python-materialsdb : Library for materialsdb.org a large and open materials database
Crosspost from python-materialsdb
Woaw! It's been a while since my last article. More than a year.
I am happy to present you my new library for materialsdb.org. Consider as an alpha, see below in what's next.
What's materialsdb.org ?
In short it is an open standard to store material data. More details on official website. I have used it throughout my career for thermal analysis through Lesosai. It can store thermal conductivity, thermal capacity etc… but also data for other trades like structural analysis, acoustic analysis, like cycle analysis, fire behaviour. Names, description can be stored in multiple languages. Materials data can be stored for a specific country if material vary from a country to another. These materials data are directly updated by manufacturers themselves. It works great.
python-materialsdb library
What's new ?
This library have a tool to convert materials data to IFC. IFC schema contains an IfcProjectLibrary entity which allow your store element types like IfcWallType, IfcSlabType etc… These project libraries can be read by BlenderBIM Add-on which means that you can then use it directly in your project to create wall with accurate materials data. Materials contains a custom property set to store materialsdb.org id which means Lesosai and other softwares using materialsdb.org can retrieve all material data with this id which have not be stored in IFC like translations in other languages. Default language is french and default country is Switzerland but you can easily modify your config as described in README.
If you are a manufacturer you can eventually also use it to create your own materials.
What's next
Only material data from material IFC specifications property sets and basics like id are currently converted to IFC. Handling for the rest of the data can be easily added.
More tools to query material (by name, manufacturer, thermal conductivity etc…).
Testing: make sure that there is no unit mismatch. Check if ArchiCAD can use an IfcProjectLibrary in some ways.
and 7 others.
Comments
This is really fantastic. There are a few things lacking in the BlenderBIM Add-on to fully make use of this:
Oh, and if FreeCAD wanted it could reuse the API for appending assets so it could benefit too ... @yorik we really need to have that discussion about native IFC in FreeCAD :)
+1
very interesting ...
Hi @Cyril @topologic @agonzalezesteve
Life in this topic again. I made this post on linked to my Danish friend and now I need some examples to show them so I can get people to use it. So, who has examples I can share? At the moment the focus is on EPDs LCC & LCA calculation which will be a legal requirement soon in Danish buildings over 1000 m² - so there's a lot of focus and hopeless and fragmented digital infrastructure.
Added a new opendata tag ... we need to clean up all these hardly used tags ...
@Cyril & I are meeting with Flavio from the project on Monday. Anyone got something important for us to ask write to one of us.
Hi all. What is the update on this "materialsdb"? Can this material library now be imported into BBIM having the assigned "Name", "Description" and "Category" as required fields in BBIM?
This should be a fantastic resource BTW like we do with the .adsklib in Revit!
... and I would add "how to import materials from a text table?" apart from doing it from a library, as in an .ifc file with materials already stored in it.
Like exporting materials used in a model using
spreadsheetbut in reverse, is it even possible?many thanks
@Owura_qu It was already the case when it was released. Did you try from prepackaged files on Github?
Maybe we should ship with the libraries to increase visibility? Alternatively we can build a feature that downloads libraries on the fly from online sources (so instead of bundling everything we can just populate a large list).
Hi all, just wondering of there is any update to this? We've been working in the wbLCA and BEM space for a few years now (https://openbuilding.ca) and have assisted in the development of ArchiCad templates for mass-timber, tied to current EPDs for the NA market, but I have also worked internationally on wbLCA with Graphisoft & affiliates (ie. DesignLCA.com). We have a lot of data from EPiC, EC3, and others and we'd love to contribute to a broader database of material values so that we can fully integrate our TEUI3 calculation tool (a quick schematic modeller that we have calibrated to be within 1% of real-world utility bill values for Canadian projects) - both for compliance with emerging green standards (Toronto, Vancouver) and also revisions to our National Building Code. I'd love to be able to do cost/carbon and wbLCA within Bonsai - but I'm stuck at not being able to figure out how to get this data into Bonsai or what formatting is expected for a linked library ie a 'Classifications Library' as I think it is called in Bonsai.
Solved data import issues over here: https://community.osarch.org/discussion/comment/21817#Comment_21817 - now it's just a question of how to schedule these properties ie. 'Embodied Carbon' by subtotals of all volumes of all materials * mass * embodied carbon per kg. But I still wonder where/how to store a database of values like this rather than in our working project model files?