New blender-homemaker-2024-11-10 release
Design buildings the pointy-clicky way
This is a packaged Homemaker extension with dependencies for Linux, Windows and Mac.
This release has some new features, API changes, better documentation, lots of bugfixes, noticeable speed improvements, and has been upgraded to the new Blender Extension format.
Installation is now slightly different: there is just one download for Windows, Linux and Mac ARM; ensure the Bonsai extension is installed; then install Homemaker using the Edit > Preferences > Get Extensions > v > Install from disk... option.
Features
Walls can now be modelled as aggregates of repeating, shell and covering elements, window and door openings are cut through these aggregated walls in the same way as normal layered walls.
The 'framing' style demonstrates this feature showing walls built from studs, insulation and sheathing.
To support this, perimeters of grillage and shell elements can be shrunk or grown using a new 'inset' parameter. This feature adds a dependency on the shapely library (provided by Bonsai anyway).
Style API changes
The style configuration format is now documented as comments in the YAML files themselves, hopefully this gives some clue as to usage. Some of the naming has been redesigned to make a bit more sense and allow future features, this means that previous styles are incompatible and need upgrading:
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Extrusion, Floor, Shell and Wall classes in traces.yml and hulls.yml now require a typename attribute to specify the name of the type to use. Previously the name of the hull or trace was used to find the type. This had the unfortunate effect of not allowing multiple uses of a type.
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The name attribute in families.yml is renamed to typename to be consistent with traces.yml and hulls.yml usage.
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Entries in openings.yml now have a family attribute to make it clear that they refer to items in the families.yml file. Previously this attribute was called name which was confusing.
Bugs fixed
Homemaker now reloads the model instead of trying to clean up the scene through the outliner. This seems to have fixed a lot of instability, so in general you can repeatedly run the Homemaker operator to generate/regenerate IFC models, and Topologise to generate/recreate CellComplex models, all in the same session without crashes.
Workarounds for IfcOpenShell#5391. Note that still there are issues where Materials are imported without surface styles or psets under some
circumstances.
Minor bugs fixed: fix tests; don't draw wall axis if it has no representation; don't purge types as purging types results in types being reinserted which drags in new copies of existing materials etc..; purge_unused() reinstate some more items; remove doubles when meshing a cellcomplex; and stop assigning IfcLayerSetUsage to IfcWallType.
Some minor fixes in the supplied IFC assets: fix duplicate Type GUIDs, purge unused materials from asset libraries, reverse pitched-roof layerset, clear description and category for materials, fix minor library validation issues, and Material names are now all unique.
Homemaker now uses the latest topologic_core library, together with IfcOpenShell improvements, runs about two to three times faster than before.
Various fixes related to the blender 4.2+ extension requirements: try relative import if topologist/molior not found, only append path if running in blender text editor, share_dir is now an absolute path, Blender manifest fixes, list some wheels in the manifest, switch bundle to newer PyYAML, licenses: topologic/agpl, yaml/mit.
Documentation
The documentation has some improvements: the usage for generating building elements separately and other workflows are described; the API documentation appears to be back. https://homemaker-addon.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
Licensing
All assets and styles are now relicensed from share-alike to public-domain as Blender Extension assets are required to be Creative Commons Zero.
