Quick start

To get the most out of the IFC Engine Viewer without reading the complete help documentation, just try the following steps and learn the functionality by using the tool.

- Open an IFC file with this tool (all basic windows functionality to open a file is supported).

- Optional: open a schema file for this IFC file (got the wrong schema file? No problem: you can apply an unlimited number of other schemas. Even depending entities can be loaded separately!).

- Use F1 to view the objects found in the IFC file in the structure provided by the IFC file (mostly the structure used in the original CAD system) in an end user friendly way.

- Browse through the tree in the left pane and look at the content in the right pane.

- Use F2 (default) to view the objects found in the IFC file by type in an end user friendly way.

- Browse through the tree in the left pane and look at the content in the right pane.

- Use F3 to view the objects found in the IFC file backward, this is the technical view with all exact structures, values and schema relations as defined in the IFC file. Children are objects that reference the parent object.

- Browse through the tree in the left pane and look at the content in the right pane.

- Use F4 to view the objects found in the IFC file forward. Similar to F3, but children are the named references named by the parent object.

- Browse through the tree in the left pane and look at the content in the right pane.

- Use CTRL-F to modify the selection of root elements to show in the left pane, try the following query to see most important functionality: “#7 cwal #2” (without brackets).

- Use CTRL-E, CTRL-A and CTRL-B to enable/disable the most important filters, other filters can be enabled/disabled using the menu.

Edit/save possibilities:

- IMPORTANT: Currently the save option is not 100% save to store all model info (concerning the prototype software, i.e. beta releases). Don’t use this option for important models yet.

- In the F1/F2 views:

o Left pane: Click twice on an item and type or change the description of this object (supported in IFC 2x and higher).

o Right lower pane: Double click the object property that should be adjusted, a dialog will popup to change the value and unit of this object property (supported in IFC 2x and higher).

- In the F3/F4 views:

o Left pane: No edits possible.

o Right lower pane: Double click the object property that should be adjusted, a dialog will popup to change the value and unit of this object property. Note: although many changes in values resulting in changes in the model will be supported, this functionality is not ready yet and can lead to some strange behaviour.

Above short list showed you the most important functionality of this tool, for specific/extended functionality read the rest of this document or send a mail to Peter Bonsma: P.Bonsma@bouw.tno.nl.

Open a file

There are three ways to open a file:

1. Execute IFC Engine Viewer and choose open in the file menu. This will allow you to select a file in a directory somewhere on your computer using the standard windows lay-out.

2. Execute IFC Engine Viewer and use the windows drag and drop technology to drag your IFC file into the IFC Engine Viewer program.

3. Attach the program IFC Engine Viewer to the extension .IFC, this will start a new instance of the program every time you double click a file with this extension, it also loads the IFC Engine Viewer with this file.

The program distinguishes between two file types:

- The data file, mostly IFC data but in general all STEP/EXPRESS based data files are accepted.

- The schema file, again mostly IFC schema’s but in general all STEP/EXPRESS based schema files are accepted. In version 1.0 the program will interpret ‘*.exp’ files as schema files and all other files as data file.

- Note, for the use of the 3D capabilities a file is needed that is compatible with one of the following IFC versions (technically it is possible to write your own mapping file and support any valid schema, but not within this free limited version):

o IFC 151

o IFC 20 LONGFORM

o IFC 2x

o IFC 2x2

o All IFC 2x(2) compatible versions.

A schema file can only be applied when a data file is loaded. The parser of these schema files is very flexible:

- Several schema files can be loaded on top of each other, when an entity is defined more than once it will not

- When an argument of an entity isn’t defined yet, we will create a new empty entity.

Above functionality enables you for example to split your schema files and load them separately.

It is possible to have more than one instances of IFC Engine Viewer open at the same time (the maximum number of open versions is depending on your video card capabilities). It is also possible to open several files within one instance of IFC Engine Viewer, when a data file (IFC) is loaded the default option will remove all previous data (except some settings) and rebuild its object database for the latest selected IFC file (the user cannot override this default option in version 1.0).

The main GUI (F1/F2 views)

Short description:

1. Menu + Toolbar.

2. Left Pane, containing the objects and there basic representations.

2.1. Object types, a name can be added optionally.

2.2. Different representation types of the parent object.

2.3. Chosen color for current objects of this type. Colors are defined using 12 parameters, all can be adjusted.

3. Right Upper Pane, 3D view, Microsoft DirectX 8.0 or higher required.

3.1. When selecting an object in the left pane or by flying over an object in this 3D view the object will be highlighted (also the status bar will be updated).

4. Right Lower Pane, properties of the selected object.

4.1. Name of current object property or property set.

4.2. Description of current object property or property set.

4.3. (Adjustable) Nominal Value of current object property.

4.4. (Adjustable) Unit of current object property.

5. Status Bar, gives the object name, volume and/or area of the the object directly under the mouse in the Right Upper Pane.

The main GUI (F3/F4 views)

Short description:

1. Menu + Toolbar.

2. Left Pane, containing the exact technical objects as found in the IFC/SPFF file.

3. Right Upper Pane, 3D view, Microsoft DirectX 8.0 or higher required.

3.1. By flying over an object in this 3D view the object will be highlighted (also the status bar will be updated).

4. Right Lower Pane, arguments of the selected object and their relation to the IFC schema.

4.1. Current argument number in the selected object.

4.2. Current argument type in the selected object.

4.3. (Adjustable) current argument value in the selected object.

4.4. Name of argument in loaded IFC schema. Parent structures in schema will be placed in between.

4.5. Type of argument in loaded IFC schema.

5. Status Bar, gives the object name, volume and/or area of the the object directly under the mouse in the Right Upper Pane.

Left Pane (F1/F2 views)

This window will show you the objects with a

possible geometric representation. There are 6 types

of objects in this view:

1. Structural objects, like ‘Windows’, ‘Walls’

(F2 view) and ‘IFC structural object’

(F1 view).

2. Actual objects, like ‘Kitchen’ or ‘Kitchen

(Bruynzeel XYZ)’.

3. Several representations, like ‘Axis

(GeometricSet)’ or ‘Body (SweptSolid)’.

4. Representation parts, like ‘Polygon’ or

‘Exact square’.

Non IFC types:

5. Presentation plate, no content in current

version (meant for area representation).

6. Colors, only available in the F2 view.

All root objects are always structural objects, the difference between F1 and F2:

- F1: structure is equal to the structure of the IFC file/CAD structure.

- F2: Actual objects are structured by their types, windows by windows, doors by doors etc.

All actual objects are stand alone objects, depending on the view they are placed somewhere in the tree (the professional version allows the user to define their own structure).

The several representations can be devided in 3 groups:

- Bounding Boxes (disabled by default)

- Complex Objects

- Lines

The menu options ‘View->On Enable’ and ‘View->On Disable’ allows you to override enabling and disabling representations in the Left Pane.

Every representation can exist of one or more representation parts. These representation parts are a direct mapping from the IFC file content and follow the structure of the IFC content (except for some complex binary operations defined in IFC, they will be split up into more representation parts).

NOTE: When selected an actual object, representation or representation part, changing from view will show the same selection in this new view; i.e. when selecting a representation part in F2, changing to F4 will show the technical object structure and object representing this representation part in IFC language.

Left Pane (F3/F4 views)

This window will give you a filtered set of objects valid for a query that is user definable. The tree structure beneath this set of objects is also user definable, this can be:

- The objects where the parent object is referring to (forward)

- The objects referring to parent object (backward)

Standard the shown text will contain the express ID, the object type name and the arguments found.
Search Query (only F3/F4 view)

The Search Query is the preliminary version of the semantic API + some extra functionality to make it useful for advanced find functionality.

1. The user definable query, in version 1.0 (r1) this query can contain an unlimited set of two ways of searching for elements:

- Words, these word are the entity names as found in the (IFC) model, when the names are incomplete all entities with this specific text part somewhere in their entity name will be selected.

- Numbers, they have to start with a ‘#’.

2. This field gives the user a good view of how the Query Generator interprets the typed string. It shows the unique name when the name part has only one possible solution (within the filtered elements when the forward browsing is enabled). When a specific number is typed and this number is in the database, its entity name is displayed, the arguments are not shown because they would make the overview for the user less clear. All this functionality is done real time.

3. We distinguish between forward and backward browsing:

- Forward browsing: when a tree element is expanded, all referenced entity instances within his arguments are displayed as its children. (Exception for Filtered elements)

- Backward browsing: when a tree element is expanded, all entity instances that have a reference to the expanded entity instance will be displayed as its children. (In future version the Type Filter will also be enable for backwards browsing)

The order of your search Query elements is completely ignored, all selected elements will be displayed in order of ascending number. All previously selected instances will be disabled.