Has any of you guys any experience with BCF (BIM Collaboration Format) ? What software do you use to work with BCF ? Do you know if there are any OpenSource tools or libraries around ?
I’m involved in a project which uses http://www.bimcollab.com/ (all the BIM management is done by the Architect, I’m just the structural engineer) a internet platform to track BIM tasks which could be exchanged by BCF and I was wondering if the OpenSource world has done something in this regard already.
I’ve never worked with BCF, I don’t think there is anything ready in the open source world yet
I’d be curious to know what will be your impression of bimcollab/BCF… I recently worked on a BIM project with many people involved, it was all done with annotations on PDF sheets (online using bluebeam), and it got quickly horribly complex to track issues. I think next time I’d rather use something much more task-based (a bug tracker, basically) and do the good old way, add images showing where the issues happen
BIMserver should have some support for BCF as I remember. I am not sure about other opensource tools but many (most ?) free IFC viewers like Tekla BIMsight, Solibri,… have support for it. Personally I also don’t have a lot of experiences using it but I know it is very popular by some. I had the idea some time back that it could possible be a good GSOC project to add BCF support to FreeCAD
If some dev would ask me what is BIMCollab I would answer it is a bug tracker able to import and export issues. The format used for import and export is BCF. That’s it nothing more, no modell view nothing just a bug tracker. I will report back for sure …
In the regard of bluebeam. It is a cool tool. One would need to be a real professional in inkscape to do stuff which is really easy with bluebeam. AFAIK there is no Linux version of bluebeam. Did you run it on win or on lin with wine or … ? It is heavily used by the engineers in the office where I work.
I heavily use BIMSight at work together with FreeCAD to work with IFC. I did not know it has support for BCF Just played a bit with BIMSight and BCF. It works quite well But only BCF 1.0 is supported. What ever does mean. I need to test in conjunction with BIMColab
may be next year Fist we need the new FreeCAD Property to save all Kind of IFC Attributes.
In the regard of BIMServer and BIMSurfer and BFC. It is a way to heavy for me at the moment, but I keep an eye on it …
Just played a bit with BCFier. It really is a pitty it is done in C#. It is a small Gui to view and create BCF files. It is quite easy to use and usefull if you would like to view a BCF standalone without open a huge model. But since it is in C# it does not run on Linux which makes it not much interesting for developing.
yes it has. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIxZMK-OHuU I gave BIM Server a try but I still have some problems to get modells uploaded. I only have the sample data of Schependomlaan. I will need to spend more time on this … BTW: found this in the regard of BIMServer. I really need to get into this BIMServer. It might be usefull at work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uuw0IO-Vt7I
Ahh and they have a stand-alone BCF viewer too, but you need to register, get a key and can use it on one computer only. Mhh I’m just luckily I found BCFier …
We will use if for our project anyway. Since we are just 3 offices (architect, structural engineer, building equipment engineer) we get BIMCollab for free and will use one login for all members of each office.
Might be interesting if a normal issue tracker like mantis or something else could do the job too …
At work I regularly use (in conjunction with Architects) BIMCollab (BCF issue tracker like Mantis for software bugs but for building bugs), BIMCollabZoom viewing ifc as well as create, pull and push bcf issues to and from BIMCollab server. It is a great work flow !
Thanks, whilst thinking to test some open source solutions…
Would it be helpful and anybody here interested in leading and working on a ‘pseudo’-project and to test out some collaboration solutions available? Though understandably most peoples here have very little leisure time and tight schedule and difficult to commit like myself
I forget but there should be someone else mentioning and using some online collaboration tool earlier…
Supporting BCF format wouldn’t be a huge work, I think it would be a perfect small/medium-sized project for someone wanting to do some FreeCAD python coding, or that could even be done collectively. The way I see it, it could start more or less a plan like this:
Identify apps that support BCF, look at what functions they have
Create a set of very simple test BCF files
Create an interface to display BCF files in Qt Designer
Create a function that loads a BCF file (and an associated model if applicable), and sets the interface up
Create a function that places the FreeCAD camera at a position defined in the BCF file
This would already allow us to explore BCF files, then the rest (allow to mark/edit/delete/comment issues, allow to save a BCF file) would not be too hard to do.
Let’s start with point 1) here? We could build a list of apps with screenshots…
Just played a bit with BIMSight and BCF. It works quite well 
But only BCF 1.0 is supported. What ever does mean. I need to test in conjunction with BIMColab
