About once a year, I have to import and convert an IFC file in Rhino. MKS Beam seems to be not for MacOS. When I convert the IFC file online to 3dm, I end up with a mesh on a single layer that’s almost impossible to separate and sort. Is there a way for someone without deeper knowledge with IFC? Thanks for any help.
Have you tried ggRhinoIFC plugin? It is available for Mac within package manager.
I’ve ended up hacking a series of scripts relying on various LLMs using IfcOpenShell.
I’m away from my work machine, but the basic idea is this: I use IfcConvert to get a STEP file from the IFC file, then extract properties from the IFC to various CSVs, which I use to write information to key-value pairs, depending on what I need (basic element properties, building material-level properties, etc.). You can also sort the imported STEP objects to maintain representation layers or use the materials as the organisation logic.
You can assign running the script to an alias (e.g. IfcImport) and voilá - you have a customized IFC importer which can run on both macOS and Windows.
The other route is using a dedicated plugin as @jonm suggested, which is a lot more straightforward and helps you maintain the IFC schema. Keep in mind, that my approach is currently a one way street, IFC goes in and that’s it.
In general I would find it helpful if a basic IFC workflow would be possible in Rhino without plugins.
Is this something to be considered by McNeel?
I’m probably late to the party, and also away from my mac but there’s also ifcHopperShell for gh. I wouldn’t say there is a ton of learning curve if you only want to import and author some IFC files. Imports directly in rhino as mesh.
I just read through your solutions and installed the plugin — that sounds great — and I’ve also just sent you a license request. Thank you very much!
Great. I’ve been working on IFC import for Rhino for 16 years, and there are all sorts of edge cases etc (I am still working on improvements and expect to do so for some time yet). If the IFC file is straight forward, IfcOpenShell might be sufficient if you have the time and experience to get it working. I would expect the resultant quality of our import should be superior (light weight extrusions and nurbs polysurfaces), the processing time should be faster, and if you do encounter issues, I will look at improving the plugin if sample files can be shared.
For out of the box import, you can see the status is a wish with no planned work at this point in time. Wish - Rhino IFC import - export : RH-52747 This was listed 7 years ago, and I haven’t heard any plans to work on this.
… It works absolutely great—I’m really impressed! Thanks!