How to overcome the limitations of linked (IFC) files in your modeling application

How to overcome the limitations of linked (IFC) files in your modeling application

BCF issues use IFC identifiers that are written in every IFC component called GUID’s, which are unique. BCF stores these GUID’s in the viewpoint to select and show the corresponding components. Archicad, Tekla, and Revit all handle the linked IFC files differently, depending on the application and version.

When you use an IFC file as a link in Archicad, Tekla, or Revit, it depends on the application and the version of how it handles these GUIDs.

Archicad

In Archicad, component GUIDs in linked files are handled correctly, so it is possible to zoom in on components without additional difficulty when they are in linked models.

Revit

Components of linked models will not be displayed in Revit when you zoom to a point of view. This is because the Revit API does not support GUIDs for components that are in linked IFC files.
To remedy this problem, you can use the Section box function .



Here is an example of use:
  1. Double click on the issue to zoom to the saved viewpoint
    If one or more components are found, but not all, proceed as follows:
  2. You can click on to create a section box around all elements linked to the viewpoint.

  3. After the section box is created, the rest of the model within the section box will become visible even if they are located in linked files.

Tekla Structures

The BCF Manager for Tekla can search for components in both the main model and reference models. It is therefore possible to zoom in on components when they are not in the main model. However, be aware that searching for components in many reference models can seriously affect the performance of the Zoom to function. To avoid overwhelming the search for components, we recommend that you add only the necessary models that are affected by the problems to be solved.

Solibri, Navisworks, Simplebim & BIMcollab Zoom

Some software, such as Solibri, Navisworks, Simplebim and BIMcollab Zoom, only offer to load IFC files directly into the program. So you won't have to worry about linked files in this case.

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