Converting Sketchup models to IFC
Hi @Moult @yorik
I have a simple question: how easy would it be to convert a Sketchup model into IFC, using FreeCAD or BlenderBIM and carry on from there.
A lot of Architects are using Sketchup for conceptual models. We can model them into great detail and even export them as IFC. What we cannot do easily is generate drawings from them, schedules, bills of materials and manage them in such an integrated fashion as BIM models should be managed.
Standard workflow is usually drawing concepts in DWG, move on for 3D models in Sketchup or Rhino, then for permit stage or construction documentation, the project is often rebuilt in Revit or ArchiCAD, often loosing the connection to Sketchup even if some parts of the model are better carried on being modeled in it.
I'd be really interested in knowing if someone else has explored this as it could be a cool doorway to a wider adoption of Blender BIM and FreeCAD.
Comments
A long time ago, Sketchup used to have a really nice IFC export plugin. You would just add an IFC class to each of your sketchup objects, to say this is a wall, this is a window, etc... and that was done. It was really bright and simple. I haven't used sketchup for ages so I don't know how things are now. But basically what you want to achieve is just that, attribute an IFC class to each of your objects.
Doing that in FreeCAD would be overkill because there would be an unnecessary conversion from mesh to solids. But I think in Blender + Bonsai it would be pretty straightforward. Just not sure of the exact procedure to add imported meshes to an IFC model...
Bonsai is the new name for BlenderBIM right?
That plugin for Sketchup is still around and being updated. I actually think the developer is registered around here @brewsky :
https://github.com/BIM-Tools/SketchUp-IFC-Manager/wiki
Do you think it would be feasible to use Sketchup as the editor app and FreeCAD or Bonsai as the app from which we would document the project/model?
Or each time we would edit the model in Sketchup and export it as IFC, the links between objects, dimensions, leaders, schedules, drawings and bills of materials, would be lost?
Hi! First timer here! I think I can help on my workflow. Before I discovered blenderBIM, now Bonsai, I used SketchUp for some studies, I have a bunch of them, when needed I import the scenes to Blender. (https://github.com/RedHaloStudio/Sketchup_Importer/releases)
Once I figured out I can have the old models imported to Blender, I've ask my company to cancel my subscription, back then my experience of IFC export was terrible, so I just keep the skp files.
Now I'm trying to learn the IFC schema to get to the next level.
Blender modeling is awesome, BonsaiBIM is the true BIM experience I was waiting for!
Hope it helped.
Tldr: forget about SketchUp, embrace open source, learn Blender
(But blender can import skp as well)
Better said than done. I haven't seen an example of actual architectural work done with it . Rendering and modelling isn't the issue here and IFC isn't yet a priority for me. I don't need all the powerful modeling and rendering possibilities of Blender, I don't even need parametrics, just need powerful inferences, accuracy intuitive workflow and the ability of creating drawings from a model.
How does Blender cope with that?
I'm not sure if it works, but you could test using IFC Git. You could have the IFC file from the Sketchup and the edited IFC from Bonsai. Then, every time you save another IFC from the Sketchup you would compare to the Bonsai and merge.
Unfortunately I don't think this would work--as Sketchup does not export in a NativeIFC way--that is, it exports out the entire IFC and rewrites the order of things. Opposed to the NativeIFC approach Bonsai and Freecad use that only save the changed and/or added entities and attributes to the existing IFC. In this way, since the lines of the IFC are consistently ordered, it makes merge, via GIT a possibility and thus the beauty of NativeIFC. Whitepaper: https://github.com/brunopostle/ifcmerge/blob/main/docs/whitepaper.rst
I think there could be a way, for this to work, but some added functionality might be necessary in certain areas...
Leaders, that are intelligently attached to a product (such as pulling out a material name of an object) would be lost upon a new reload of an IFC file. It seems, however, it would be relatively straightforward, development-wise, to reconjure these connections, however, through an assigned GUID, for example.
I think schedules would work still, since they are usually driven by syntax searches, the same with bill of materials. They would just need to be re-run again.
Well I think the drawing bit is OK, bearing in mind that is still a WIP. Takes a bit of effort to learn how to do it all, but the peeps here are helpful on that score. Can't help with the "powerful inferences" and "accuracy intuitive workflow" as I'm not an architect and that sounds like gibberish to me. :-)
And if my DIY amateur effort isn't floating your boat, try checking out the Highland Haven project - you can see a flick book in these release notes here: https://community.osarch.org/discussion/comment/20808#Comment_20808 That's a professional architect, and is much higher quality than my rinky-dink effort. I won't mention the persons name because they might get annoyed if too many people badger them asking for help though it's not hard to figure out.
Long time Sketchup user here, after it became like other programs (yearly fee vs maintenance/permanent license) I decided to venture in Blender's rabbit hole.
I consider SU a great piece of software that can produce fine quality job from sketching/massing to detailing and exporting to printouts with decent rendering, lots of addons, arguably the easiest to learn, and so on.
Of course if industry standards are not your main goal there is no discussion here, SU with its Layout sibling is a good choice I think.
As a quantity surveyor two years ago I forced myself into learning BIM&IFC and data management, BlenderBIM, now Bonsai, was a game-changer, it was brutal at the beginning, but I don't regret it.
Last, the fact that this platform allows people to interact and support each other for a product you can dowload and use for free, improving it every day thanks to everybody's contributions (financial, issues, suggestions, ideas..) is for me something close to revolutionary, a true paradigm shift in AEC industry for which I will be always grateful
Cheers
Thanks for all your help. I'm sorry but I will need to reply with a couple more questions:
@bruno_perdigao @theoryshaw
Do you think that there could be a way to have the IFC objects marked somehow, so that Bonsai would understand that the new objects being imported are the same as before, even if they have changed, some new objects have been created and some old objects have been deleted?
Sketchup uses an unique identifier for each of the model's objects. Maybe that could be leveraged to have some consistency on IFC exports and maybe the IFC exporter above by @brewsky could use some system that would allow that.
@sjb007 your amateurish efforts look very nice. The example you show, though, seems very complete. Both those examples are what I needed to see. Can you point into any tutorials on how to use Blender+Bonsai modelling and documentation features to achieve your result or a similar one?
How easy do you think it is, to get all that you draw to evolve from massing studies, into detailing, and how easy it is to control measurements and element thicknesses in Blender?
Intuitiveness and geometric inferences in Sketchup really are it's strenght. Sketchup users will understand what I'm talking about and will certainly feel that if those are the modeling capabilities that they are afraid of loosing. As @steverugi aknowledges, even with all it's limitations, Layout for Sketchup allows for a very straightforward approach to exporting drawings from a model and a project in Sketchup naturally evolves from 2D, to 3D and from no detail to a lot of detail, very naturally, while you can produce any drawing from it in most standard formats like PDF and DWG, as well as very easy to create renders and page layouts with leaders, dimensions and whatnot.
Sketchup's development lately has been directed towards IFC export and import as well as Revit integration. There are a lot of plugins being addressed to that workflow too. What I'd like to avoid isn't Sketchup, but rather Revit, when I have to but, at this point, if I need to develop a project using BIM, I feel I can't easily escape Revit or a similar alternative. My concerns are not really about how much it costs, they are about how flexible it is. Sketchup has a lot of flexibility and Blender too, but while Sketchup has very specific architectural related features that really nail it, Blender itself doesn't. Bonsai would have to compensate.
I've known more or less about BlenderBIM for some years, but found it very hard to understand. It had both the Blender barrier, which is a very complex software, as well as no tutorials, but the main issue is that we don't fully understand what it's capabilities are. There was no easy way of knowing how robust it was, what exactly it could do, what was it's feature set and so on.
In this context, making the bet of learning a new piece of software, knowing that the journey would be rough and without being sure you would accomplish your goals, because the features for those goals might not even exist, is a bit scary.
There is only such an amount of time we can invest into learning. That's why I came here again though.
Anything is possible. :) Welcome to the frontier. :)
Maybe ask for NativeIFC support in the Sketchup exporter. You would be able to use it like this:
Another way would be to ask for an IfcPatch recipe. But I'm not very familiar with this part of the code, don't know how difficult it would be.
Thanks.
Ha! If only. The site plan is missing the surroundings, two adjacent buildings, and patterning/texturing of the roofs. The first floor is missing internal walls, and there is a conservatory at the bottom that I have't worked up to modelling. Like I said WIP. And that's just the existing drawings. My proposed plans share parts with the existing, but is less complete than those.
I started with this guys tutorials. https://www.youtube.com/@IfcArchitect/playlists The caveat is that due to the level of churn in Bonsai's UI (good and bad from an end-user perspective) his tutorials are a bit dated now. I probably spent twice as long working through them because I was trying to figure out where bits of the UI had moved to.
No idea on the first part. I had to look up massing study, so... If you mean go from a set of blocky boxes to a fully detailed building, then you are still going to have to add all that detail. No magic AI powered button to do that for you. And it'll be as easy as your familiarity with the UI makes it.
Control lengths and thicknesses, positioning and rotation can all be done either numerically with Bonsai, or using the various comprehensive snapping modes of blender. I've only ever used the old free version of sketchup, but I'd say Blender holds it's own in the snapping stakes. I just followed the tutorial advice, and set snapping to Vertex + Edge + Face + Edge Center, but there are several others if that is not enough: Increment, Grid, Volume, Edge Perpendicular. It's really very comprehensive I think.
Much like my plans, Bonsai is a work in progress. It is still a pre 1.0 release. I mean absolutely no disrespect to the developers when I say that it is felt as an end-user. Errors, occasional crashes, things that don't work, or things that feel clunky. The beauty of Bonsai is that I've already been able to contribute code to make the drawing creation panels a bit easier to use because I was using it a lot and it was bugging me. Open Source rocks!
On the drawing front, I'd say the only real missing ability is sectioning the model separately from the plane of the camera. By that I mean sections are possible by using the camera position to slice geometry in the plane of the camera, but if you say want to do an isometric and slice the walls down in the Z axis, you can't do that. There is an experimental mode to play with section cutaways, but I don't think it works with drawings, and the capping doesn't work for me either.
Neither of those application are native IFC. They have internal proprietary data structures that then get mapped at export/import to IFC. From what others here have said, this causes big issues when exchanging data.
Consider that I am a) not an architect, b) knew nothing about IFC, c) like you, only knew of BlenderBIM, d) had basic Blender skills. According to my viewing history I watched all those IfcArchitect tutorials plus the release note videos by the same guy (lots of important changes in those vids that helped me figure out new ways of doing things.) That was around mid September to first days of October. My first git log of the start of my project was 1st October. Since then I created what you saw (that was only 3 out of the 11 sheets) as my first effort while also learning some areas of the code base structure and making some contributions back.
You can invest time or you can invest cash, but you must pick at least one.
It's as @dionmoult says, Sketchup has it's internal data model. It might be possible to completely work around that like Bonsai is doing around Blender's if I understand correctly, but that's an enormous effort and will also have it's drawbacks. Better to keep working on improving Bonsai/Blender user interactions which are really strong in Sketchup.
In Sketchup IFC Manager I could keep track of more IFC objects (like relationships) and have persistent GUID's without too much effort, but big actions like cutting and pasting will surely mess up the component instance mappings.
Cheers
-- Jan
Ok, so here is my long version: Actually concept design is what Blender excels in, everything else you mentioned you want is in alpha state. So if you want to ditch Sketchup and rebuild all your workflows based on one software and you're crazy about open source, want flexibility and really natural development from sketch-2D-3D-Details go for Bonsai only. But modeling with sketchup and creating drawings and schedules in Bonsai and trying to keep the models synced is borderline madness.
By the way, in my opinion only people who don't know the tools well enough say Revit or Archicad is not flexible enough for concept design. Yes, it's easy to fall down the rabbit hole and model too much detail and get locked in your templates and the basic parametric elements. That's just the price for the convenience of click and drag layered walls and you will find this in Bonsai as well, because many people want to work this way.
Comparing sketchup with Blender:
Concept design in Blender:
@JQL The following might help as well. It's a bunch of projects we've done with Bonsai over the last year and half. You can download (or sync) the IFC files, and related assets, and play around with them--might help you learn how to set things up, etc.
https://community.osarch.org/discussion/1423/live-projects-an-exploration/p2
Ah well theoryshaw outed himself ;-) and he is the professional I mentioned. I'll just add that examining his work product was invaluable to my understanding.
Here's a quick test based on this video:
I took the dame model from the warehouse, imported in Bonsai, classified the main elements and exported a plan. I took me about 30min all together. As you can see, Bonsai struggles greatly with the complex meshes Layout is optimized for, so the pillows and Chairs look bad. The interior walls don't have proper geometry and are therfore drawn incomplete. You really need to use ifc elements with plan symbol representation for furniture. So while definitely doable, I don't see any point.
"Whazzz up guyz?!" ;)
(nudge) https://github.com/IfcOpenShell/IfcOpenShell/issues/3668#issuecomment-2489524775 (/nudge) It'd be really nice to have more control over complex mesh linework.
Was it just me or was some of the workflow in the Sketchup video really kind of painful?
Hi guys and thank you for taking the time to answer.
@JanF that Layout process is what we are doing at the moment. It yields great results up until permit stage.
At construction documentation, when things get complex, that's where Sketchup starts to fail. It's possible to do everything but things get complex to organize and you have an hardtime. With Sketchup we can very easily create rich plan, elevation and section views of the model and modelling is very fast and also visually appealing. Getting results out of
This is what's difficult to achieve, even in small scale projects and this is what would be useful for me as an architect, in order to improve my workflow in the future. I don't really require exploring parametric geometry or that kind of experimental architecture at the moment. Of course I find it very interesting, but I like to deal with other kind of stuff (geometry nodes are good for that other stuff, but I'm ok with not having them yet)
Another aspect that is important is dealing with IFC format itself. That seems to be the future standard for construction industry and permits here in europe. However, the fact that @brewsky has created and consistently improved on his extension for Sketchup as well as the fact that sketchup has been improving on this aspect since it has been bought by Trimble, gives me some rest in that regard. I think I'll be ready for that when time comes.
So, for what I understood here, if the construction documentation intuitive workflow that BIM software allows, is what I'm looking for, I guess we are still very far from that either in Bonsai or FreeCAD, right?
Also, if it was the case that I was proficient with Blender as my modelling tool, the way forwards to creating drawings from models (like in Sketchup Layout workflow) would probably be based on Bonsai, but at this point it's still not easy to achieve that, right?
Thanks in advance,
I think exploring these 'wedge workflows' has its merits. @yorik and I, for a number of years, roundtripped large scale details between Revit and FreeCAD via IFC. Is a great way to slowly get into IFC without having to explore it wholesale.
@theoryshaw so, having explored IFC, what do you think are it's merits?
The most important question is what have you gained, as an architect, by doing those projects in IFC? Why would you recommend it for other architects?
https://osarch.org/2022/10/15/whitepaper-published-on-native-ifc-methodologies/
Since i need to move on to billable work now... i'll let AI answer. :)
I agree and resonate with all these....
Interoperability: Just as open internet standards ensure different systems can communicate, open building standards like IFC ensure that various software applications and systems used in the design, construction, and operation of buildings can exchange data seamlessly. This interoperability helps avoid data silos and ensures a smoother workflow across diverse tools used by architects, engineers, contractors, and facility managers.
Innovation: Open building standards, including IFC, foster innovation by providing a common framework for different stakeholders in the built environment. Developers and software vendors can build on these standards to create new technologies, methodologies, and tools without being restricted by proprietary formats or systems, much like how open internet standards support the development of new web applications.
Competition and Choice: IFC and other buildingSMART standards prevent monopolies in the building design and construction industries. Just as the open internet promotes competition between providers, open building standards encourage a competitive marketplace where organizations can select from a variety of software and tools that meet their needs, all while maintaining compatibility with the broader ecosystem.
Security: Open building standards benefit from transparency, with the standards themselves and their implementations being open to public scrutiny. This ensures that vulnerabilities in data exchange, model integrity, and system interfaces are identified and addressed by a broad community of experts, improving the overall security of digital systems in the built environment.
Cost Reduction: Much like open internet standards reduce licensing fees for proprietary systems, open building standards like IFC reduce the need for expensive, proprietary solutions. Organizations can adopt cost-effective open-source or low-cost software that supports IFC, which lowers entry barriers for smaller firms and promotes more affordable collaboration across teams.
Global Accessibility: Just as the internet connects people across the globe, open building standards like IFC help create a globally connected construction industry. These standards enable data exchange across different regions, allowing international teams to collaborate on projects and ensuring that building information is accessible regardless of location, language, or the specific software tools being used.
Long-Term Stability: Open standards like IFC are designed through broad industry consensus, ensuring long-term stability and continuity. Unlike proprietary formats that may be phased out or altered by a single vendor, open building standards evolve based on community needs and input, providing long-term value and ensuring that buildings' digital models remain usable and accessible far into the future.
Collaboration: The creation of open building standards such as IFC is a collaborative effort involving diverse stakeholders from across the construction industry. This spirit of cooperation and shared knowledge leads to better standards and practices, improving outcomes for everyone involved in a building project—from designers to contractors to building owners.
Sustainability: Open building standards promote sustainability by allowing the reuse of data, models, and designs across different phases of a building's lifecycle. As the standards are adaptable and evolving, they reduce waste by facilitating efficient project workflows and supporting the integration of sustainable practices in building design and construction, much like how open internet standards promote efficient use of resources across the web.
My question was misplaced and resulted in an answer I wasn't expecting.
I also agree IFC is the way. Proprietary formats just can't deal with each other and in such a complex output as BIM, there must be a common language.
I wasn't thinking about why IFC instead of proprietary, but rather this particular BIM software, like FreeCAD or Bonsai, that edit IFC natively, helped you design better and eventually more swiftly, as well as how integrating data in the model has helped you create better projects.
At this point I have the advantage of working with 3D without worrying much about data integration.
That is very good for my design processe, but I'm stuck with a dumb 3D.
So how good is the design workflow with Bonsai or FreeCAD and does it pay off, design wise or does it only justify because of the extra data integration and management that IFC allows?
Do you still design with other software or methods and then move on to assemble the project in Bonsai or FreeCAD and do you deal exclusively with their 3D abilities and quality of output and you neglect data at this time?
I do everything in Bonsai now--from schematic thru construction. I haven't used Revit in about 6 months.
I'll try to answer from one more point of view:
Bonsai is way more similar to Revit and Archicad than it is to SketchUp or Blender. The "BIM for planning" use case is so deeply integrated in Revit or Bonsai you have to use special workflows to create dumb 3d as you do in SketchUp.
For concept design, use SketchUp or Blender, SketchUp being more user friendly and Blender more capable.
For BIM switch to Revit, Archicad or Bonsai, Archicad being the most user friendly and Bonsai the most open.
The main selling point for Bonsai users is the data ownership and freedom, that's why you get answers like these above.
I understand this and you get me total respect. The drawings you are achieving are great and I could see myself moving from Sketchup to Blender if I could easily produce those. I'm addicted to a lot of Sketchup workflows though, so I don't see that being easy.
@JanF Thanks for such a clear point of view!
My objective isn't to create dumb 3D models though. I just can't avoid that in Sketchup, and even if I'm adapting my workflow to be able to produce IFC models from Sketchup, with the help of the tools some developers and even Trimble are developing, I'm thinking that I might need to transition to real BIM.
Sketchup's main advantage is that anything I model in 3D or draw in 2D is easily presentable material using Layout or rendering engines, or simply easy to make it appealing ou of the box. For concept stages it's great and I'm very used to it by now. It's not the modelling workflow that scares me in Blender. I actually understand that Blender has much more potential. The thing I'm afraid of on the transition to Blender is that although it will give me a lot of very cool new stuff, it might make me loose that Layout and 2D part of the equation that is very important for the workflow.
I'm in the process of thinking if I should keep producing permits and final construction documentation in Sketchup, or if I should move on to another package for that. BIM will be mandatory by 2030 in UE and I think the format will be IFC, unless Autodesk is able to impose itself on the market somehow. I hope not.
I'm considering betting in either Bonsai or FreeCAD for my transition exactly for the reasons you mention. The git coordination of versions is an incredible feature.
You are helping me a lot, so these answers mean very much for me.
The definite question for me is if I should move to BIM or if I should stick with SU as soon as possible or in a longer term.
If I'm not pushing my luck, I have only a few more doubts that you might settle.
How easy is it, either in FreeCAD or Bonsai, to:
Are there tutorials that I might follow that tell us how to do that, or at least videos that show that kind of work being done?
Thank you very much for all your patience so far and especially thanks for all the work being carried on by this community.