Blocks are exported rotated to IFC

Hi guys,
I am experiencing some strange orientation and scaling bugs with blocks:
Solibri to the left, Rhino to the right. The “bushes” are a custom block that is manually scaled, rotated and positioned, so probably scaled in all kinds of directions at the same time.

Hi @Holo,
What you see in Solibri and Rhino is a model generated in Rhino? Or is a model imported in Solibri and Rhino generated with other software?

Assuming it is a Rhino model exported to IFC with VisualARQ, have you tried importing the IFC file in other viewers and see if you get the same result? Can you share the IFC file and 3dm with us so we can check it out? (visualarq@asuni.com)

Hi Francesc,
yes, it’s all made in Rhino and exported with VisualArq.

I made a sample of the problem.
The ODD thing is that these “bushes” that are rotated are coped elements that were modified with Gumball… so they are the same object as other objects that also were altered in the same way…

And when I inserted new instances of the same block and did then transformation with Gumball again then these new objects export fine… Odd to say the least.

Anyway, here is a sample file. The grouped objects are the “orignial” trouble objects.

Bushes miss aligned.3dm (1.5 MB)

Hi @Holo, thanks for the file. We will take a look and fix any possible errors in the way these blocks are being exported to IFC.

(PD: I’ve moved this conversation into this new thread.)

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@Holo,
We analyzed this problem and it seems to be a bug on Solibri side. We have spoken already to its development team and they say they it will be fixed in the next update.

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Great news! Thanks. But do you know what caused only a few to be affected? That seemed so strange to me.

I don’t really know. It has to do with the orientation and scaling of these blocks, but I don’t know the technical details.

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I’m experiencing this as well but than when reimporting the ifc into VA itself. Meaning:

  1. I created a model with several vaFurniture and vaDoor elements (both created from grasshopper files).
  2. Export the model to IFC.
  3. Import the IFC into Rhino with VA.
  4. Some of the vaFurniture and vaDoor appear either mirrored or rotated in Rhino.

So to me it appears as this is not only a Solibri problem but that in the import or exporting with VA also a bug can be found.

(I’m exporting and importing the IFC to check the IFC file before sending it to my engineers who use Revit.)

@fsalla could you please verify the procedure above?

Hi @david25,

I think these are two different issues. The Solibri bug happens with blocks that use a non-uniform transformation (scaling components X, Y, and Z are not equal), and, apparently, it doesn’t happen in VisualARQ.

The bug you describe is related to VisualARQ elements, which normally don’t use non-uniform transformation.

Can you send me the 3DM model to visualarq@asuni.com so the IFC developer can take a look?

Thanks,

Enric

Hi @enric, I have send an example to your email as requested.

Hi @David,

I tried to export the 3DM to IFC, and imported it back again, and it seems there is a problem with alignments. Door rotation seems correct:

Original 3DM:
image

Reimported IFC:
image

I’ll report this bug to the IFC developer.

Thanks,

Enric

@david25

Sorry @David, the message was for @david25.

Enric

The mirrored bug I wasn’t able to reperform in a new file jet. Thanks for looking at the alignment bug!

Hi @david25, we have fixed this issue in VisualARQ 2.9 version. VisualARQ 2 - Version 2.9 released (for Rhino 5, 6 and 7)

Thanks @fsalla!

I’m having similar problems here.

If I export my model to .ifc with VA and open it with Rhino everything is fine.
But I did a double check with Revit and there is half of my blocks mirrored.


Blocks in Rhino


Blocks in Revit - half of it mirrored

If I explode the blocks before export they are all fine.

I must admit, that to create all of the blocks, I only generated a quater and mirrored them to fill the whole roof.

Hi @interkinactive,

Please, could you send us some more information about the problem you are having? Which Rhino and VisualARQ versions are you using?

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was just optimizing my files :slight_smile:

my Rhino version: Version 7 SR13
(7.13.21348.13001, 2021-12-14)

my VA version: 2.12.0 (updated today)

block2ifc_small.3dm (128.5 KB)

Block2ifc.zip (9.5 KB)

I reduced the blocks for easy checking - still looks in revit like this:

instead of this:

Best course of action is to replace your symmetrical Rhino Blocks with non-mirrored blocks, particularly when going into Revit.

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