[Plugin] bim-tools 0.13.4(june 22, 2015)

brewsky

I guess this was false alarm.

Good to hear it works now!

It might be interesting to try the new version I just added, it's WAY more stable .

brewsky

For this version I made a lot of improvements to the IFC-exporter, but I still get mixed results opening the files in different BIM-software packages.

If anyone has any tips/opinions on what would be the best way to generate the IFC-files, I'm interested!
The most important thing to think on is to get a good model-structure/scheme in the IFC.
Not export too much (duplicate or unneccesary) data, but enough so all BIM-software can find the data they need to import useful objects...

small08

Thanks Brew, will give it a try.

ludnid

Splendid Plugin. Works like a charm but for a minor bug so i'll need someone to confirm please. After installing a couple of plugins the day before, sketchup crashed while working within a group and specifically while trying to use the paint bucket tool. Removing the recent installations found bim tools to be the culprit . Does anyone have the same problem?

NB: I also noticed the crash happens on my second trial just after ive closed the scripts dialogue.

brewsky

I have finally taken the time to set up a website for the project.
Check it out on:
http://www.bim4sketchup.org/

It's very basic, but it already contains some documentation.
I will add more along he way...

Cheers!
Jan

ivreich

Revit Import Error

Hi Jan

Thanks for this incredible effort.

I'm having some problems importing the IFC file into Revit 2013. I've attached the Revit error message and my skp file for you to look at.

Also, will it be possible to create bim elements with more complex surfaces, e.g. quad-based surfaces generated from curviloft, EEby, soap skin bubble etc?

Cheers

Joel

Revit error message

SU file

brewsky

@ludnid said:

sketchup crashed while working within a group and specifically while trying to use the paint bucket tool.

I will look into it, it should never interfere with your day-to-day SketchUp-ing!
It probably has something to do with the observers the plugin uses.

The first thing I want to do is make a on/off button that disables the observers(or even the entire plugin if possible). That should make sure there occur any problems when not using the plugin itself.

Does anyone have tips on implementing this? I think it would be nice if I could minimize the toolbar to a single button to show that the plugin is not active...

brewsky

@ivreich said:

I'm having some problems importing the IFC file into Revit 2013. I've attached the Revit error message and my skp file for you to look at.

Hi Joel!

Thanks for sharing this model!
It points me to some "internationalization" bugs I wasn't yet aware of(mixing up commas and dots in numbers and the like).
Is it possible to get a more detailed report from the revit ifc-importer?
I can't make out the id's it reports in the screenshot.

@ivreich said:

Also, will it be possible to create bim elements with more complex surfaces, e.g. quad-based surfaces generated from curviloft, EEby, soap skin bubble etc?

I still have a lot of ideas to improve the plugin.
The greatest challenge will be to translate things like complex surfaces to a usable/editable object in revit through IFC.

Cheers!
Jan

hygicell

when starting sketchup after installing BIM tools I get an error:
Error Loading File C:/Program Files (x86)/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/bim-tools/clsBtEntity.rb
undefined local variable or method `' for main:Object

please help
Frank

brewsky

@hygicell said:

when starting sketchup after installing BIM tools I get an error:
Error Loading File C:/Program Files (x86)/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/bim-tools/clsBtEntity.rb undefined local variable or method `' for main:Object

Too bad that I can't reproduce the error, and I don't really understand it either.
It seems that it tries to load an unnamed method for the main ruby object.
Is there anyone who can give me any tips on troubleshooting this?

I learned a thing or two about better usage of "modules".
I'm currently implementing this, I hope it will fix this error too.

TIG

Do a find in your .rb files' code for a loose `
Perhaps someone open the .rb in a wordprocessor and added formating to the text

brewsky

@tig said:

Do a find in your .rb files' code for a loose `
Perhaps someone open the .rb in a wordprocessor and added formating to the text

While searching for a loose ` with grep, grep showed some strange characters before the first character of the script in the file mentioned in the error. I checked the formatting, and this file seems to be the only one encoded in UTF-8 with BOM(some microsoft addition to UTF-8: "Byte Order Mark"), while the others are without BOM. Could this explain the error?

I have not yet found a loose `, but I will also check the rest of the files.

I found that the "normal" ruby error is something like "NameError: undefined local variable or method `a' for #", where it uses two different markers surrounding the method/variable name. Only in the case of my plugin there is nothing between the markers...

brewsky

@hygicell said:

when starting sketchup after installing BIM tools I get an error

Hi Frank!

Can you give this version a try?
I removed the offending file , see if it helps...
bim-tools-0.12.1.zip

Cheers!
Jan

Dan Rathbun

@brewsky said:

@tig said:

I checked the formatting, and this file seems to be the only one encoded in UTF-8 with BOM(some microsoft addition to UTF-8: "Byte Order Mark"), while the others are without BOM. Could this explain the error?

YES. For maximum cross-platform compatibility set Notepad++ defaults for .rb files to "UTF8 without BOM (ANSI as UTF8)" with UNIX end of line chars.

brewsky

Thanks Dan!

thomthom

@dan rathbun said:

YES. For maximum cross-platform compatibility set Notepad++ defaults for .rb files to "UTF8 without BOM (ANSI as UTF8)" with UNIX end of line chars.

Why UNIX EOL?

Dan Rathbun

@thomthom said:

@dan rathbun said:

YES. For maximum cross-platform compatibility ... with UNIX end of line chars.

Why UNIX EOL?
Well do you really want to have to distribute your plugins in two editions, one with Mac EOLs and one with DOS/Windows EOLs ?

Remember that Ruby was developed on Unix-like systems, and loves UNIX EOLs. MS Windows hates files with Mac EOLs. The Mac OSX descends from BSD Linux, so has no problem with UNIX EOLs, and I'm not sure about DOS/Windows EOLS.

It makes sense to set your code editor's default EOL to something that both platforms can read without problems.

thomthom

I have written all my plugins with Windows EOL (CR+LF) and I've never had any problems using them on OSX due to EOL.

brewsky

EOL and BOM seem as different things, other than they are probably both part of the used UTF format(microsoft or Unix).
Is that correct?

thomthom

@brewsky said:

EOL and BOM seem as different things, other than they are probably both part of the used UTF format(microsoft or Unix).
Is that correct?

EOL is just End Of Line characters - used in any encoding. But there are different mutations.

BOM is a Unicode feature indicating the endianness of the current Unicode encoding.