Archicad - Blender Connection

[Alison_007]

Good morning everyone.

I've been working with Blender and Cycle to render, sending my Archicad file to Blender by exporting it as FBX, but sometimes due to changes or updates, I was wondering if there are a tool capable of establishing this connection between these two programs, like D5 or Twinmotion, for example. I searched the internet and didn't find anything except someone's project on Github, but so far it seems like just an idea, not something exact or functional.

[Laszlo Nagy]

There is an open-source Blender Add-On called Bonsai (previously called BlenderBIM):

https://bonsaibim.org/

It is using IFC as its file format, so if you have this Add-On, and you export an IFC from Archicad, you will be able to open it in Bonsai. I suppose that you will still have all the rendering capabilities available as well.  

[Alison_007]

Right. Thank you very much for the tip, I will look for and try this solution.

[leandro_cavalheiro · Accepted solution]

Hi,

I've been using Archicad > Blender for many years, I would recommend using FBX or OBJ, both formats are natively supported by Blender.

There is a plugin to import SKP that also works well. (https://github.com/RedHaloStudio/Sketchup_Importer/releases)

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It is using IFC as its file format, so if you have this Add-On, and you export an IFC from Archicad, you will be able to open it in Bonsai. I suppose that you will still have all the rendering capabilities available as well.  

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For rendering purposes, I don't recommend using IFC. It has some issues with objects with multiple materials (different override on each side not being preserved), and also it doesn't export textures.

[CosminF]

Hi, 

I usually export as .dae (Collada) file and I always get my textures from Archicad into Blender.

First thing into Blender is to apply a decimate modifier on one objects with all the other ones selected, and then copy the modifiers to all objects and apply visual geometry to mesh. In that way you reduce the polygon count tremendously. 

If any updates are made into the Archicad model, I try to save only those and import the file/ replace in Blender. Because once you re-define textures and properties on materials, it would be easier to reassign them onto the newly imported objects.

[Antonio_ClavelArqu]

Hello,

I use Blender to render Archicad models with Cycles.

With Gemini Pro, I have created a script to relink the applied materials once the model is updated from Archicad.

Due to work issues, I cannot share it, but I am in the process of learning to program to create something based on that in my spare time to refine it and upload it to the Blender extensions website.

Even so, if you ask Gemini, it can make it work without any problems. I'm sure you can use any other AI to create it.

The basic operation is to assign the source material to each element when importing it, then when you import something new, you tell it to read those values from the previous model and reassign materials to the new model based on that data.

As I said, I can't share much more for work reasons, but I want to do so on a personal level and put it on the extensions website openly.

[leandro_cavalheiro · Accepted solution]

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@CosminF  escreveu:

I usually export as .dae (Collada) file and I always get my textures from Archicad into Blender.

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Blender 5.0 dropped official support for DAE format, so maybe it's not the best future proof format.

https://developer.blender.org/docs/release_notes/4.5/#compatibility

[Antonio_ClavelArqu]

I forgot to mention, I always export using FBX files.

[Alison_007]

That's great, this tool seems incredible; it would be very useful to have a dedicated tool for this, exporting textures, lights, updating the model, and so on. Congratulations on the initiative.

[Alison_007]

I will try this.