topic Re: ID lost when exporting to IFC in Collaboration with other software

ID lost when exporting to IFC

alemanda — Wed, 20 Aug 2014 09:45:56 GMT

Hi All,
I need to keep the ID given in the PLN file when exporting to IFC.
Actually I lose the ID in thee IFC file.
How can I do?
ANy help is appreciated

Re: ID lost when exporting to IFC

Laszlo Nagy — Wed, 20 Aug 2014 20:12:46 GMT

In the IFC translation Setup Dialog, in the Export Options panel, is the "IFC Global Unique Identifier attribute (GlobalId)" field set to the "Keep ArchiCAD IFC ID (recommended)" value?

Re: ID lost when exporting to IFC

alemanda — Thu, 21 Aug 2014 10:38:30 GMT

Yes, I used the recommended setting. Keep the existing. But it refers to the GUID and not to the ID.

Moreover I think that the name shown in the IFCviewer (Tekla Bimsight) is the IFClabel ... For certain reasons the IFC label is the first ID given durng modelling ... then I changed the ID but the IFC label has not been update accordingly.

Re: ID lost when exporting to IFC

Laszlo Nagy — Fri, 22 Aug 2014 08:34:43 GMT

I tried opening an exported IFC in Tekla BIMSight.
When I click to view the parameters of any element, the Product Name field in BIMSight always shows me the ID of the element (like "SLA - 001" for a Slab). Is this what you are looking for? The ID that is specified in the Tags and Categories panel of their Settings Dialogs?

Re: ID lost when exporting to IFC

alemanda — Fri, 22 Aug 2014 09:12:02 GMT

I know what's happened.
I created a IFC file from archicad.
I opened it into archicad; I changed some ID of certain elements.
I saved it again in IFC
I opened it into TEKLA BIMSIGHT and I got the previous ID (before changes)
Any changes I apply in that file the IFC Names don't follow the ID name, while this is the right behaviour of a native pln file.

Re: ID lost when exporting to IFC

Laszlo Nagy — Fri, 22 Aug 2014 11:11:52 GMT

I encountered something similar but I think this is a Tekla BIMsight thing. It seemed to me that BIMsight stores that version of the file that was its very first version, when it first opened it. Try this: open a file in BIMsight, then open it again: two files will be created in the Bimsight home screen.
So in BIMsight you should not click the View button of the file already loaded into BIMsight, supposing that it will refresh its content based on the contents of the file. Instead, use the Open button to open the file again.
I guess the reasoning behind this is that you might make changes in BIMsight to files you open and you don't want those change overwritten by the new file version. Therefore BIMsight always opens and stores each instance of the file separately.

Re: ID lost when exporting to IFC

alemanda — Fri, 22 Aug 2014 11:29:36 GMT

I think it's something on the ARCHICAD side.
In fact the connection between ID and IFCNAME is lost when opening an IFC file generated by ARCHICAD strating from a PLN.
Try what I mentioned in my previous post.

Re: ID lost when exporting to IFC

Laszlo Nagy — Fri, 22 Aug 2014 12:45:34 GMT

OK, I see now what you mean.
So if I save a native ArchiCAD file as IFC, an element will have a certain ID. If I now change the ID of the element, then save as IFC, the change in ID will be carried through to the IFC file.
However, if I open an IFC file in ArchiCAD, then change the ID of an element and resave it as IFC, THAT ID change will NOT be carried through to the IFC file.
I wonder if that has something to do with the fact that in the second case the ArchiCAD file was generated from an IFC file. I also wonder whether this is intentional, by design or a bug.
In any case, I cannot decide which one it is so I will just forward this to Graphisoft.

Re: ID lost when exporting to IFC

alemanda — Fri, 22 Aug 2014 12:57:29 GMT

I suppose it depends on the fact that the IFC name label is equal to the id when the guid is kept.
Probably when a pln is saved as IFC this correspondence is lost.
So, opening the IFC in archicad the ifc name label points to a guid which is no more available in the model.