Support ifc (stored in the cloud) in nested links in cloud worksharing

[Orsolya.Balazs]

On behalf of a customer from Germany let me post the following wish:

Currently IFC files, stored in the cloud,  won't appear through nested links in a cloud worksharing model. Request is allow the support of IFC through nested links in cloud worksharing.

This issue impact not only ifc, but non-workshared nested links as well. See this article.

[nic.maes]

That Revit IFC links work the same way than rvt / dwg / dwf links.

Currently when having a revit file with linked IFC, on upload linked files we cannot select the IFC files nor do they get displayed whan viewing in the browser.

Thanks

Nic Maes

[zawmyotun]

Same issue here, but how we solved this scenario at the moment is

1. We link in IFC file to Revit and saved it. In this case, Revit will generate <Name> ifc.rvt at the same location of linked IFC folder.

2. We remove original .ifc link file, then link in back Revit generated <Name> ifc.rvt file and save the Revit file again.

3. So when we upload to BIM360 docs with link file, we can choose <Name> ifc.rvt file as the link file.

P.S We try this workflow with Revit 2017 version. We havn't test with old version yet.

[Anonymous]

Has this Issue been resolved yet ?
If so what is the BIM Workflow.

[c_mccartney_hawkins_co_nz]

Hi there,

I am also interested in if this idea has had any further progress since being changed to "under review" in September.

Can anyone from Autodesk please provide an update?

Thanks

Christian

[mac_EH]

yes, a very important feature for specialist sub contractors to be able to display their model in the federated 'design collab' model. 

[c_mccartney_hawkins_co_nz]

Hi @joan_allen, just following up on this again - IFC links still are not visible via the BIM360 docs web view as part of a federated model view. This is basic functionality that needs to work!

Thanks,

Christian

[mac_EH]

Hi  @joan.allen, 

any basic federated model viewer can import ifc. This needs to be integrated into docs/design asap, or suitable workaround advised. Revit is a great tool, but does not have many specialized functions that other specialist BIM tools have, so we cannot expect entire supply chain to be on Revit. this makes docs/design unusable at constuction stage and required entire model to be exported to Navis, which defeats the purpose of Design Collab. At nearly 1k for a single user license, this fundamental item, outstanding for over 2 years is hardly acceptable. 

Any Update? 

Regards 

[gjditsel]

same problem here..

[c_mccartney_hawkins_co_nz]

Hi @joan_allen,

Just another follow up on this thread - could you, or anyone else in the BIM360 docs team please provide an update on this much needed functionality - was it ever reviewed?, Is it on the BIM360 roadmap?

To recap, the core functionality needed is being able to view a model and all its links (Revit cloudshared or not, IFC, or other) within Docs itself (avoiding the use of "Model Coordination" or "Design Collaboration" which inherently add more steps to the process).

Thanks,

Christian

[Anonymous]

Hi,

Still the same problem.. 😞 Please update BIM360 so we can use IFC-imports as well in BIM360 docs.

Thankyou!

[Chuck.Ross]

Just ran into this today... Super important to incorporate this ability! - Please Autodesk make this happen.

Chuck

[r.waandersEF3FP]

Also running into this problem. I tried the sollution given to link the IFC into an empty RVT but it doesn't show any geometry then in Bim360. It's a need-to-have with this software!

[mac_EH]

.. any response..

[benschilders]

Any progress yet ?

This crumbles the whole point of BIM field collaboration and open bim mindset.

To find a post like this after hours of trying and struggeling to get a linked IFC to show up in BIM 360 (because we where thinking no it is just our own fault we are probably just doing something wrong),
wich in conclusion tells that it is not possible at the moment is just a shame !

Get your stuff togheter autodesk, maybe do a rewriting of the Revit roadmap, 
stop inventing new stuff focus the developing bugget on fixing everthing that is not working properly at the moment. 

[r.waandersEF3FP]

@benschilders  , yes we have a workaround for now. I had contact with Autodesk Bim360 Design support. They told me ifc linking is not supported in Bim360 Docs. They advised me the following workaround, which we don't use but it may be helpfull to you.

1) Open a new Revit model

2) Import IFC and save te model

3) Link this new Revit model to parent model

4) Upload new linked model to Bim360 Document Management.

We tried it and it didn;t work for us. Our solution:

1) Under the project in Bim360 docs, under Project Files, create a folder IFC

2) Upload the IFC's to this folder

3) Open the Revit main model en link these IFC's

4) Bim360/Revit automatically converts the linked IFC's to ifc.rvt in the same folder. Don't wait for it, it can take hours. Do something else instead en check again later if all the ifc's are converted

5) Open these .ifc.rvt's seperately in Revit and collaborate them in Bim360, but not under the IFC folder, since you can't collaborate a file when a file with the same name is already there. Use another folder under Project Files to store these converted ifc's.

6) Open the main model and load these ifc.rvt via external resources (which only shows collaborated models)

7) Synchronize your main model

😎 Make drawing sets under Publish Settings

9) Publish the model with Manage Cloud Models.

And voila, everything works flawless. Good luck with it.

[aaconst]

We really need this IFC linking in BIM360 Docs. 

Autodesk, please be advised that  Graphisoft is said to support this function in its BIMCloud product, which would be the competitive product of BIM360.

[benschilders]

@r.waandersEF3FP 

  Thanks for your reply it realy got us started. (sorry for the late reply 
wanted to realy test stuff before replying).

The thing we do diffrent now is not uploading/collaborate before step 5. 
The reason behind this is that creating an automatic RVT from a IFC by linking it also works fine offline.

In our testst it showed that this saved time with:
1/ not having to upload  original IFC to BIM 360

2/ not losing time when your trying to link from the BIM 360 (with me it sometimes takes a long time 
opening the path finder and vice versa with navigating trough it when using external content 
(hope pathfinder is the correct term))
3/ Revit does not have to upload the automaticly created  ****.ifc.rvt (and other files like the log) to the cloud
4/ Opening this automaticly created project is faster from the local server than from BIM 360

The diffrence in time may seem marginal, but with big industrial projects it is worth it to do the first steps offline,

So the current workflow we use now and works the " fastest " for us is:

1/ On local server in the project map create a folder IFC to RVT

2/ Save IFC in this folder 

3/ Open an emty project and link the IFC's into here 

4/ Revit automatically converts the linked IFC's to ifc.rvt in the same folder. 
5/In a separte Revit sesion open the RVT created in step 4.

6/Collaborate this rvt model to BIM360 ( we use a seperate folder for example "IFC to RVT"
, because in my tests the links wouldn't show up when placed the same folder as the main model).
7/Open the main model (host) and link the collabrotated ifc.rvt's from external resources 
8/ Setup the publishing set (and make sure there is a 3D view in this set  in our test we had problems with links not showing up when there was no 3D view in the published set even when the order (step 1-7 was followed)

9/ Publish model

A note to Autodesk: 
Fix your stuff or at least make comprehensive/understandable tutorials for stuff like this.
After years of using Archicad in my study time it is a real bummer to work with Revit,
sadly our local field is Revit dominated and it would cost to much to re-eduacte our older collegeges
. (and i am not talking about not having enough knowledge about Revit, 
i am talking about restrictions mostly because of the category system.)

Again thanks for the reply !!!
it was way better then the solutions that autodesk has on there multiple websites.
Wich are in many ways confusing.

[r.waandersEF3FP]

Nice to hear @benschilders  and thank you for your follow up since we all can learn from that.

There's another way to go with this, since it does takes time to load in the ifc's in a project. You can't do this in batch and it needs to be done one by one  so it will need your continuous attention. And you can only go on with number 2 if number 1 is finished loading. So I tried the following and this worked even quicker.

I had to convert 12 IFC's to RVT's yesterday. I opened Revit2019 12 times. Went to the first Revit version, file>open>ifc and opened ifc 1. While it was loading, I switched to Revit 2, opened ifc 2 and so on. When I was finished opening 12, 1 was already loaded. Go to 1, save as rvt, collaborate, done. Go to 2. And so on. It took me only 2 hours to convert 12 IFC's, convert them to RVT and have them collaborated. Those were giant IFC's of almost 1Gb, they ended as a 30Mb RVT. Link those with external resources in your main model and you're done even quicker.

[benschilders]

@r.waandersEF3FP 

Deffinitly gonna try the open IFC method instead of linking it to create a RVT. (1Gb to 30MB is astonishing)

Do you use the IFC add in from Autodesk, just curious ? 
OFFTOPIC:
Also if you are working with Archicad partners i really recommend the Graphisoft IFC export extension.
It helps with making the IFC more compatible when imported in Archicad for your partners.

The method of opening more than one Revit session is the same method i use it really helps speeding up the process,
instead of waiting your'e stil working and the process keeps running, even better when you use the empty spare pc (if the company has un used pc's, we have because of a dismissal, so thats the way i do it.)

Keep u the postive vibes and togheter we might get the best out of the Autodesk products 👌