Material property to IFC

[Anonymous]

Hello!

I have a question about exporting .dwg file to .ifc.

I am using Civil3D 2018.

The procedure is the following:

1. Convert all elements to 3D Solids.

2. Run IFCEXPORT and create an .ifc file.

3. Open it in Navisworks Manage 2018 to check it.

Geometry is correct, but material data is lost and it becomes IFC Surface Style. The result is that everything is uniform gray in full render mode.

Is there any procedure or workaround to solve this problem? I tried exporting in all 3 avaliable formats (IFC 2x3, IFC 4 & IFC 4x1).

Conversion to .nwc (.nwd) from Civil3D works OK, but we have to submit the project in .ifc.

Does anyone know how I can solve this issue?

[MikeEvansUK]

Is this a pipe?

NB: The workflow does not need you to explode the elements for surface or network (those already containing 3d solids or faces) so long as you are in a 3dView and displaying the solids it will export.

In order to pass information (material : RCP / PVC / Conc) to IFC you need to add it as property set data before you export, this will then be written as IFCparameters into the export.

I do not know if a visual material can be assigned via IFC (I do not believe so) and so far have not seen this for generic mass exports and the exporter does not support Civil3d base object. That is a pipe will not become an IFCPipe.

M

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Yes this are pipe/structure elements.

Note taken! Thanks!

As you said material cannot be assigned. The best option to keep some graphical information is to assign different colors to layers and than assign these layers to different networks.

[joantopo]

Sorry @MikeEvansUK

I am a little bit confused reading your first sentence,

NB: The workflow does not need you to explode the elements for surface or network (those already containing 3d solids or faces) so long as you are in a 3dView and displaying the solids it will export.

Are you saying we don't have to convert a surface or pipe network to 3dsolid and we could export them directly as 3d solids in the IFC if we are showing them in the 3dView during the exportation?

Thanks.

[mvanitallie]

@MikeEvansUK Is there a way to automate "add it as property set data," as the pipe material/size/connecting MH's/etc allready existing on the object?

Thanks,

[yair.zini]

Hi
Just making sure I got it right.
If I export let's say a pipe to IFC and then try to import it back to CIVIL3D, the information about the geometry will not come up? Only the data that I enter in Property Sets will appear in the import?
There is no way to save the geometry found in the Design tab so that it is also imported to this tab and not to extended data?

[rogerio.jacob]

Sorry for digging this topic, I was searching for another problem and I saw your doubt.

Yes, there is a way to automate this boring work, but only with Dynamo and wasting some time to think on a routine. And also you have to use additional packages, because natively, Civil 3D Dynamo is a litte poor on nodes.

Main packages that I use are Camber, Civil 3D Toolkit and Arkance.

[rogerio.jacob]

Answering your question (late, I know, sorry for that) yes, exporting IFC from Civil 3D you loss all data on the main data tab, the only way to take these informations are through Property Sets, automating with Dynamo.

Nowadays, Civil 3D packages are good and you can do a lot of things through them, including these informations on property sets. It's not so easy because nodes are not self-explaining, but not so difficult too, you have to lose some time on it only.

[yair.zini]

I would appreciate it if you could elaborate a little more on the tools you mentioned or a link where I can read more about it
Thank you for helping!

[rogerio.jacob]

I don't know if you're familiar with Dynamo, but there are a lot of videos on youtube explaining on how to do, also you can search on Dynamo forums (only Google it Dynamo for Civil 3D).

Attached there is a routine that I've developed on the company that I work (sorry for some portuguese texts on nodes, I'm brazilian and I developed this for me and my coworkers). This routine add property sets on pipes and structures on Civil 3D

The other one add all the informations that I wanted to put on the elements (pipe and structures) that previously on the other routine were applied the property sets. This routine basically read the element information and write on property set.

I took some classes with some guys here on Brazil, but was Dynamo for Revit, and a lot of things that I've learned there I could use the knowledge to develop these two routines, but on youtube and on foruns have a lot of material to study.