What does Bonsai need to be ready for a basic architectural drawing pack?

M by Moult on 10 Feb 2025, edited 18 Feb 2025 # +15 votes

There are a lot of usecases for Bonsai, but one I'd like to focus on is the architect, a.k.a @theoryshaw. What's stopping us from unhesitatingly recommending Bonsai for the usecase of developing a simple drawing pack for council submissions (not construction)? Specifically missing features, or things that are so painful they might as well be missing. Stability can come a bit later. A drawing pack should include plans, sections, elevations, 3D, render, with dims, grids, material, areas, spaces, finishes schedule, area calcs, door and window schedule, site plan with survey background , etc. Maybe 10 sheets all in all, produced in a day. This is for tiny to small projects. Shed to house size. No apartments. No mega hospitals.

Here's what I came up with:

No display or joining of wall layers
You can't easily draw curved walls or beams
the door standard case sucks for real life doors
we need materials for parametric objects!
more presets for walls, materials, and styles. Users shouldn't need to create them from scratch all the time.
drawing dimensions is the worst experience
extend walls shouldn't need the 3d cursor
there is no real workflow to creating a door / window types sheet with elevation and plans

Thoughts? Is it similar to what you think? Did I forget something?

B by brunopostle on 10 Feb 2025 # +7 votes

Interchangeable CSS styles that produce gorgeous drawings out of the box
Nice 2D line rendering of tessellations

The way to find the pain points is through real-life small projects. Currently doing this myself, slowly, but we have a sharing collaboration system - we should be able to work on these projects together.

V by viktor on 10 Feb 2025 #

@Moult I'm glad you think like this, so the development of Bonsai is well balanced for all related professions.

Right now what I'm missing most is a possibility of editing multiple items at once. For example an object of three panels window (non parametric), to change its height I have to edit several items so it's faster for me if I unlink the Ifc Class and edit it as a normal Blender object to grab all desired vertices at once.

Exactly curved walls! And parametric circle or triangle windows would be nice however it is not that big deal because it's easy to model it in Blender (e.g. with help of archimesh).

Btw I don't know why were annotations tools transformed into a drop down menu, it is really a repetitive task clicking the menu very often, I liked the particular buttons in the side panel more. Also would be nice to set the line styles (colors, thickness, linetype...) and text styles in the Blender/Bonsai interface instead of editing the *.css file directly (personally I don't mind, it is even fun, but as you stated "unhesitatingly recommending Bonsai").

More presets would be nice but don't underestimated the caveat they differs around the world. So for me, working in Europe, to have only e.g. US presets would be rather confusing.

I have to say there is allways something to improve or add but it is incredible how advanced Bonsai is, what various features and gems it provides (sometimes they are really quiet and hidden like the Draw Flow Decorations in Pipe Systems :-) ) and that all without being backed by some mega giga corporation, it is mind blowing and tastes like a freedom!

O by Ole_Marius_Svendsen on 10 Feb 2025 #

As an extension to the comment made by @viktor.

In a previous tread i inquired some help with making section cuts from an IFC file made from Revit.

https://community.osarch.org/discussion/2737/what-does-bonsai-need-to-be-ready-for-a-basic-architectural-drawing-pack#latest

@sjb007 pointed out when assisting me:

"making it kinda slow to test with. " as he referred it was many elements in my IFC file and it was painfuly slow to generate drawings, when there is many elements in the file.

He further pointed out:

"The building is a long way from the origin, and rotated so it is not aligned orthogonally. Editing the dimensions is made harder, because you need to remember to switch to View (Transform Orientations, top-middle, usually says Global) so that you can constrain moves to the X/Y of the camera, and do a scale Z zero. If you don't do this you get wacky valuesbecause the points can be snapping to completely different depths in the camera view."

As this made the section cut i made, with what i interperate as a normal workflow, to not save the cut as where it was intended, and all of the annontation was changed after i reopened the IFC file.

K by KoAra on 10 Feb 2025 #

This is a very interesting topic : )

The government is trying to make 3D BIM do what building permits do with 2D drawings. We have not been able to determine how much easier it would be to output data in 3D BIM should the complex rules of checking with 2D drawings be changed, but let me give you my opinion.

Door opening and closing orientation is important to check, and it would be helpful if the IfcDoorTypeOperationEnum in IFC 4 could be projected to the 2D drawings.
Need to indicate the location of fire extinguishers, but don't know. I have figured out that the sprinklers are in IfcFireSuppressionTerminal, so the ceiling is not a problem.
Checking where sewage piping is connected is important. To do this, we may dare to put the centerline of the road outside the site on the 2D drawing. The reason for this is that there is a town sewer manhole in the road. This may not be compatible with IfcSite.
I draw 10 or 20 IfcGrid on a small house, so it would help modeling if the spacing and letter numbers could be easily changed.

In addition, the centerlines of furniture, equipment and plumbing should also use IfcGrid, so I would like to use it differently from the IfcGrid shown in the frame structure.

Showing the connection between IfcSensor FIRESENSOR and IfcUnitaryControlElement may be in the future, but I think it will be required. Port Nesting does not seem to be implemented in BIM proprietary software.

Thank you for reading.

T by theoryshaw on 10 Feb 2025 # +2 votes

would echo...

Nice 2D line rendering of tessellations

possibility of editing multiple items at once.

If forced to suggest two things, would suggest.

improving the speed by which to switch drawings and printing them out. Curious if using scenes for drawings, could help?
visualizing the layers that make up walls/slabs in drawings and in the scene.

... okay, one more, get RCP's to work again. :)

...

Probably worth linking the following discussion as well: https://community.osarch.org/discussion/2640/drawings-documentation-donation-proposal#latest

S by sjb007 on 11 Feb 2025 # +1 votes

I'll +1000 the improving line rendering of tessellated objects.

I detailed my issues here: https://github.com/IfcOpenShell/IfcOpenShell/issues/3668#issuecomment-2489524775

Any complex object just turns into a black blob.

G by Gorgious on 11 Feb 2025 # +6 votes

I haven't use Bonsai's drawing features for a while but last I checked there was no way to dissolve lines from colinear walls in elevation mode

A by Andrea on 11 Feb 2025 # +1 votes

thanks for this discussion, I belive is crucial. In my case of use it is very often necessary to produce drawings or revisions quickly. For this reason I would like to have options for printing blender objects while maintaining modifiers. I think it would be great for speed and implementation of drawings. Also, I would also like to be able to manage notes made with grease pencil so that they can be interpreted as revisions within the drawings. Anyway what you are doing is fantastic!

J by JeanPascal on 12 Feb 2025 #

Hello.

Ideas for using Bonzai for small architectural projects. I am a beginner so it is possible that some options are already present.

Precise placement of doors and windows in relation to a reference point or a distance from the 3D model (ideally the distance is displayed even afterwards to facilitate modifications).
Easier modification of the dimensions of the openings after their installation.
Simplify management of terrain curves (point cloud or contour curve) for the existing terrain and the modified project.
Automatic alignment of elevation views on facades (placement with face selection?).
Illumination of elevation views which updates at 45° for all views to project identical shadows and highlight reliefs.
Configurable shutters (wood or roller shutter) automatically adapting to the dimensions of the window.
window sill integrated into the window model.

D by duarteframos on 12 Feb 2025 # +1 votes

Not specifically for council submissions, but better interoperability with traditional CAD worflows would be neat.

In practice this could just mean better import/export of 2D drawings in DXFs for things like:

Complex profiles or sections, (manufacturers often have them for download as DXF/DWG on their sites for things like window frames, aluminium profiles, etc.)
Land surveys, isolines, 2D reference plans

J by jes_r on 14 Feb 2025, edited 14 Feb 2025 # +7 votes

I also have a couple of suggestions, mainly coming from working on small professional jobs in Bonsai the last few months. I'm just throwing them in there, maybe some are already better/ fixed, feel free to let me know!

What I think is important:

Seeing the drawing as it is printed while working in Bonsai would still help a lot, also for newcomers that try to work with it;
Being able to choose an active representation(s) for objects per individual drawing, which then only gets printed;
Being able to import drawings, optionally with annotations and geometry visible in that view, from 1 IFC to another. Just importing the seperate elements doesnt really do the trick i think, a whole view would be awesome!
Option to print elements that are behind other elements. All that fall in view range should at least be exported to the svg. give an element thats in front the option to be transparent so that the one under it does get printed.
In addition to the one above: View range just checks if an element is in range. If so, it prints the whole element even if part is outside the range. I think it should cut at the end of the viewrange?
Text size staying true to the printed size (i know this as been adressed but i dont get it to work, should work out of the box);
linked IFC models have always trouble with drawing creation. either not visible, or when visible it looks bad. I ended up tracing them with Fill Area's ;)
From my pre 0.8.1 experience: Sheet creation could be much improved. Changing position of the views in other program is not streamlined, so maybe an x & y value for drawings on sheet is an idea? I'm also struggling with creating PDF's : Using inkscape etc takes a lot of time altogether and I get an error with the end result, which is sadly unusable. So I made PNG's, which works (though big file size).

Though I haven't tried it with the new update which of course made everything a lot better, so will come back on this!

What I think is a bit less important but still useful:

As walls etc get their cut color with css, you need to fill in the IfcMaterialLayerSetUsage (1). I'd like it to default to the given material (2) with an option to override it manually. For layered walls it actually should print those layers with their individual materials. Here we don't use layers for walls so we don't have that issue. Right now changing materials gives me a lot to change, while it should all be the same...

Multiple annotations have hardcoded looks: e.g. level elevation has "RL" in text, grids are always visible both at the beginning and at the end (option to choose?). I think it would be better to be able to change everything in the end in Bonsai itself, but for now in CSS or SVG files.
Styles are really getting better. Now I dont know a lot about it yet, but being able to create patterns, hatches etc like a brickwork pattern from there would be nice.
Option to project pattern for each element differently, e.g. like Archicad does:

An equivalent to detail component, existing from multiple annotations (Fill Area's with lines etc). Maybe this is already possible?
Show in drawing what the symbol would look like when it gets printed instead of the star.

A by aditio123 on 15 Feb 2025 # +2 votes

Nice 2D line rendering of tessellations
line between colinear element in elevation view
can you make lineworks and pattern option more GUI ? :D editing pattern using css is very confusing for me

S by SavyGust27 on 16 Feb 2025 # +2 votes

it has been said before, but just to bump it more

follow me like function for curved elements
editing the css inside of blender or another way of adding line styles and hatches directly from bonsai
better printing of tessellation objects (it is very useful for the sites)
seeing the drawing as close as possible to the final printing

Z by zoomer on 16 Feb 2025 # +1 votes

Very interesting Thread ..... on Bonsai .....

Especially when I think of reading a large part of same wishes on nearly most all of commercial BIM software forums too. Although these Apps exist and develop since 1 to 3+ decades.

For me, features would be :

intuitive 3D Modeling, parametric Objects as well as direct destructive Modeling
flexible LODs, starting from simple, allowing to add more detail when necessary
generated 2D drawings, easy to control/setup for different standards and demands
better integration/synch between blend file and Bonsai IFC (mainly .blend - that saves the IFC aside ? I mean that all possible information is saved as much as possible in the IFC, but Blender controls all organization, visibilities, visualization settings, ....)

I mean Bricscad, starting as one of Autocad compatible Apps, managed to save all additional direct modeling and BIM data stuff inside of the DWG file format. Maybe .blend format would also allow to contain foreign data, which Blender can't read or use but without getting disturbed by it.

Currently lots of BIM projects information (e.g. visibilities, material settings, cameras, ...) gets lost in Blender due to IFC limitations, while on the other hand Blender does not see/keep up with IFC geometry changes.

While Bonsai is the App that first showed me what IFC is really capable of. And I really like it to directly save all BIM in IFC. Like I I see that CAD Apps that started BIM late, but with IFC in mind, do better modeling, data organization and IFCs overall, like newer 3D Apps that based data organization on open USD standards.

J by jes_r on 17 Feb 2025, edited 17 Feb 2025 #

A couple of other suggestions:

Bonsai automatically selecting correct scale css when changing scale for drawings would be really helpful and more intuitive. Something like this for standard scales up to 1:500 or 1000?

Option to add text sizes from within bonsai, which then also visually work (currently i have my own text sizes but they look like default size in bonsai, printed is right size)
being able to perfectly combine inherited type annotation classes and occurence properties if needed:

So I would expect the svg to put the classes together forming the left line, just as if the inherited type would be 'dashed lineweight_0_50'. However it makes the right line like this. Maybe a toggleable 'combine' button to tackle this?

Option for dimension text sizes

*Being able to decide text placement of the dimension would be awesome!

A by Ace on 18 Feb 2025, edited 18 Feb 2025 # +10 votes

I think for me there are a few Key issues:

Window & door generation being more capable,

there is a very common window in South Africa:

I can't create this with the current window generator,

Glass doors would be very usefull aswell, at the moment, I create a window and call it a door.

Tessellated geometry not showing triangulation in 2D, specifically for Terrain,

I normally hide the terrain in every view and use it as a reference

Visualized layered walls in 2d, I get this question everyday.
Export CAD: text, hatch patterns and dimensions
some sort of visualization of patterns/symbols/markers when editing
Array Aggregates (as far as I am aware this is not yet possible)

The basic use case for this is a aggregate truss arrayed along a roof

EDIT:

A dedicated Window & door schedule tool,

that just shows the Elevation and Plan of a window or door inside a table with the core info underneath, frame, glass, finish, opening, position etc, this is currently not BIM compared to Revit and Archicad

Something like this for Construction:

Or this for COuncil submission:

Nice to have:

Edit layout in Bonsai or through the web UI, (this would reallllyyy speed up the workflow)

Needing to install Inkscape also adds more barriers for beginners,

CSS & pattern editing inside of Bonsai (or through the web UI)
Axis 2D visualization for pipes, beams etc

@Moult I would be happy to create a set for everyone like the one you are talking about, I wanted to use Elemental's Villa Verde CAD plans:

https://www.elementalchile.cl/downloads/villa-verde-housing-plans

I think they are really simple and very comprehensive, and they are free to use for everyone, I wanted to create a timber and brick version of the building, this way there is already a free CAD comparison for people to see what the jump can give you