FreeCAD BIM weekly update 3

Hi all!

Following with our third weekly update, showing what I have been doing this week with FreeCAD, specifically on the BIM and NativeIFC fronts. Sorry for the lack of update last week, I happen to have had caught Covid and I decided to give myself a week off. But here we are, back into action:

  • NativeIFC: Save IFC as: When right-clicking an IFC project object, you now have a new "Save as" option, next to the "Save" action. When using it, you can save the attached IFC document as another file. This can be useful for example to compare the current state with the original file. After saving, you will be asked if you want this new file to become the linked IFC file of the project. commit
  • NativeIFC: Document observer: A new document observer is now in place whenever you launch FreeCAD with the NativeIFC addoninstalled. It monitors opened FreeCAD document containing IFC documents, and if any of them is saved, you will be asked if the IFC documents must be saved too (you can mark the answer as "do this always"). commit
  • NativeIFC: Late loading of coin representation: When loading an IFC file, besides "Full shape" and "Coin representation only", you can now choose "No representation". This will load the entire IFC document without rendering anything in the 3D view. This turns the loading of huge files very fast. You can still explore the document structure, and choose to render anything you need later, by right-clicking an object and choosing "Load representation". commit
  • FreeCAD: Moved BIM Layers manager to Draft: Starting to move some sensitive and well-tested features from the BIM workbench to FreeCAD, I started with the layers manager, which finally offers a decent manager to deal with your Draft layers. The new layer manager appears on theBIM and Draft toolbars, and in the Draft and Arch menus. PR
  • FreeCAD: Fixed usage of the Draft grid: The different preferences options aimed at setting the behaviour of the Draft grid were not funcionning properly, this is now solved. issue - PR

That's it for this week! As always, thanks to everybody who sponsors me on Patreon, LiberaPay or GitHub!