Custom Search IFC records

[WhoCanDo]

Hi, I can't get the following custom search to work to find this IFC record object. Any suggestions please?

 

[Antonio Landsberger]

Hi @WhoCanDo,

have you tried writing

'Tekla Bolt.Bolt Name'

instead?

[WhoCanDo]

No luck. 'Tekla Bolt.Bolt Name' didn't work either.

 

The record 'Tekla Bolt' does exist with the field line 'Bolt Name' but this record is not attached to the object.

 

I'm trying to select the Bolt Name from the ifc record.

 

Any other ideas?

[Pat Stanford]

Can you attach a sample file with an instance of the Tekla Bolt with the IFC record attached? Or tell me a simple way to create a file with this object type so I can see what is happening?

 

[WhoCanDo]

Thanks Pat, I knew you'd enjoy the challenge.

 

The attached drawing (vw2020 because it wouldn't import in vw2019) has one of the components from an imported .ifc drawing from our client.

 

After importing the vary complex drawing, I wanted to move various components to other layers so I could work with them.

 

I found that I couldn't "Custom Selection" "Field Value" "Tekla Bolt" "Bolt Name".

 

This maybe because, even though these categories list in "Custom Selection", if you look at the Object Info, it's actually a sub-catagory of ifcMechanicalFastener, which is ignored by "Custom Selection".

 

What do you think?

Untitled1.vwx

[Antonio Landsberger]

I believe I have a solution for you.

 

Use SelectObj with the criteria (IFC_ENTITY='IfcMechanicalFastener') to get all IFC entities that even could have the field "Tekla Bolt".

Then make a loop to go through all selected objects using IFC_GetPsetProp to check for the value of "Tekla Bolt".

 

[WhoCanDo]

Thanks Antonio,

 

I'll have a go using your suggestion, but unfortunately I don't have the time at the moment.

 

Without the time to do this, I resorted to the inbuilt search option that doesn't work for me, even though the list of ifc records are listed. Maybe this is a bug that needs to be reported or maybe I'm using it incorrectly.

 

Regards

[Pat Stanford]

First the background.

 

The Vectorworks IFC implementation uses Record Formats to generate IFC PSets which are basically pulled into the IFC record. This effectively give an extremely extensible record format, but also makes it 'interesting' to get at that IFC Data programmatically. In a worksheet you can use the GetIFCProperty function to tell the worksheet what IFC Pset and Field (Property) to return. But there is no way to use an IFC PSet Property as part of a criteria.  This should be submitted as a Wish/Enhancement request. Or at the very least be able to tell if a given Pset is part of the IFC record.

 

So the following script will select every object in a drawing that has an IFC Type of "IFCMechanicalFastener" AND has a non-blank 'Tekla Bolt'.'Bolt Name' as part of the IFC record. This could be relatively easily adapted to other IFC object types, PSets, and properties by editing the string constants in the script.

 

Procedure SelectByIFCProperty;

{December 13, 2019}
{© 2019 Patrick Stanford pat@coviana.com}
{Licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License}

{Selects all objects that are defined as IFCMechanicalFastener }
{and have an IFCPSet of Tekla Bolt with a non-blank Bolt Name attached.}

{Here be dragons. No Warranty Expressed or Implied. Use at your own risk}

Var
	B1:Boolean;
	S1,S2,S3,S4:String;
	N1:Integer;
	
Procedure Execute(H1:Handle);
		Begin
			B1:=IFC_GetPSetProp(H1,S3,S4,S2,N1);
			If ((B1=True) & (S2<>'')) then SetSelect(H1);
		End;
Begin
	
	S1:='Tekla Bolt.Bolt Name';
	S3:=Substring(S1,'.',1);
	S4:=Substring(S1,'.',2);
	
	DSelectAll;
	ForEachObject(Execute,((IFC_ENTITY='IfcMechanicalFastener')));
End;

Run(SelectByIFCProperty);
	

 

[WhoCanDo]

After all this time, I still can't get a reliable search happening.

 

This code supposes this hierarchy ..

 

IfcMechanicalFastener

    Tekla Bolt

        Bolt Name

 

and it works well.

 

However, I have a client that sent me an IFC file with this hierarchy ..

 

IfcMechanicalFastener

    IfcMechanicalFastener

        Bolt Name

 

and it doesn't work when I try and find the Bolt Name.

 

Can someone suggest a reason please ?

 

 

Procedure SelectByIFCProperty;

{December 13, 2019}
{© 2019 Patrick Stanford pat@coviana.com}
{Licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License}

{Selects all objects that are defined as IFCMechanicalFastener }
{and have an IFCPSet of Tekla Bolt with a non-blank Bolt Name attached.}

{Here be dragons. No Warranty Expressed or Implied. Use at your own risk}

Var
	B1:Boolean;
	S1,S2,S3,S4:String;
	N1:Integer;
	
Procedure Execute(H1:Handle);
		Begin
			B1:=IFC_GetPSetProp(H1,S3,S4,S2,N1);
			If ((B1=True) & (S2<>'')) then SetSelect(H1);
		End;
Begin
	
	S1:='Tekla Bolt.Bolt Name';
	S3:=Substring(S1,'.',1);
	S4:=Substring(S1,'.',2);
	
	DSelectAll;
	ForEachObject(Execute,((IFC_ENTITY='IfcMechanicalFastener')));
End;

Run(SelectByIFCProperty);

 

 

[Pat Stanford]

Try changing the S1 line to:

 

S1:='IFCMechanicalFastener.Bolt Name';