Editing Appearance of Imported IFC Reference

[Will M]

I'm currently of aware of two ways to import IFC building geometry:

 

1. direct import of the IFC as a reference
2. importing the IFC into another Vectorworks file, then creating a design layer viewport for the Vectorworks file containing the IFC

 

The advantage of #2 seems to be that I can easily go in and edit the appearance of the IFC - making sure the glazing has an appropriate glass texture and adding other materials or colors for renderings for example. To do this, I'm following Tod McCurdy's workflow from the "When it has to be BIM" webinar where he drills down and edits the appearance of 3D symbols by adding a texture. Option #1 is more convenient in my mind, but other than editing the imported classes I don't seem to have much ability to adjust the rendered appearance of an IFC. Am I wrong about that? Is option #2 the preferred way to go for this? And, most importantly, if I have to update the reference, does it undo the work I did to adjust the appearance?

 

Thanks!

[zoomer]

2 hours ago, Will M said:

I'm following Tod McCurdy's workflow from the "When it has to be BIM" webinar where he drills down and edits the appearance of 3D symbols by adding a texture.

 

 

Have to look at it again.

 

Little Off Topic but my problem with IFCs always was that I found no way to control the IFC

content to look like I want - even when just importing and editing in file.

VW and even more in Bricscad imports.

 

Because the IFC imports are just not that organized by VW "Classes"

(and no VW "Layers" of course).

In an Autodesk standard App like Bricscad mostly any block content is on None Layer

or assigned "by Block" and Materials imported but not assigned.

And especially VW IFC Exports tend to have different Materials for Glass in Windows

vs Curtain Walls vs other Curtain Walls although all use the same Class and Assignments.

After import, some "Glass" is transparent, others not.

And generally with VW putting all IFC elements into redundant IFC Containers and heavy

additional hierarchical grouping, it is a nightmare and unrealistic to control the IFC

appearance without large manual ungrouping and reorganizing.

 

 

Back to your question,

I personally did not "reference" my IFC sources for updates so far at all !

I do a first import, rework everything for my VW standard, maybe even redrawing again

by VW PIOs. And try to adapt my VW PIOs or add new ones with the next design iteration

in that VW working file. By referencing newer IFC imports as an underlay.

 

That has to do with the complexity of my projects, which I can no more reasonably edit

when not 100% CAD optimized. Therefore I can't afford things like "scaled" Symbols

losing their "instancing" and coming back in as n-times individual Symbol/Block duplicates

and such things.

This makes View Navigation and Editing stall for me.

 

 

BTW,

I am not totally sure about when exactly :

2 hours ago, Will M said:

And, most importantly, if I have to update the reference, does it undo the work I did to adjust the appearance?

Or not ...