Can not map IFC Material properties

[arquitextonica]

Hi Everyone!
I´m trying to map the material description property of our material resources into the IFC Material field.
The problem is that whatever I do, I only get the "Resource name" into the IFC Field.
I know the expression I´m using "works" because I mapped the material description into the IFC Tag field and it got what I wanted, but I don't see why I can overwrite the Material field.
Using the resuource name is a no-go, because it has our internal coding and this is not suitable for all the other project agents.
Any help would be really appreciated.

[Mihail Rizov]

Hi @arquitextonica,

From your post, it is unclear what kind of objects you're using (plug-in objects, custom objects, custom geometry, symbols,...).

Please, send us a very simple file and an explanation what is your goal.

 

Regards,

Mihail Rizov

[arquitextonica]

Test_MaterialBeschreibungen.ifcTest_MaterialBeschreibungen_Schalen.ifcTest_MaterialBeschreibungen.vwxThe files are from the german version, but show the problematic.

I build the walls and slabs with "layers" and these have their proper material. Materials have in turn a description.
I map the description into a databank, and assign this databank to the walls and/or slabs.
In turn I map the material description to the IFC Material-name property of the corresponding objects, using the datamanager.
I select the objects and when I go to "data/material" the description appears in VW as correctly assigned.
Thing is that when I export the IFC 2x3 with or without element-decomposition, the name of the material is NOT the material description (Beschreibungñ in the images) BUT the original material name from the "asset".
I made some other silly attempts like mapping a "concatenation" of these descriptions into the element description and it DOES work, so the problem seems to be that the IFC mapping of the asset-name can not be overridden by the data manager.

 

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[arquitextonica]

Anyone? I had the feeling this could be a critical issue...

[elepp]

Hi,

 

sadly my experience with questions regarding ifc and the data manager has been less then stellar in the international forum. Somehow it's not a big topic.  Our german forum is more active in those topics. Maybe because OpenBIM is more important in the DACH region.

 

Cheers,

 

elepp (pappadam1984)

[Mihail Rizov]

Hi @arquitextonica,

"Material" is a quasi-pset that was introduced to allow the user to define materials for objects that do not have a proper material management. During the export, it is converted to material instances and relationships in IFC. (Later, the other purpose was Data Tag/Data Visualization usage)

So, it is ignored for objects that have material assignment UI, like walls/slabs/roofs/columns/structural members.

 

Regards,

Mihail Rizov

[arquitextonica]

Hi @Mihail Rizov... I don't understand your point. It is not acknowledging the process as a problem. The thing is I can not override the Material properties of a "material enabled" object. Though I can extract the data (material descriptions of each layer) and map it elsewere.
If the material pset is "locked" and only gets the asset-name, I find it cumbersome and problematic because the asset naming is an internal convention and should not be locked to a property that is indeed visible in the IFC output.

[Mihail Rizov]

Hi @arquitextonica,

 

There is something that is not very clear, it seems to me you're trying to workaround something else.

Please, explain me the reason why the user will model a wall with exact materials - this is why all packages have a library of materials with all data/physical properties/etc. - and after that will want to override the properties of the material. If it is something different - the user should create another material with the desired data.

So, simply my question is - why do you need to replace the original materials?

(The name of the material is not just a text - it is unique. BTW, in IFC material assignment is not a property - it consists of material instances (material/material list/material layers/material constituents), auxiliary instances and relationships between them.)

 

Regards,

Mihail Rizov

[arquitextonica]

The material IFC dependencies were not known to me, but are a good goal to aim to.
My complaint ist as follows:
1. that I can not override something. There should not be a user-constraint in any case, even less in terms of information mapping. There are many other cases in which assignments can be overriden and that the material name can not be is an incoherence.

2. "Material Name" in vectorworks is an "asset" name, it can/should/does respond to internal office naming conventions, and THEREFORE should be suitable to be mapped (as i.e. is the case of the layers structure). Therefore I tried to address the "conventional-at-the-construction-site" naming in the "description" field.