Hi All,
I hope I will be able to bring some clarify into this topic.
While it is technically possible to change ARCHICAD' property (Door Orientation) functionality and allow it to directly affect the Operation property of the IFC Doors directly, we think it should not be the case. There are multiple reasons for this but the main ones are the following:
1. Different Standards define this value differently as some of you have mentioned. Since the IFC file format utilizes its own Standard to define it, and we are supporting the IFC file format, it makes perfect sense to simply have it done as dictated by the IFC standard.
2. In IFC, you can have 2 options L or R however, in ARCHICAD you can have L, R, or Custom. This is where it gets tricky. IFC can not handle this "custom" value as it does not know what value to give the door with the Custom Door Orientation.
3. The Door Orientation property in ARCHICAD is for ARCHICAD's internal usage only. For instance, in Interactive Schedules. If the user wishes to reverse them according to their own standards or some different standards used in other countries, they can do so.
But if the information is being transferred in an IFC format, it should stay as it is with the standards of IFC.
4. That is why the Operation property in ARCHICAD is an automatically calculated value according to the IFC rules and will always be consistent with the IFC format and standard. Door Orientation in ARCHICAD has nothing to do with the Operation property in IFC.
5. While this might not be an "official" reason, I personally believe we are all human and we all make honest mistakes.
We can simply reverse the certain property to something else and have it apply to every door when it might not be what we want to do, or we can forget to switch it back after we finished exporting the IFC file, and then carry on with the project. Understandably, it can lead to many further mistakes. I think the term "snowballing" would fit here.
There is a - perhaps not perfect but might do the trick - workaround would be to set up a specific Translator for this workflow where under the Data Conversion, you would ensure the "Element Properties" box would be ticked in order to transfer ARCHICAD's own properties as IFC ones. Then in SOLIBRI for example, you would find the Door Orientation property under the "AC_Pset_Door_22" [if you are using ARCHICAD 22 for instance] and instruct whoever you sharing the file with to refer to these specific properties instead.
I hope I was able to clarify things out for you and that you find this information helpful.
I wish you all a great day!
Kind regards,
Ghaleb