B by brunopostle on 14 Jan 2023 # +5 votes

New blender-homemaker-2023-01-14 release

This is a packaged Homemaker add-on with dependencies for Linux, Windows and Mac.

This release fixes issues revealed by the Blenderbim 230107 release. If you have upgraded to the latest Blenderbim, older versions of the Homemaker-addon will no longer work, you will need to upgrade to this release of the Homemaker add-on.

There are also some new features:

Grillages are faces from the CellComplex that are filled with parallel linear elements (such as rafters). The system for defining these linear elements is now unified, just reference further Extrusion or Repeat definitions and these will be used to fill each path. Further, the sliced area between these linear elements can now be filled with further Shell or Grillage definitions. Put together these allow complex recursive construction systems to be defined, and applied by just setting the material name of a face in your blender mesh.
Partial work on roundtripping models is also included. The Homemaker function takes a blender mesh, finds a Topologic CellComplex from closed volumes in the geometry, and builds an IFC building model from this CellComplex. This CellComplex is stashed in the IFC data as SKETCH_VIEW surfaces. With this release, this CellComplex can now be retrieved for creation of further buildings by selecting any part of an IFC building previously created by Homemaker, and using the Topologise function.
Bugs were attended, code refactored and typos fixed.

B by brunopostle on 14 Jan 2023 # +2 votes

@DADA_universe said:

Bumping this to nudge @brunopostle to please add this to a 'how things work' / 'getting started' page both on the documentation and on the repo's readme (it can be edited incrementally as things change). Ditto links to your YouTube channel to help with easier on-boarding of people previously unfamiliar with your work.

Thanks for the reminder, I added some (still incomplete) Homemaker add-on usage documentation.

T by topologic on 14 Jan 2023 #

@brunopostle I wonder if you faced any issues with grillages that are not equally spaced because the orientation of the faces in a CellComplex are not guaranteed (not inside out normal, but the u,v vectors along the face). With the new Face.Harmonize method in topologic py, the u=0, v=0 is always placed in the "upper left" corner (so to speak). Perhaps it is not an issue in your implementation, but I know it can crop up in other use case scenarios.

B by brunopostle on 15 Jan 2023 #

@topologic I map every face to horizontal before decorating it with extrusions etc.. then I map it all back. I normalise each face so non-vertical faces always point up, and grids start at the bottom left - this code is not very pretty.

T by theoryshaw on 15 Jan 2023 # +2 votes

this code is not very pretty.

but it's lived-in code--that has its own beauty.

N by Nigel on 16 Jan 2023 #

Hi @brunopostle I seem to have got myself into a mess when upgrading to the latest Homemaker Addon. I get the following...

Traceback (most recent call last):

File "D:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\3.4\scripts\modules\addon_utils.py", line 333, in enable

mod = __import__(module_name)

File "C:\Users\nigel\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\3.4\scripts\addons\homemaker-addon-main__init__.py", line 10, in <module>

from molior import Molior

File "C:\Users\nigel\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\3.4\scripts\addons\homemaker-addon-main\molior__init__.py", line 30, in <module>

from molior.style import Style

File "C:\Users\nigel\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\3.4\scripts\addons\homemaker-addon-main\molior\style__init__.py", line 20, in <module>

import os, yaml, copy, json

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'yaml'

Your help will be much appreciated

cheers Nigel

B by brunopostle on 16 Jan 2023 #

@Nigel it looks like you downloaded a ZIP archive of the git repository (which would work if you have all the dependencies installed, but you don't). The releases include dependencies, you can download them here: https://github.com/brunopostle/homemaker-addon/releases

You need blender-homemaker-2023-01-14-win.zip (or you can use blender-homemaker-2023-01-14-noarch.zip if you already have a working Topologic sverchok).

N by Nigel on 16 Jan 2023 #

@brunopostle said:

@Nigel it looks like you downloaded a ZIP archive of the git repository (which would work if you have all the dependencies installed, but you don't). The releases include dependencies, you can download them here: https://github.com/brunopostle/homemaker-addon/releases

You need blender-homemaker-2023-01-14-win.zip (or you can use blender-homemaker-2023-01-14-noarch.zip if you already have a working Topologic sverchok).

Thank you, I was pretty sure I got it wrong :)

Can't wait for the Blender Extensions Platform to manage (especially updates) my Addons as I find it a bit confusing

cheers Nigel

B by brunopostle on 17 Jan 2023, edited 17 Jan 2023 # +5 votes

Some new features will be in the next Homemaker add-on release:

The Homemaker function turns any blender mesh into an IFC building model - using faces as walls and ceilings, and the closed cells/spaces in the mesh as rooms. This process can now be easily reversed, even from a saved model, by selecting any part of the building and running Topologise - then just edit the mesh and re-run Homemaker to recreate the IFC building based on the new geometry. Similarly, selecting any part of an IFC model and re-running Homemaker regenerates the IFC building completely, allowing you to change style definitions and see how this changes the building.
Homemaker creates entire building models in one click, but this isn't always how you want to work. The Homemaker function can now generate fragments of buildings from open meshes and loose faces - allowing you to create buildings bit-by-bit, making some parts in Blenderbim and other parts in Homemaker:

N by Nigel on 17 Jan 2023 # +1 votes

Hi @brunopostle the proposal for next versions features sounds great. Currently I'm trying to localise the style to Aotearoa (NZ) typical housing, getting a bit lost. Could you help with a bullet point work flow to get me started please. I may be over thinking the process:)

C by Coen on 18 Jan 2023 #

@brunopostle said:

Some new features will be in the next Homemaker add-on release:

The Homemaker function turns any blender mesh into an IFC building model - using faces as walls and ceilings, and the closed cells/spaces in the mesh as rooms. This process can now be easily reversed, even from a saved model, by selecting any part of the building and running Topologise - then just edit the mesh and re-run Homemaker to recreate the IFC building based on the new geometry. Similarly, selecting any part of an IFC model and re-running Homemaker regenerates the IFC building completely, allowing you to change style definitions and see how this changes the building.

Homemaker creates entire building models in one click, but this isn't always how you want to work. The Homemaker function can now generate fragments of buildings from open meshes and loose faces - allowing you to create buildings bit-by-bit, making some parts in Blenderbim and other parts in Homemaker:

Nice, so it is possible with the home-maker add-on to create only that beam grid system from that image?

B by brunopostle on 18 Jan 2023 # +3 votes

@Coen said:

Nice, so it is possible with the home-maker add-on to create only that beam grid system from that image?

Yes, you create a blender object with a single face (or multiple faces, but not manifold), give it the material name 'framing' (which is a test style that ships with the add-on), run Homemaker, it imports the relevant Type definitions and uses them to replace the face with these elements, use them how you like, trim and mitre them with Blenderbim etc...

The three sections are defined as Beam and Member Types in the share/framing/library.ifc file (which you can also open as a Blenderbim library). There is some configuration in share/framing/*.yml files that specifies angles, spacing, X and Y offsets for each extrusion. This YAML configuration lets you do all sorts of other stuff that is more-or-less undocumented at the moment.

J by JQL on 18 Jan 2023 #

Homemaker is starting to become brilliant. I love the mixed approach possibility to use plain and parametric models.

What would happen if Homemaker would generate a window on a wall and then a user would manually reposition it? Would it be possible that this repositioning would, somehow, be remembered when redoing a section or building?

B by brunopostle on 18 Jan 2023 #

@JQL said:

What would happen if Homemaker would generate a window on a wall and then a user would manually reposition it? Would it be possible that this repositioning would, somehow, be remembered when redoing a section or building?

At the moment if you regenerate a building with Homemaker, any changes you made in blenderbim are lost, this is a hard problem to solve - at the moment it would require Homemaker to generate consistent GUIDs and STEP IDs for rooted elements. GUIDs are possible (it is on the tracker), but I don't know how to do STEP IDs :(

Some kind of future GUID-aware IFC graph merge tool may be able to do this kind of merging without STEP IDs someday.

J by JQL on 18 Jan 2023, edited 18 Jan 2023 # +1 votes

What if the input geometry had some guides to where to place elements and, if those elements were moved/stretched in the output geometry, those guides would also move in the input geometry? Of course, one would have to model those guides in the input geometry for them to be editable.

B by brunopostle on 18 Jan 2023 #

@JQL it is basically the same problem that freecad developers call 'the topological naming problem'.

J by JQL on 18 Jan 2023 # +1 votes

i imadine it is. as soon as some new id arises or is deleted, it's done

B by brunopostle on 29 Jan 2023 # +8 votes

New blender-homemaker-2023-01-29 release

===================================

This is a packaged Homemaker add-on with dependencies for Linux, Windows and Mac.

This release adds new features and makes some incompatible changes to the way styles are defined.

New features:

The Homemaker function turns any blender mesh into an IFC building model - using faces as walls and ceilings, and the closed cells/spaces in the mesh as rooms. This process can now be easily reversed, even from a saved model, by selecting any part of the building and running Topologise - then just edit the mesh and re-run Homemaker to recreate the IFC building based on the new geometry. Similarly, selecting any part of an IFC model and re-running Homemaker regenerates the IFC building completely, allowing you to change style definitions and see how this changes the building.
Homemaker creates entire building models in one click, but this isn't always how you want to work. The Homemaker function can now generate fragments of buildings from open meshes and loose faces - allowing you to create buildings bit-by-bit, making some parts in Blenderbim and other parts in Homemaker.
Grillages have a new do_levelling parameter which levels extrusions and repeating elements on inclined surfaces.
Repeats and Extrusions have a new ref_direction parameter to rotate about the directrix.

Incompatible style changes:

It turns out that a Material Layer Set Usage, which is used to offset a Wall or Slab from its axis, isn't allowed on a Type definition and so has to be applied to each Element independently. These offsets are now defined in the YAML style definition for each Wall or Shell object using a new offset parameter.
The assets.yml style definition has been renamed to families.yml to align with more normal BIM terminology. Accordingly the asset parameter in Repeat definitions has been renamed to family. The file parameter for each asset in a family has been changed to name as it refers to a named IFC Type in the library not a DXF file.

In addition there has been some refactoring and small temporary fixes for bugs that will definitely be fixed properly later.

C by Coen on 21 Feb 2023 # +1 votes

Can ChatGPT or maybe some other AI tool produce several IFC files in different styles using the home-maker add-on? You could just describe the building you want and it would produce technically correct and structurally sound IFC files ready for production. How many years before this becomes a reality?

B by brunopostle on 21 Feb 2023 # +2 votes

@Coen the Homemaker add-on is ultimately just a tool to generate a styled IFC model from a Topologic CellComplex. So yes, any tool that can produce a sane Topologic model can be used to build multiple alternative IFC models in different styles.

Creating @Topologic models with AI is definitely going to happen one way or another.

Not an 'AI' technology, but the original Homemaker project designs buildings to a specification (a pattern language, plot-ratio and environment) using evolution rather than AI. It outputs a Topologic CellComplex, so this also kind-of does this thing.

T by topologic on 21 Feb 2023 # +4 votes

I agree with @brunopostle that @topologic models will be created through AI sooner or later. Just today I was looking at the chatGPT API to see what is possible.

T by topologic on 21 Feb 2023 # +1 votes

OMG!

C by Coen on 21 Feb 2023 # +1 votes

@topologic said:

OMG!

Cool, good thing you didn't ask the Bing AI.

C by CGR on 16 May 2023, edited 16 May 2023 #

Fixed. Delete :)

B by brunopostle on 29 May 2023 # +2 votes

New blender-homemaker-2023-05-29 release

This is a packaged Homemaker add-on with dependencies for Linux, Windows and Mac.

This is a maintenance release with some bugfixes and a minor new feature:

Allow definition of opening geometry as a Window/Door Type Profile representation, similar to BlenderBIM (#58)
Don't extrude single-face shells vertically (#60)
Fix generated space boundary polylines to end at the start
Workaround for IfcOpenShell/IfcOpenShell#3069
Better cleanup of Blender data when generating models
get_parent_building() fix for IFC2x3
Minor documentation changes
Minor fixes to shipped Types