BlenderBIM Add-on new release!

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  • @swathi you are right that it is something to pay attention to. It's not specific to Windows, I suspect. We will start needing to find deps built for 3.9. I've posted a bugreport here: https://github.com/IfcOpenShell/IfcOpenShell/issues/1340 - for a long term solution, we need to create a build bot for things like Python OCC, fcl, etc as well. This is quite a bit of work.

    CGR
  • @swathi said:
    On win10 blender2.93 alpha started to use python39(and now we cannot enable Blenderbim). I know everyone knows about it. How it is going to effect Blenderbim?

    BlenderBIM use precompiled c+ library, highly sensitive to python versions, so it is likely to not work unless a new version of those libs are available for python 3.9

  • edited February 2021

    @Moult
    Would it be possible to add which blender version is best used in conjunction with the latest BlenderBIMAddOn? Since 99% of my blender usage is because of BlenderBIM I would use the recommended Blender version in any case.
    cheers bernd

    iosvarmsMassimo
  • @bernd latest stable Blender until otherwise stated on the downloads page :)

    CGR
  • hello.. i am totally new to blenderbim.. have not even dowloaded it but very excited to try.. i come from a maya background, making 3d sets for tv shows, and have tried all sorts of bim software for personal projects with a lot of hope and a lot of frustration.. looking forward to having all the tools of a 3d package like maya (which blender is).. AND the ability to creat plans.. My objective is to bring a 3D model from concept to a set of plans I can submit to a building department.. for a simple renovation to a small residential house.. But i can not tell, if blenderbim is fully functional enough at this stage, to help me do that... so that is what I am asking.. can i ditch revit and vectorworks, and archcad.. and do this small project entirelly in blenderbim yet.. or do i have to wait for more features and a future build? Thanksyou and this is such a great project!!

    duncan
  • @meathead check out our youtube channel to see the state of what BlenderBIM can. Most useful BlenderBIM youtube content is on BiMVoice channel. While everyone agrees drawings are critical it is an area that needs work. Take a look at the wiki page and let us know if something important is missing. https://wiki.osarch.org/index.php?title=BlenderBIM_Add-on

  • @meathead the short answer is that it is not ready for you to ditch Revi / Vectorworks / ArchiCAD. It is still in the alpha stage, so we are still building fundamentals and testing things (and breaking things!). However, even though it is not yet ready, there are half built features that we do encourage you to play with. The more people playing with them (and providing feedback), the faster they improve! There are some features which are more mature than others, so it depends on your usecase. In general, the usecase of "let's create a building from scratch and do the full workflow" is one of the most complex and general usecases that takes a long time to get right.

  • Thanks for the links and answers.. I spend a good part of the day watching videos and went down a few rabbit holes. I am going to try it.. It seems like you have the basic dimensioning and creation of drawings working.. though it is very hard to find any tutorials or documentation.. so that really might be enough for me.. I don't really know how much more than that I need.. I might also try something like "measure it-ARCH".. not sure if that can create the drawing pdfs though.. which yours can do.. This is a small project and just want to get it good enough for the building department.. but I want to use my modeling skills and not have to learn a whole new work flow like all the other bim software or cad software requires.. I also want full control over the details of my model without needing it all to be proceedural.. I like the example in this hello world video (), though it has no sound.. I like the idea of modeling every material and building it like a real building.. brick by brick.. stud by stud.. If you have any advice for just turning a model into a blueprint, without all the other benefits of BIM.. I'd be glad to know about it.. And hopefully that is eventually something your add-on can do.. as it would be very valuable.. Thanks!

  • Although the functions are there to generate drawings, I'm very hesitant to recommend it right now, as there was recently a huge refactor, and there are plans to also completely rewrite the drawing generation system. This means the old system is already a bit disconnected during the refactor, and I have no incentive to fix it as there are plans for a rewrite. However, I can tell you in principle the add-on can indeed turn "just a model" into a blueprint. At the end of the day, it's a boolean cut on geometry - semantics are just decoration on top.

  • ok thanks.. i guess ill just check it out and hope that at some point the tools for generating construction drawings come along.. and in the mean time.. keep struggling with revit.. so frustrating in tevit though.. that they are owned by autodesk but depart so drastically from a tool like maya.. cant even open a door in revit, or make a chimney.. without learning an entirelly different type of thinking, let alone tools.. Thanks again and look forward to seeing this prrogress.. at some point if it works for me.. id be happy to try and help with documentation and non-video user guides.. especially the the creation of plans!!

  • @meathead said:
    ok thanks.. i guess ill just check it out and hope that at some point the tools for generating construction drawings come along.. and in the mean time.. keep struggling with revit.. so frustrating in tevit though.. that they are owned by autodesk but depart so drastically from a tool like maya.. cant even open a door in revit, or make a chimney.. without learning an entirelly different type of thinking, let alone tools.. Thanks again and look forward to seeing this prrogress.. at some point if it works for me.. id be happy to try and help with documentation and non-video user guides.. especially the the creation of plans!!

    Did you go through the articles on tge wiki? For example:
    https://wiki.osarch.org/index.php?title=BlenderBIM_Add-on_exporting_2D_documentation
    It should have you started with the basics, even though it's probably outdated right now. You're welcome to join the effort and update the documentation there!

    duncan
  • I found it very hard to find the right section.. but that link is helpful! I will check it out some more.. Thanks

  • edited March 2021

    @Moult said:
    In the latest version, things have moved around. The search panel gives you what you're after.

    To find those of the type "Beton", go to an object of a type you want to select, then in the object properties this button will select all of that type:

    I got the latest version and I can't assign properties nor quantities and Map representation throws an exception

    Python: Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "C:\PortableApps\BlenderPortable\Data\user_scripts\addons\blenderbim\bim\module\pset\operator.py", line 118, in execute
    "Properties": properties
    File "C:\PortableApps\BlenderPortable\Data\user_scripts\addons\blenderbim\bim\module\pset\edit_pset.py", line 14, in execute
    self.update_existing_properties()
    File "C:\PortableApps\BlenderPortable\Data\user_scripts\addons\blenderbim\bim\module\pset\edit_pset.py", line 27, in update_existing_properties
    self.update_existing_property(prop)
    File "C:\PortableApps\BlenderPortable\Data\user_scripts\addons\blenderbim\bim\module\pset\edit_pset.py", line 34, in update_existing_property
    prop.NominalValue = None
    File "C:\PortableApps\BlenderPortable\Data\user_scripts\addons\blenderbim\libs\site\packages\ifcopenshell\entity_instance.py", line 119, in setattr
    self[self.wrapped_data.get_argument_index(key)] = value
    File "C:\PortableApps\BlenderPortable\Data\user_scripts\addons\blenderbim\libs\site\packages\ifcopenshell\entity_instance.py", line 127, in setitem
    attr_type = real_attr_type = self.attribute_type(idx).title().replace(" ", "")
    File "C:\PortableApps\BlenderPortable\Data\user_scripts\addons\blenderbim\libs\site\packages\ifcopenshell\entity_instance.py", line 107, in attribute_type
    return self.wrapped_data.get_argument_type(attr_idx)
    File "C:\PortableApps\BlenderPortable\Data\user_scripts\addons\blenderbim\libs\site\packages\ifcopenshell\ifcopenshell_wrapper.py", line 1725, in get_argument_type
    return _ifcopenshell_wrapper.entity_instance_get_argument_type(self, i)
    RuntimeError: Attribute index out of bounds

    location: :-1

    am I missing something? (haven't reported bugs yet, as nothing seems to really work here now)

    Also your link here: https://blenderbim.org/install-blenderbim.html to the zip version points to the 2.83 version

    (I tried that one as well, same problem)

  • @JanF hmm, if nothing seems to work at all, that could be a more fundamental problem. Are you testing with a fresh IFC file, or a blend file from an older version? Try with a fresh IFC file.

    Feel free to catch me online on the live chat and screenshare which can help debug this.

  • @swathi you can now find experimental Python 3.9 builds here: https://blenderbim.org/builds/ - it seems quite crashy so far, I haven't quite figured out if it's to do with OCC or if it's to do with the alpha version of Blender. Hopefully someone with a bit more Blender-fu can crack it!

  • @Moult I'll try to catch you tomorrow morning, here's my Archicad test file with following problems:
    -exception on changing properties
    And Blender:
    -exception on switching representation
    What is Map representation supposed to do? Throws an exception as well.
    I assume the representation switching problems have something to do with the fact that I lose all the modifiers on DumbWall when I add a drawing?

  • @JanF if you can see "Map Representation", you're probably on an old version. Perhaps before anything, update to the latest build (thanks @krande for setting up these auto builds!) available https://github.com/IfcOpenShell/IfcOpenShell/releases (you'll want py37).

    JanF
  • (thanks @krande for setting up these auto builds!) available https://github.com/IfcOpenShell/IfcOpenShell/releases (you'll want py37).

    sweet.

    Jesusbilltlang
  • @Moult said:
    @JanF hmm, if nothing seems to work at all, that could be a more fundamental problem. Are you testing with a fresh IFC file, or a blend file from an older version? Try with a fresh IFC file.

    Feel free to catch me online on the live chat and screenshare which can help debug this.

    Are there any known problems importing IFC files made in older BlenderBIM versions? I'm trying to open some that I made a few weeks ago (around december) but I haven't been able to load it... No error messages or anything. I'm using the latest release, the one from today. It's not a big project, just a small residential building, only a 1.4mb IFC file.

  • edited March 2021

    Are there any known problems importing IFC files made in older BlenderBIM versions?

    I would argue that as long as you are importing an ifc file and not loading an existing blend file, everything should work.
    But I would try with the latest "official" release also @LaurensJN .

  • There shouldn't be an issue. Also happy if you attach via Github issue or email dion@thinkmoult.com your IFC file I can take a look.

  • @Jesusbill It's an IFC file yes. I tried the official release too, but that didn't work either unfortunately.
    @Moult Thank you, I'm not sure if I could share the file openly, so I sent it!

  • This is a huge realese Sir, I appreciate it

  • edited March 2021

    @LaurensJN I haven't 100% confirmed but my current theory is that you are running into both of these known issues:

    A short summary is that the IfcOpenShell geometry iterator (the thing which loops through all IFC geometry) passes these into OpenCascade which is a very slow operation, especially when Blender already understands meshes (kinda - IFC has faces with holes, which require tessellation). Ping @yorik since this probably has a negative impact on FreeCAD too (especially as they are using the geometry iterator). Sometimes, these operations are craaazy slow. I'm sure there is some rationale, but for a mesh-based program who can handle ngons, non-manifold meshes, and non-planar faces, Blender is happy to just eat whatever it gets.

    This actually is the same issue (unless my theory is wrong) of the one that @DADA_universe faced with his file with objects with 61,000 faces.

    I'm in the process of working out an optimisation for meshes, which ideally should lead to increased import times across the board, as well as removes the risk of a runaway process (i.e. the "loading forever" symptom). I have a prototype which has mixed results for faceted breps (e.g. it can load @DADA_universe 's file in 100 seconds now including the 61,000 poly objects, whereas before even after removing all of the crazy objects it took 180 seconds - so twice the speed and able to process waaay more data). Another single test case sees a speed up of x10, but another test case sees no impact, and another sees twice as slow results... clearly more work is needed. I haven't tested the prototype on your file as I've only written code for faceted breps, and your file contains tessellations, but the theory should be similar.

    Will keep everyone posted. Thanks for resurrecting this issue, it is something we need to address for the fundamental reliability of the BlenderBIM Add-on. If we solve a general solution in IfcOpenShell core, then FreeCAD should start receiving speed boosts for free too.

    DADA_universe
  • Thanks for looking at it! I must say the face count in the model is not as high (12.000 faces in the full model, see picture). A few considerations:

    • Blender NURBS modelling is used for the roof and one (arched) floor, but they are converted to meshes. This did result in a lot of faces, but not extravagantly many. For me, this was a big reason to use Blender, the ease of making geometries that are not necessarily planar or following any logical rules.
    • The windows / front door (portal) are imported from Revit. They have not been a problem before, but these are also tessellated geometries.
    • Then something completely different: There are a lot of parametric rules defined, e.g. wall height based on the height difference between two building storeys. I saw someone else posting on the forum that they did something similar, but can't find it anymore. Could this in any way break something?

    If you need anything else from me let me know, I could give you the blender file where the IFC export comes from if that gives more clarity?
    drawing

  • The Blender file is not necessary. The new BlenderBIM Add-on works directly with IFC. I'll continue to investigate slowly :)

    CGR
  • I use blender 2.82 and blender bim 200912-win it's work, but after upgrade to blender bim 210131,210221,210306, and 210305 I can't add dumb door and dumb windows

  • @erfizt the object generators is one of the aspects of the BlenderBIM Add-on that is still highly experimental. For that reason, there isn't much effort currently in maintaining backwards compatibility. Can you try Blender 2.92? The Blender version you are using it quite outdated.

    erfizt
  • @Moult thanks it's work very well. :-) But, where is "Add Opening" menu? I only find Clean Wireframes, Link IFC etc

  • @erfizt openings have been moved into the "IFC Voids" panel in the object properties tab.

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