Is ArchiCAD Against Automation?

[JaseBee]

Ok, so let me get this straight. (feel free to correct any of my assumptions here, or let me know how you guys use all these settings to an advantage, rather than just to create a mess or ignore)

You have an object but you have to manually set any properties you want to go with it. So you can get the object to read the properties and alter it's display but you probably don't want to do that because you have limited control over the logic defining the values that go with it and you'll still have two places to set various values (object settings, property manager).

Then comes the next layer of classification, which seems to just let you know what properties are available... no real problems there... I guess.

But then you have the IFC on top of that, which also can't be controlled by objects or properties but can control them both? Or can you get the IFC to read parameters and then feed back into properties?

I'm so confused by all this stuff...

And also it too me a good hour of hunting to figure out where they hid the IFC scheme setup dialogue.

It's getting really convoluted in here...

[DGSketcher]

Same position here.

I am currently sat in front of a "schedule of all elements" displaying the chaos that has arisen from trying to use a previous design. The Schedule is great as an error check but it also flags up just how easy it is to corrupt BIM data and this is only a small building I'm working on.

We used to be able to link IFC values to variables but in 21 this seems to have disappeared(?) in favour of the new Cats & Props option and the IFC values now look nothing more than a duplication and potential for further erroneous data entry as we end up with potentially three unrelated values set by object variables, IFC and properties.

[JaseBee]

Glad it's not just me, but also, is kinda disappointing it isn't just something I'm missing.

You can still link to the parameters of objects with ifc, they've just gone to great lengths to hide it. Not in front of a computer at the moment but I found it today. If you goto file>thinger>ifc>translator setup. Then there's an option to map ifc from properties or something, then there's one more button after that I think to get you to what used to be the ifc scheme settings.

It's like they are purposely doing this sorta stuff.

I feel like using properties to control everything would be the way to go, but I'm hesitant to run my library parts from that sort of interface, sometimes you need the ui and the gdl (I struggle to use this next term) logic. But they seem to be at the top of the tree, can be applied to most elements, are schedulable, find and selectable, and graphically overridable as well.

Just a bit over the, this works except for this element, or in this instance, or if you would also like it to display for this thing...

There has got to be a way that it's all happy and nice.

[stefan]

It has evolved quiet a bit from r19 to r21... Properties, Classification, IFC management.

I look at it like this:

1 - classify elements
2 - based on classification you get relevant property sets to fill in
3 - based on classification and properties, generate the appropriate IFC representation for collaboration with others and for delivery - here the mapping comes into place (from properties to IFC, but not the other way around)


Beware that the evolution of BIM standardisation will probably require the property system to evolve even more into depth. Each individual property will get its own properties and metadata... No BIM software currently is already that far, so this will take some years.