about classification. Depends what you have in mind. If you would like to group objects the same way as with floors but not with floors, for example all watter pipe lines or tubes of a building you could use IfcSystem. see http://www.buildingsmart-tech.org/ifc/IFC2x3/TC1/html/ifcproductextension/lexical/ifcsystem.htm
Yes, that’s the insane thing about quantities in ifc, you can make them lie! It would be cool to have a tool in FreeCAD that analyzes an IFC file and detect lies 
Mind to share your script at some point? That would certainly be a feature that commercial apps don’t have!
Also, can you share a simple file with quantities? I have seen several, but you might have one that is pretty much “standard” already…
About classification, I just meant to use those classification systems like masterformat or omniclass. Currently materials have a “Classification” slot (a string) where you can put anything you like, like “masterformat 03 03 06 23”, but the cool thing would be to have a kind of browser where you can search by text.
Masterformat is a proprietary format, so probably not doable, but I think omniclass is open and maintained by the same consortium as IFC. I’ll have a look is that data is available in a parseable form (xml, etc…) then we can try to build something..
Wow, just found this http://www.graphisoft.com/downloads/archicad/BIM_Data.html Will play a bit with it…
I had noticed since time ago… IFC Elements Manager fails on V.017
Running the Python command 'BIM_IfcElements' failed:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Users\Rafael\AppData\Roaming\FreeCAD\Mod\BIM\BimIfcElements.py", line 60, in Activated
self.ifcroles = ArchComponent.IfcRoles
'module' object has no attribute 'IfcRoles'
OS: Windows 10
Word size of OS: 64-bit
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.17.13522 (Git)
Build type: Release
Branch: releases/FreeCAD-0-17
Hash: 3bb5ff4e70c0c526f2d9dd69b1004155b2f527f2
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)
I know some of the people who had made the GuBIMClass. They’ve recently create a web https://gubimclass.org/en/
If there’s something you would like to ask tell me and I can contact them
Great! They even already have it in the same format as the link I posted above!!! https://gubimclass.org/en/descargas/
Excellent! 
Ah indeed… In 0.17 BIM elements cannot take all the possible IFC types so this tool makes no sense… I’ll disable it on pre-0.18 versions
I’m very excited about the Classification manager tool! I’ve just downloaded the 0.18.14126 version to test it. Very smart move to use ArchiCAD’s way to implement Classification System on FC.
Just a question: There’s a possibility to classify not only materials but elements too?
Congratulations for your work!
Yes that’s a question I’m thinking to as well. But there is the problem that it wouldn’t be very practical if you need to attribute manually a category for every single element of your model. The same goes for “generic” properties that you would want to, for example, add to all objects of a certain type.
We could create additional objects to store these things, but then before long your model tree will become insanely complex. There is also the problem that updating the tree is one of the slowest areas of FreeCAD, we want to be cautious in not adding unnecessary stuff there.
At the moment my “best” idea is to use materials for everything: the material data itself, but also the classification, and additional ifc properties that you would want to apply to all objects that use that material.
Of course that means that for example you will need two copies of a same material, if they have some property that is different (ex. One concrete with standard number 01 03 13 19 and another identical one with standard 01 03 13 20). So what I am implementing now is the ability for materials to inherit: You would have one concrete material, and two other materials that have the concrete as parent, and then just specify the standard number. All other properties would be inherited from the parent material.
But maybe the best of the two worlds would be, even so, to let individual objects override the standard classification. So you would be able to use the above mechanism, but override for single objects if needed. How does that sound?
As a first step I think that attribute manually a category for each element could work. As it works when you asign an IFCRole in The IFC Elements Manager.
I would find a something very useful that in the classification manager UI you could switch between elements or materials to classify.
In fact, one of the methods to classify elements in Revit is via Keynotes, and you do it manually.
The thing is that some Classification systems are used to explain the functions or simply to classify more specifically each element. Imaging that you are on stage that you don’t have defined the materials (during Design Development) but you want/need to classify.
Where I’m from if you want to work for some of the public adminsitration you have to do it in a BIM way. That means that the deliberable it’s an IFC and among other things it has to be classified in a particular way.
How it’s now in FC is great because I could make any classification in a xml file and work with it. Image an architectural Studio that it has his own way name the things internally. It would be really simple to do it with FC.
What do you thing?
Yes I agree that each BIM object needs the possibility to have its own class. Later on we see how to manage all this efficiently.
I have implemented that yesterday, they now all have a “StandardCode” property. At the moment youcan just set that property manually to anything you want, but I’m adapting the classification tool in BIM WB to work with that as well.
Today I saw a new update of the BIM Workbench with a new copy button and I was wondering… isn’t it a bit confuse so many copy options? Especially when they are present in the same WB
Crt-C / Crt-V
Move (with copy option)
Copy (new)
Create simple copy
Clone
Utility > Clone component
Some of them have a different outlet: Crt-C/Crt-V creates a parametric copy. Copy creates a nonparametric object…
It is necessary a guide to explain the differences between all of them…
Don’t forget this is all experimental, so the more options the better, at the moment.The copy tool is exactly the move with copy mode on. Just an experiment to see if it isn’t better, but since it’s there i’ve been using it surprisingly a lot…
But I agree with you there should be an explanation somewhere of the different copy modes available…
Yea. But I notice that if you use the new copy tool, when you switch to Arch Move tool, the copy mode of this panel is ticked on. So I have to tick it off each time during moving operations.
You have Draft option “Global copy mode” turned on probably. I know all this is not well documented enough…
Hi Yorik I encounter a problem in the Classification Manager, It doesn’t load the XML (at least in my computer), I solved this by changing the presetdir to:
presetdir = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), "Classification")
and preset :
preset = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), "Classification",system+".xml")
I don’t know if this will affect the behaviour of the tool.
It’s like that already… Maybe you are using an older version? The BIM WB changes often 
Thanks Yorik, I’m using addon manager, maybe I need to delete and download BIM WB again. 
You can update via the addon manager, just press the install/update button
I might be doing something wrong, I did that and had the same problem, I went to GitHub - yorikvanhavre/BIM_Workbench: A BIM Workbench for FreeCAD and check the BimClassification.py and in the line 87 you have:
presetdir = os.path.join(FreeCAD.getUserAppDataDir(),"BIM","Classification")
when it should be:
presetdir = os.path.join(FreeCAD.getUserAppDataDir(),"Mod","BIM","Classification")
The same goes for preset. I downloaded a wrong version