Attributes nightmare caught up with me

[Stefan Videnov]

Dear all,

I've become a BIM manager by necessety and the lack of in-depth knowledge finally caught up to me.
Recently we had to split a large project in 3 different files which are linked to e "Terrain" file.  A major complciation is that we're using IFCs from the civil engineer which get imported into a "Filter" archicad file, where I delete unnecessary information and then I export 3 different "Structure" archicad files to be imported into the 3 main project files. Each file produces it's own drawings while the terrain file is used for 3D and the masterplan.

I made another "Attributes" file and during the first month I was editing attributes only from this file and then importing them into all the 3+1 other files. I have always used the import by index option, and since all project files excluding the Attributes files are on the BIMcloud I always pay attention that I have reserved everything before importing.

Even so i was noticing that a lot of duplicates were being formed e.g. profile HE280A (46). At one point i got lazy and sometimes i started editing attributes directly from the main files and then exporting them back to the Attributes file, in order to later seed the rest of the linked files. I thought this wouldnt cause any issues. 
Recently however in the latest update to the "Terrain" file I started noticing some very weird results.

For example a column in file "Service hall" is using profile HE280A (46) with ID 1884, but then inTerrain I'm seeing that it's using HE280A (48) with ID 2202. This seems very bizzar. This is of course not the only example. 

Any idea how I can start clean and solve this mess? I can readily provide more information on screenshots.

Thank you!

Operating system used: Windows

[scottjm]

We’ve all been there Stefan. It’s not a fun place to be when you end up with an attributes disaster. Sounds like you were prepared using a dedicated attributes file too, but it is a constant battle to manager across multiple files like your setup. 

I’m sorry to say the only way to clean things up is to download the attributes of all your files and compare them all and go through a process of delete and replace and reindexing to make sure everything is identical across every single files.  Don’t forget about and hotlinks you might have linked from mod files as they are particular sneaky as they essentially hold an old version of all your attributes. 

A fellow user on forum @_c_ created this really amazing tool that is able to produce a comparison report of attributes between multiple files, that identifies clashes and mismatches and  will help with the clean up process greatly. It’s only in Beta and you’ll need to contact Carlotta to request access it.  Check it out here. 
https://www.cad-bim-manager.com/tools_ac_attributes_compare.htm

It unfortunately may take you days to clean up the attributes across all your files. 

Some shameless self promotion too, I did a webinar last year that covers this very topic and explains some of why the attributes go crazy in the back ground.  It didn’t answer all the mystery to attributes, but might be helpful. 
https://www.digital.skewed.com.au/media/webinars/archintensive-2023-dark-side-attribute-chaos

[_c_]

Thank you Scott, I don't know how many times I recommended your video!

@Stefan Videnov , I am also a BIM Manager struggling with attributes and wrote that app for personal survival on large projects.

I am very glad to give you the app in exchange for a few comments and suggestions. It is now quite ready to use, it just needs such input as you might want to give. Hear the thread where it is described and where you can find my contact data.

https://community.graphisoft.com/t5/Project-data-BIM/Attribute-mismatches-an-app-to-find-them-all/m-...

best,

_c_

[Stefan Videnov]

Hi @_c_ 
Thank you very much for developing and offering the app, I would love to try to work with it and of course I can provide feedback later.

@scottjm 
Thank you for the long post! Could you please provide some information on the cause of the milions of dupplicates that I am getting? Even if I fix all the attributes they'd continue to get messed in the future.
Considering the diagram that I posted Is there a way to start again? Purge most attributes and start from the structural models maybe? 

[scottjm · Accepted solution]

Hi Stefan,

The duplicates is one part of attributes that I’ve yet to fully get to the bottom of. I believe at side point in the last few versions of Archicad with complex profiles they realised that it couldn’t just assume that an existing profile with the same name could be just assigned to an element in a hotlink. So instead if it believes the profile is different to the one already in the file, it just creates it as a new complex profile attribute with the same name but (1),(2) and so on if it exists in the hotlink. I’ll try and do some testing to test my theory properly.  The other attributes don’t work this way. 

In terms of a clean up process. Work out which file is going to be your single point of truth. Your already created attribute file is probably going to be best for that. Purge all unnecessary attributes from your other files is going to help as it’s then going to free up index numbers so you can reindex the attributes in all the other files so that the attributes that should be match are in the same index numbers as your master attribute file. Once you’ve got all the attributes index numbers aligning you can starting bringing over the latest version of the attributes from the master attribute file, using by index. 

setting up ranges of index number can be very helpful too, eg are your structural IFC imports you make sure those attributes start at 2000 for example and a different IFC starts at 3000. This is where you IFC filtering fine will be essential. 
We have even gone so far as to convert a whole IFC import to a morph and sign a single BM and surface to all those morphs to make attributes infection from IFC files. This removed your issue with complex profiles heading to be to be handed too. But does matter to more complicated to interact with those ifc model elements. 

once you’ve got everything all organised your process moving forward would be to only every edit, remand strives in your master attribute file, and always do a manual attribute ‘sync’ or update in all the files from the master attribute file before doing any hotlink updates. Never never never update any hotlink before manually synchronising your attributes. 

Lastly, don’t forget about copy paste as another source of attribute infection too. Even if you instruct everyone in the team to never copy paste directly into the file. Someone inevitably will. The easiest way to make them never do it again is making them clean up the attributes after they do. 🤣

 if you are working in teamwork it is possible to lock down attribute modification and importing, which should prevent attributes polluting via hooting and copy paste. However I’ve never tried it on a live project.