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A new object type has just landed in Arch: The BuildingPart. It is designed to replace the old Floor object but not only that, it has many other features. The idea is to be able to work with reusable "building components", for example a shipping container, a toilet stall, whatever where you need to gather several other Arch objects. It's our BIM version of an assembly Part.

I'll blog about it in a couple of days and describe it better, but in a nutshell:

- It is still based on a classical Group, not on App::Part (too many restrictions for use in Arch/BIM workflows)
- It can display a "mark" in the 3D view that shows the origin point and the level (its z coordinate)
- It can be made "active" by double-clicking it, like an App:Part
- When moved/rotated, all its children that either have no "Move With Host" property or have it turned on will move together
- When moving an object out of a BuildingPart, it will keep its current position, not "pop back" to its original position (different from App::Part)
- It can be cloned
- It can take any IFC type, like other Arch objects
- It can set the height of included walls and structures automatically (set their height to zero)
- It defines a working plane automatically, and optionaly a view angle too, like the Draft WPProxy

The old "Floor" command is still there in Arch, but it now produces a BuildingPart with its IFC type set to "Building Storey" instead. Old Arch Floors can be converted to BuildingParts by right-clicking them in the tree view

There might still be some bugs here and there, but I think it's more or less ready for use already. Next I'll change the Building object to also be a BuildingPart.

yorik wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 29, 2018 3:56 pm

There might still be some bugs here and there, but I think it's more or less ready for use already. Next I'll change the Building object to also be a BuildingPart.

Good work. When can we test it?

Nice.

P.S. I guess Links effort (once upstreamed) can be investigated further. As i guess "reusable building components" is one of the main points of the Links effort. Don't know if the requirement for keeping all (external and referenced) involved documents open suits BIM workflow. That is why i was hopping some of the developers in need of such features and working in this area would get involved in the discussions. As that didn't happen i guess suitableness of the Links effort for BIM purpose can still be evaluated in the future.

Yes, external links is the next step. Obviously the BuildingPart is a main piece of it. Internally, it stores a compound shape of everything inside it. That is already used when you clone a BuildingPart. Next I'll make it also store the iv representation.

So next, we'll be able to create a new "link" object, and make it open another file, and read either the brep file of the BuildingPart, or directly its iv node.

@bitacovir it's in master already. Just need to recompile or wait for the next build update

And how would this work (AppImage)?

https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD_ ... /wiki/Link

If you create a (external) Link feature (using GUI or Python). Wouldn't it suffice for BIM purposes?

yorik wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 29, 2018 3:56 pm

A new object type has just landed in Arch: The BuildingPart.

Hi, yorik, maybe you can take a look at my new LinkGroup. It's in my branch. I have recently merged it with upstream which includes your BuildingPart, I think.

There is a ready to use 'App::LinkGroup', or, you can easily made a Python object of your own using 'App::LinkExtension'. It works like 'App::Part', but without any of its restrictions, and many extra features, like auto creating external link when an object from another document is drag and dropped in.

I am not sure how BIM workflow handles all the duplicated instances, like all the similar looking floors. But most likely Link can help in that respect as well.

Can you please post some sample file with your new BuildingPart. I can try it with LinkGroup and see if it really helps.

Thanks, can't wait to see an example how all these works !

& Yorik + Realthunder new feature !!!

Great! To tell the truth I hadn't looked much at your link stuff yet @realthunder

I'll do that now. If it's a matter of adding an extension, that should be very easy! Indeed I'd rather use your structure instead of creating something on my own! I'll put some test file here too next.

OS: Windows 10
Word size of OS: 64-bit
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.18.14014 (Git)
Build type: Release
Branch: master
Hash: f0252c80c2f6408e9c64120c24b9de6091ec57fb
Python version: 2.7.14
Qt version: 4.8.7
Coin version: 4.0.0a
OCC version: 7.2.0
Locale: English/India (en_IN)

Hi. I just downloaded the latest 0.18 weekly build of FreeCAD but couldn't find the new feature 'BuildingPart'. :-/

It is there in Arch and BIM next to the Floor tool.. Maybe it is not part of this weekly update yet, I committed it rather recently...