Validation of quantities using IDS

Hello everyone,

I would like to know if it is possible to verify the existance of quantities in an IFC model by using IDS. If so, would the XML structure be the same as in the case of a property?

Hi Ana @aperezga, yes, you can check if quantities are present. You can even make sure they have the right measure and restrictic values (e.g. volume bigger than 0.5m3). Yes, in IDS you use the ‘property’ also for quantities.

For example:

<ids:property dataType="IFCLENGTHMEASURE" instructions="Derived width of the sign">
	<ids:propertySet>
		<ids:simpleValue>Qto_SpaceBaseQuantities</ids:simpleValue>
	</ids:propertySet>
	<ids:baseName>
		<ids:simpleValue>Width</ids:simpleValue>
	</ids:baseName>
	<ids:value>
		...
	</ids:value>
</ids:property>

(copied from this example: IDS/Development/IDS_oma.ids at ae75c9dee501aca538f44dec838516a4bbe1dbae · buildingSMART/IDS · GitHub)

Thank you so much for your answer @artur_tomczak!

@aperezga As long as a Quantity is a special type of Property (all of them are subtypes of IfcPropertySetDefinition), it makes sense that the current IDS scope also covers them as retrievable.

@daviddelven Thanks for your answer. You are right.

The thing is, I was experiencing difficulties validating quantities with IDS, so I wondered if the structure of a quantity was the same as that of a property. In the end, I realised that I was not entering the correct data type in the IDS file. For example, in the case of length, I was setting the data type to IfcQuantityLength instead of IfcLengthMeasure, which is the correct one.

2 Likes