now bundled with the BlenderBIM Add-on for Windows and Linux (any Mac volunteers who want to build it?)
- Exporting two IfcProjects will now merge them into a single IFC project
- Experimental IFCXML can now be imported
- The relative placements of the spatial hierarchy are now imported and exported
- IfcClash now supports clashing many-to-many / multiple IFC files at once
- IfcClash now lets users configure clash tolerance
- IfcClash now reports the worst-case distance clash in the case of multiple clashes with the same two objects
- IfcOpenShell now has a utility module to let you conveniently do geolocation, element filtering, and getting element properties
- IfcClash now supports element filtering, with filter rules, and/or statements, inclusion and exclusion rules
- IfcClash now supports internal collision checks - to check for collisions within a single group of objects
- IfcClash now supports clash sets to be defined so you don't need to setup the rules again each time
- The BlenderBIM Add-on has a new UI to create and run clash sets with IfcClash
- The BlenderBIM Add-on now has a feature to export and import clash sets
- Simple integration with cove.tool for basic energy and daylight analysis
- You can now export experimentally to IFCJSON format (Thanks Ioannis!)
- BIMTester updated to latest MicroMVD syntax specification
- BlenderBIM Add-on now allows you to specific relationship checks during IFC Diff execution
- When importing the same file or updated files twice, existing rooted elements (spatial elements, objects, types, etc) are reused instead of duplicating
- You can now export psets related to spatial elements
- Users can now switch easily between IFC4 and IFC2X3 when exporting
- New feature to select / highlight all clash results in your current 3D viewport
New fixes:
- Rewrite IfcClash system to drastically increase quality of clash detection results
- Fix bug where monetary units can cause an import to fail
- Fix bug where an IFC without a subcontext can cause an import to fail
- Fix bug when exporting / round-tripping IFC2X3 to IFC4 classifications
- Fix broken export when object names are too long
- Fix bug where importing mapped type representations may accidentally reuse other meshes
- More lenient parsing to skip invalid representations and not stop halfway (as discovered in ArchiCAD-produced files)

B by bitacovir on 25 May 2020, edited 25 May 2020 #

@Moult You should open a Patreon account for this project.

M by Moult on 25 May 2020 # +2 votes

@bitacovir how about Liberapay? https://liberapay.com/dionmoult/

B by bitacovir on 25 May 2020 #

@Moult said:

@bitacovir how about Liberapay? https://liberapay.com/dionmoult/

Then, put your link in the BlenderBIM webpage.

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