BlenderBIM Support

[zoomer]

I am a big fan of BlenderBIM.
It is a great add on and it feels like it has better and true IFC support than most
commercial App.

And as it creates/works with an IFC file, it pretty much all there. You can upload
IFCs into Speckle.

But if I imagine you could just stream your Blender file with all Blender info to Speckle,
but also have all BlenderBIM IFC features,
that would be the icing on the cake.

As Speckle is mainly oriented on the AEC industry, I think beside as much commercial
BIM/GIS App’s info lossless exchange, lossless IFC support and 3D App’s Render
information and final lossless Exchange would be great.

[jonathon]

Thanks @zoomer great insights as ever. There’s always more we could improve and having Community test (a lot) and break (not too much) things is how that will happen.

—-

Slightly off topic

I would offer one caveat - we explicitly do not claim for lossless data exchange, a subtle but important distinction. IFC data or Revit data connected to Rhino or Unreal or Excel with Speckle is a high fidelity representation, but limited by the transformation’s possible.

Speckle Connectors

Does speckle result in data loss/ Can I roundtrip with speckle?

Hi @grub - thanks for the praise! We have a bit of a different philosophy here, that comes from way back during my research at UCL, where Speckle was born long time ago. The long story short: communication is a social process, and it’s always lossy. Information and data are imbued with meaning when interpreted - and the act of interpretation necessarily means processing it into something the recipient can understand based on their context. Hence, information, when communicated, is mutable - it…

[zoomer]

@jonathon

we explicitly do not claim for lossless data exchange, a subtle but important distinction.

Interesting.
That was new to me.
Not that I would have really expected or hoped for a lossless 2 way exchange,
but I read it for the first time so explicitly.

As I have only one Speckle supported App, Blender, which is even not yet active
part of my workflow, and IFC, which works already so well with BlenderBIM
directly, I was not yet able to test what is possible and where the limits are.

That is why I am still doing hard to really get what the real Speckle workflow is.
But your links helped a bit.

As I am a one man show and also in lack of lossless exchange with my clients,
I usually have only a one way only exchange.
I get files, have to import and clean up, use as much as possible and still need
to redraw some parts. I do my work in my Software and usually do not have
to export it back to the other side.
If there are changes and updates later I get newer source files, that usually
needs redrawing on my side.
So lots of double work which is a pity.

So I try to imagine how larger architectural offices, that may design in Rhino but
finally plan in Revit, do such a collaboration in house.

I do get the Collaboration - outside of the data - in a form like IFC was meant.
Every one can have access to all other’s geometry and data as an underlay and
contributes his own work to a global master BIM file
So all can see the whole thing and discus, coordinate, …
But it is not meant to touch others data.

@jonathon

Share what is relevant, focused and useful. Receive, in turn, what you choose (encouraging collaborators to share in kind)

This sounds interesting and reasonable.
As even a perfect lossless IFC 3D BIM Import will still not be an ideal 3D Model for my
Visualization purposes. I have lots of overhead that I do not need and which slows down,
which I think is where Speckle could help to separate and organize Data I want to really
receive.

So my main problem starts to try to understand what happens when you load other’s
data in to work with and adapt that data for your needs.
Or just when you overlay that data with your information.
Where do the Synchronization features end and where do the Limits start.

@Lossless vs. Lossy

Unity doesn’t know what a “wall” or “beam” is - and that’s perfectly fine, as it’s a game engine, not a drafting tool! Nevertheless, when receiving data coming from Revit inside Unity, Speckle performs a lossy conversion: instead of walls, you will see its display representation (3d data) and metadata.

In this case I would have guessed,
Speckle collects all data and information of an objects in its databank
Revit down streaming with Revit Connectors will only stream information that Revit can
read and use, Unreal connector down streaming will only stream information that Unreal
can read and use. But Speckle still keeps all data ?
This way I do not see a problem with loss if one or both do edits and stream it up to
Speckle server.

When I get a Revit BIM and stream it into Blender,
and I will even not even touch that geometry,
but enhance Materials, add Cameras and Lights …
What will happen if the Revit file gets updated at one point ?
(some new walls and slabs, some of them edited, maybe material assignments changed, …)

What of my Blender work could be unsafe ?
Will the new Walls with the same Revit concrete Material also use the previously extended
Concrete Material in Blender or just come in again with a Revit Concrete ?
Will the Blender UVW’s corrupt when a Wall was shortent in Revit ?

So for me, that denied intention of a total lossless exchange approach,
if it would exist, would make it much easier to understand Speckle.

[jonathon]

Lossy doesn’t mean crappy; it is a high-fidelity version.