Exporting (all) Building Material Properties to IFC

[Ruben V]

Using IFC Translators, I'm able to export an IFC containing all Building Material properties (using "all IFC properties" in the Data Conversion setting). Unfortunately, this creates IFCPropertySingleValue for every property of every material. These properties are thus unique and not usable in for example a Smart View in BIMcollab ZOOM (e.g. show all materials/skins with Building Material ID value of "25").

In the Property Manager or IFC-settings (mapping, ...) I have not yet been able to locate the "IFCPropertySingleValue", so I am not able to 'convert' it in Archicad into some other (usable) category.

Strangely enough, when unchecking "All IFC properties" in Data Conversion, I get some Building Material properties in my IFC viewer, which I can then use in defining rules or smart views...

The IFC text-file looks the same (to me).

Hope the screenshots below will clarify my question further and hope their is some solution for this...
Example of how the IFCPropertySingleValue shows up in BIMcollab ZOOM:
...

Example of how the Component properties show when unchecking "all IFC properties":

[Ruben V]

In the same order - snippets of IFC-files:

[Ruben V]

Aparently, the reason for this would be that the Archicad-export isn't fully ready for IFC4 at this moment. Personally, I find this hard to believe (considering - amongst others - this recent FB-post:
https://www.facebook.com/archicad/posts/10156402879118043

Any thoughts?

[felcunha]

Just to understand:
You want to have common properties for your materials but no IFCPropertySingleValue?
And if you just for checking, edit and delete the lines containing these single values ?

[Laszlo Nagy]

B.E.A.T. wrote:
Aparently, the reason for this would be that the Archicad-export isn't fully ready for IFC4 at this moment. Personally, I find this hard to believe (considering - amongst others - this recent FB-post:
https://www.facebook.com/archicad/posts/10156402879118043

Any thoughts?

That Facebook post says that ARCHICAD now passed IFC4 Reference View Export Certification. This was not possible earlier because the IFC4 standard was NOT READY. Thus it was not possible to get certification in it.
Please also note that this is related to only IFC4 Reference View Export.
There is also IFC4 Design Transfer View. And there is also Import for both IFC4 Reference View and IFC4 Design Transfer View.
That is 4 different certifications, and the post refers to only one of them.
I think the other certifications are still in progress.

What is not clear to me based on that post is whether the latest hotfix of AC22 is now certified for IFC4 Reference View Export, or the next AC22 Update will be.

[Ruben V]

felcunha wrote:
Just to understand:
You want to have common properties for your materials but no IFCPropertySingleValue?
And if you just for checking, edit and delete the lines containing these single values ?

Want I want is all Building Material Properties (Physical and non-physical) to get translated to IFC in the same way. As screenshots (from BIMcollab ZOOM) show in my initial post, stuff like 'embodied carbon' has a general parameter (which makes it usable for Smart Views in BIMcollab ZOOM), while Building Material ID gets translated into specific parameters like Buildingmaterial1.ID, Buildingmaterial2.ID, ... thus making it completely useless for further analysis of IFC (in a viewer like BIMcollab ZOOM).

Hope this clarifies my question...

It could be a BIMcollab ZOOM issue (I've asked the same question there), but I get more or less the same results in Solibri Model Viewer for instance...

[felcunha]

B.E.A.T. wrote:
Want I want is all Building Material Properties (Physical and non-physical) to get translated to IFC in the same way. As screenshots (from BIMcollab ZOOM) show in my initial post, stuff like 'embodied carbon' has a general parameter (which makes it usable for Smart Views in BIMcollab ZOOM), while Building Material ID gets translated into specific parameters like Buildingmaterial1.ID, Buildingmaterial2.ID, ... thus making it completely useless for further analysis of IFC (in a viewer like BIMcollab ZOOM).

Hope this clarifies my question...

It could be a BIMcollab ZOOM issue (I've asked the same question there), but I get more or less the same results in Solibri Model Viewer for instance...

I'd like to help but I can't... If I create an IFC file using Archicad I'll see all the material properties as "IFCPROPERTYSINGLEVALUE", including 'Embodied Carbon'. (By the way the value you get for it in the "component properties tab is also a single value)
Taking a look into IFC2x3 and IFC4 definitions doesn't help anyway. There's not much information about it and "IFCMATERIALPROPERTIES" don't show much.
Maybe you could tweak your IFC file using a text editor, by creating these material properties regardless of the elements they're attached to ? But honestly I don't think it worth it.

[Daniel Kovacs]

Hello,

The issue here is that handling Building Material Properties centrally is not possible in IFC2x3, so these were included in each element. To make them well structured under the same material we used a kind of "group.subgroup" format, which is a standard way of grouping properties in IFC format. Apparently BIM Collab and Solibri are not able to display this structure, but you can see in the attached picture what this structure looks like in BIM Vision.
In IFC4 though, materials can be included in the IFC database, so the material properties can be stored centrally, and the elements would just get a "material" attribute (the name of the BM). I am not sure how you can reach that information in each application, but I checked the IFC file in a text editor and the materials and their properties are properly recorded in it. If you want to have it this way, make sure you choose the format to be IFC4 in the translator before export (it is set to IFC2x3 by default, as currently that is more widespread).

Regarding the IFC4 question, what Laszlo explained is correct: there are 4 types of certifications, and this time we only got certified for Reference File Export (but we are working on the rest). AC22 is currently based on IFC2x3, and is compatible with IFC4, but AC23 will fully support IFC4. The certificate was made for AC23 as well, not AC22.

I hope this explains everything.

Regards,

[Ruben V]

Thank you very much for this VERY clear explanation!

I'll try the IFC4-export in SMV and BIMcollab tomorrow.
I notified the BIMcollab development team, and they were going to look into it - so maybe in the next update...

I'll report back if I'm successful.

[Ruben V]

No success... Using IFC4-scheme makes BM Properties "disappear" in SMV & BIMcollab ZOOM. I've sent all info to KUBUS, so they can look into their IFC4 "visualisation"/translation...


PS: BIMvision always gives the right result (for IFC2x3 and IFC4) - thanks for the tip. Unfortunately there is no MAC-version of this fine little viewer...