BIM models are uploaded directly through the browser window

Features & Ideas
1

BIM models are uploaded directly through the browser window without the need to open the plug-in through the BIM desktop software, so that users who do not have Revit or other BIM software installed can use Speckle as a model viewer after receiving a model file.

2

This is possible for IFC models.

3

Yes, IFC and some 3D formats support this approach, and there are actually paths to one-click online publishing for Revit formats as well.

4

Hey @Liu_Weijia ,

Thank you for your suggestion. Speckle is open-source and all of our code is available in our GitHub repository. However, most of the BIM file formats are closed, which means that in order to support uploads for those files, we would need to either reverse engineer their file format or use a proprietary service for the conversion. Unfortunately, we do not have the resources to reverse-engineer any file formats at this time. Additionally, if we were to use a proprietary service, our server would no longer be fully open. Therefore, we cannot currently support closed file formats.

We understand that this is an important issue, and we have it on our radar. That’s why we have IFC support on our web platform. I hope this gives you a better understanding of our decision.

5

Not only this,
there are even formats like 3DSMax or Vectorworks that do not
really save data and geometries but also tool instructions and
the geometry will be created on the fly in the App when the file
is opened.
So even reverse engineering the file format would not help,
you would still need the App.

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6

Thank you for your reply, I can understand what you mean, it is true that it is difficult to do this for some formats that are not open source, and the format parsing and conversion cannot be achieved without the environment of the host program. But I would like to explain the path I envisioned, using Revit as an example: first implement the deployment of the Revit environment on the server side as well as the deployment of the Speckle converter, and when the model file is sent to the server, call the conversion service to complete the conversion. This path does not involve serialization or deserialization of the file format itself, but only changes the way the host program (Revit) is deployed.

7

Using the source applications comes with needing live licences (or ODA subscriptions) - somewhat at odds with open-source and free hosting.

Your described need is valid; however, supporting anything this would have repercussions.

1 Like