Going back with the Yorik’s request about ideas for the BIM workbench, here I bring something like a Quantity Surveying Manager. I do not know much about the current functions of FreeCAD in this area. But you can consider this for inspiration.
In this link here there is how Properties are defined in IFC to specify the quantities of each element class with occurrence in all types of the same class (Qto_RoofBaseQuantities, Qto_BeamBaseQuantities, etc.).
I hope it helps
Excellent job!! This is easy to integrate with the arch schedule tool and indeed will make things much, much easier. I added your dialog to the BIM workbench already, when I have a moment I’ll add some code behind it.
You might want to think about using git/github at some point, so you could have your work credited to yourself and become an official FreeCAD developer 
A few things about Freecad Bim Developments new - may 2018:
BIM IFC Elements manager: I consider this tool with the fact that all objects can have all ifc types a great step. It will be really easy to control and check all your objects. Great Work!!
Arch Panel Waves: Another great tool. I ask myself if the wave types will grow with the time (A rectangular type would be very usefull)
Flatten Wire Option:I’ve use it and what it seems it does is put the higher level point to the same level that the lower point. It’s way to put them all to z:0 (autocad flatten)? This will be a great thing for Draftsight users who are willing to leave once for all Autocad . It’s one of the very little things that I miss and have to use it periodically.
BIM Views Managers: I thing it’s a very good tool but I don’t know the reason why works with workingplane proxies and no sections or views. I don’t thing it’s wrong, I’m simply asking if there is a thought about how workflow would be in this matter.
Regards
I just tested BimServer in my laptop. It is working fine. It is good if you put the jar file in a folder in C: with a name without gaps. Like BIMSERVER. FreeCAD has communication with BimServer but only I could upload files.
When I try to download a file from Bimserver to FreeCAD I got this:
Downloading file from Bimserver…
Unable to obtain a valid download for this revision from the BimServer
Now I do not know if this has something with it but, When you download a file using the webinterface of bimserver, you have several options of download formats and in FreeCAD panel you don’t. Maybe is this a cause?
Another thing: The uploading processes from FreeCAD weren’t complete. Windows were omitted and only walls and structure were copied to BimServer folder.
I have never seen such a profile.. Any example?
It basically takes the median point and flattens everything to it. So it works in all kinds of situations, not only in the XY plane. We could add more options of course, but then it should grow into a more complex and separate tool…
This is just a preliminary step. The new BuildingPart object I’m working on should have integrated view too, and will appear in that view too.
Yes, maybe they changed something recently. I’ll test again with your suggestion, thanks for the follow-up!
Aha, great. That would be easy to add. We need a third value besides wave length and height, the spacing between each…
I think the BIM IFC elements manager in the BIM workbench should include something to link colors for each element.
That would help to create a visual classification of parts or create an assembly sequence of the building parts for construction management (something very useful in assembly of pre-build structures).
In a BIM workflow, ideally, all elements should have a material (that might be something to add there too…). When an object has a material, the material defines the object color. So I would rather go that way…
Well yes. I just was thinking on contexts where users work with single material elements, such as steel structures industry or precast concrete industry. I have seen how they organize the classification of parts and assembly sequence using color patterns in their BIM designs.
Hmm you’re right, I have seen such models too…
in our bim models at work we use for the official ifc material property the german word “ortbeton” It means concrete on site, but in a building we have up to 10 different kind of concretes. They all have a uniqe color in the model an in the drawings, but they all are just called ortbeton (site concrete) in the ifc material property. We added another own property to distinguish, but none of the architects was ever interested in this property. They just would like to know what elements are ortbeton (site concrete). Furthermore only in our model the elements have different colors. The architect uses one color for all these concrete elements. Ahh I may should mention I’m strctural engineer and we do the concrete builfing shell, which means the form work and reinforcement drawings and models.
In any case it’s easy to obtain in FreeCAD: Either use different materials each with a different color, or use one same material with no DiffuseColor information. That way, the ShapeColor is not overridden and one can give a different color to each element.
In any case, the Ifc Elements manager seems a good place to check that all objects have the correct material attributed, and do bulk changes.
The individual Shape color, however, has nothing to do with BIM itself I would think… And it is easy to change in the properties window for a group of selected objects (which can be obtained from the Bim elements manager too), so it seems to me that is sufficient…
Yeah thats the cool thing on FreeCAD compared to standard propriatary CAD, one can make and export the models the the user would like to have it and not the way the CAD software vendor would like to have it! 
Hi! When I try to change the 3D view background color on the BIM Setup dialog it doesn’t work. On Report view it appears this:
Running the Python command ‘BIM_Setup’ failed:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “C:\Users\CABE\AppData\Roaming\FreeCAD\Mod\BIM\BimSetup.py”, line 152, in Activated
tdimstyle = [3,0,2][dimstyle] # TechDraw has different order than Draft
list index out of range
OS: Windows 7
Word size of OS: 64-bit
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.18.14016 (Git)
Build type: Release
Branch: master
Hash: 5f63f9f23f10640b613cd894ed529eaf69a04aec
Python version: 2.7.14
Qt version: 4.8.7
Coin version: 4.0.0a
OCC version: 7.2.0
Locale: Catalan/Spain (ca_ES)
By the way, there’s a lot of good new stuff!
About building part: It can’t be hide/unhide with the space bar (like groups or elements). Is there a reason?
The IFC elements manager is very useful and I’ve been trying the IFC property sets and it seems very promising! Is there some classification system manager in mind?
I’ve had some problems when I export to IFC with elements that have materials (They don`t appear), but I’ll do some more tests.
I’ve seen that the wall properties have been relocated at the end meanwhile the base properties are at the begining. While working I found having placement and normal next to each other a good thing (but may be I just have to get used to).
I hope it helps!
Yes. I can confirm this in Version: 0.18.14090 (Git)
Containers like Floor, BuildingPart, ArchBuilding can’t be hidden with space bar.
In v0.17 it is working fine.
OS: Windows 10
Word size of OS: 64-bit
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.18.14090 (Git)
Build type: Release
Branch: master
Hash: a7c8a4677f480f8733e700c3bd2cabc579e3e061
Python version: 2.7.14
Qt version: 4.8.7
Coin version: 4.0.0a
OCC version: 7.2.0
Locale: English/Australia (en_AU)
Both issues (BIM setup screen + Visibility on/off of BuildingParts) should be solved now.
About materials in the BIM elements manager, I don’t know, attach a file that shows the problem and I’ll have a look.
About properties, next step wold be to automatically handle “common” properties sets such as Pset_Beam_Common that (should) be applied to all beams objects.
But I find that in most cases unnecessary, you have 200 beams in a file, if each of them has 6 “common” properties, that’s 1200 lines to say nothing useful. I’d rather try to find some organic way to add just the properties we need. Not sure yet how to do that.
There are two more features that I want to add too: Quantities and Classifications. The same way that you can add “IfcRelDefineByProperties” to objects, to attach properties to it, you can add an “IfcRelDefinesByQuantities” where you can add custom measurements to an object, such as length, height, area, volume, etc… The big problem in IFC is that you can “lie”, ie. say something in those quantities that doesn’t reflect in the actual geometry. But that’s another story.
These are useful for apps that don’t use the geometry (spreadsheets, etc), so they can still know some dimensions of an object.
For classifications, we should use this: http://www.buildingsmart-tech.org/ifc/IFC2x3/TC1/html/ifcexternalreferenceresource/lexical/ifcclassification.htm The problem, AFAICS, is that you add classification info to an IFC file, but I didn’t find any way to bind these classes to objects? 
Even revit exports an IfcClassification, but it’s just floating inside the file, and not connected to any object.
At the moment in FreeCAD you can define a class in materials. I’m thinking it could be a good idea to use materials for everything that is common to more than one object: Material itself, but also common sets of properties, and maybe classification too… Then we would also need materials to be able to inherit from another material. That way, you could for example define a general concrete to be used in the whole building, then a concrete only for columns, which derives from the general concrete, but just changes the classification, for example
Lots of cost planing software in switzerland start to support ifc and calculating cost with a ifc model. The surprising thing is they do use the quantitiess from ifc file to calculate the masses! I started to do some cost calculations in FreeCAD with python but used masses from my Python and FreeCAD. For test purposes I compared the volumes with the volumes in quantities and found differences in some cases. But thats another story. Just wanted to say quantities in ifc will be importend in the future at least in switzerland for sure.
Bernd
