Hello,
We are researching the IFC format for our uses. We are looking to plan buildings with repeating storeys - for example storeys 2-8 in a certain building are exactly the same - same rooms, wall positions etc.
Does the IFC standard have a way to represent this, or would we have to have an internal format that exports to IFC by duplicating the information for each building storey?
Hi!
Every object occurrence in IFC (space, wall, door, etc) must be unique with a unique UUID (which should stay consistent between each export).
It is possible to reuse the geometry of the objects (see IfcMappedItem). And object types can be used to deduplicate properties of similar objects. But the object occurrences themselves need to be “duplicated”.
From a BIM perspective, I would not call this duplication. They represent different rooms in the real world that should be individually identifiable also in the BIM.
Regards,
Knut Helland
@noamgat your question is already raised as an issue here: References, Insertion blocks, typical floors · Issue #61 · buildingSMART/NextGen-IFC · GitHub
It is quite a tricky problem to solve, and no workaround / quick fix currently exists. Nuances such as those mentioned from @Helland about different spatial rooms need to be considered.
So - yes, a problem, no solution yet, and the solution will probably take some time to appear.
Thank you very much for the detailed answers!