IfcOpenShell is nearing its 200th contributor on Github! Goodie bags!
IfcOpenShell is nearing its 200th contributor on Github!
This is the metric we care deeply about because we truly want to be a community-led project. Community contributions enabled the project to grow from a specific solution to the Swiss-army knife it is today with even a first-class authoring solution!
To celebrate this and also to provide an additional motivation for newcomers we have prepared a goodie bag for the first 10 novel contributors. Details will follow (or better yet, let's write them together...)
and 13 others.
Comments
How does this work? Like the next 10 people who join? Or?
Swag can help be an income source, perhaps this can be a nice little marketing celebration ... 5 years of Bonsai, 13 years of IOS, 200 contributors, 15,000 commits, etc etc :) And not just a logo + text, but funky vector graphics too, like rabbits, bonsais, infra + buildings...
Our homepage is split arbitrarily into three portions of code + financial contributors (we should definitely add bug reporters to that list). Curious what others on that list think?
I thought something like a PR with some minimum number of lines changed... But yeah we need to figure that out.
I also really like adding the bug reporters to the website. That's a great encouragement for a meaningful interaction.
BIMserver did "file a bug, get a mug". I think we could do something similar.
I also really like the idea of some special anniversary goodies. These could become real collector items!
All good ideas? How do we move forward? I already put my order in for 36 mugs and a bunch of pens.
Attaining a mug would represent probably my proudest cognitive achievement, having gone from zero python (include html, css, OSs and tools (git, virtual environments, regular expressions), blender, IfcOpenShell, bbim/bonsai and (deployable) ifc knowledge a few years ago to being in a position to even consider being able to actually contribute some usable code. And I need to thank everyone on this forum for contributing to my learning in so many ways. Hurdles remain to me being an effective contributor, some specific and some general (personal shortcomings aside). These include, in no particular order:
1. unsure when to report a bug/crash. I'll typically get the red flag error report a few times a day, but this is usually my incompetence when I'm doing something incorrectly. I don't want to clog this forum or github with unhelpful feedback. Guidance on what and where to report would be great - I appreciate this has been provided before, but the development side appears so dynamic.
2. my 'development environment' is a world of pain. Virtual environments, package/library versions, global/local installs are generally understood but operationally difficult. In short, I have one computer, which I need for work, that I cannot afford to kill through blundering with installing packages that conflict with essentials.
3. having a guided path on a generally stable chunk of code. The rapid and accelerating code development of IfcOpenShell and Bonsai is amazing, but terrifying to behold. As soon as I roughly understand some code, the code base has moved on and what I've learned is redundant and needs to be forgotten before learning anew (I'm looking at you api's). Being directed to a stable(ish) chunk, such as ifccsv (likely a bad example), would be a great help, so that I could tinker and play with it, and see the longer-term consequences. Furthermore, it would be amazing to be shown how to tinker with it without killing my main set-up.
Reading back the above - and please read as a contextual whole rather than specific issues - I can see someone that's nearly at a minorly useful level but needs an injection of knowledge to clamber over a few hurdles. I think I'm suggesting a new Category on this forum for developing developers (Bonsai Buds would be a pun, but also doesn't include IfcOpenShell and all the other tools and stuff), so that the main forum can be kept for its primary purpose of driving open-source BIM to excellence. Does this chime with anyone else?
it definitely chimes with me, my knowledge on the field doesn't allow me to say much about coding but the 'Discussions' cauldron needs to be supercharged with a more specific use of 'Categories' in my opinion too
As someone coming from another BIM authoring platform , what I can say for sure is people would pay good money for templates with well defined 3D/2D elements/objects and pre-defined cameras/sections/elevations with some sample 2D and 3D material assets (shaders/textures and properties) with completely-defined materials, as something to build-on to. Not knowing how a well-authored IFC file should be set up is a real challenge for me (and others) in navigating Bonsai - as I simply don't know where to start, but sample content is super-useful to find where things should go. Something a little more robust than the German house, but less intimidating that Ryan's projects would be very helpful for new users like me... especially something that includes a pretty full-scope of Blender/Bonsai capabilities, from render pipeline to costing, wbLCA, scheduling and other sample workflows all in a tidy little file. I'm sure that could be an excellent source of ongoing revenue for the project.
Offtopic on this thread, but please, please 1) always use the latest alpha and 2) report a bug on Github, no matter how small. You won't be clogging the issue tracker, it's the point of the issue tracker: it's there to track issues.
@Moult will do, with pleasure
Maybe this idea could be funded through...
https://community.osarch.org/discussion/1741/have-an-idea-youd-like-to-get-funding-for-or-see-realized
Would allow multiple people to 'add' to the template, over time. Maybe we start a repo, and use @brunopostle nifty ifcmerge tool!
If multiple people contribute, upon payout, maybe the steering committee can determine how to divy the funds up fairly... or some other fair mechanism that we can establish. If we can crack this nut, i think there could be a lot of potential here.
Hi all, is it possible to save an IFC as a 'template' so I can develop my own specific-use template? Then under New Project Wizard / Template dropdown I could select my own specific-use templates.
I’ve been trying to bring in content via my otherBIM template, and then mass deleting what I don’t want kinda based on an idea from @theoryshaw - but was getting some pretty regular blender crashing by deleting large numbers of 3D objects. I might have to chunk it into smaller bits. But I was wondering kinda the same thing, how to save all the attributes wanted into a file basically devoid of objects in modelspace. Material/shader assets, object assets (eventually by folders in 4.3), profiles, wall-types etc…others are better qualified how to do this than me.
@Andyro, I guess you are talking about bringing IFC objects in from Revit, Archicad or similar. I have observed many of these objects are overly detailed, 100,000+ faces for a toilet pan doesn't serve any purpose. My preference is to model in Blender, with a bit of practice Blender is so quick. One method that works nicely is to bring in an overly complex model and 3D trace it. I typically start with a plane, size it, extrude it, stretch it, add vertices as needed, all the while ensuring critical dimensions are maintained while cutting down on 'weight'. I will do this in an instance of Blender and then copy the geometry into another instance of Blender where using Bonsai I turn it into an IFC objects. Not a method if you're wanting to do Archvis but ideal for building an efficient library
Hi @Nigel
I agree 100%!!
if you have a data-driven model -> go low-poly, be slim & be fast :)
thanks
hi @Andyro
sorry I should have come back to you on this
to cull your project of elements I think you need to find a 'pattern' to identify them if you want the process to be automated
any chance you can use anything in their properties, name, class type etc? what are the criteria for your filter?
cheers
Hi all, no I’m not interested in the bloated 3D content from ArchiCad (which is still pretty low poly because of GDL and MVO compared to other software) but I’m primarily interested in materials data, and secondarily in construction assemblies, composite walls, etc. and their correct representation with lines and fills.
Ok, Open source software ftw! Turns out we didn't need any extrinsic motivation to get to the 200th contributor.
We're at 202 now and the stuff I ordered just arrived.
I'll reach out to the recent pull request authors and see who's interested...
Any other concrete ideas for the immediate future?
Awesome ! Maybe virtual trinkets ? Is it possible for an organization on github to hand out achievements or badges ?
Reminds me of the BIMserver mugs I forgot in some university kitchenettes. I still have one. Maybe I'll aim for a collection of different AEC OS software mugs. I have two commits already, not in the top 100 though ... And maybe we bring back BIMserver mugs one day as well.
Good times. My bimserver mug turned completely white after too much dishwasher usage. But I still have a towel ;)