Tekla Developer Awards 2019: IFC Rebar Converter

Developed by

Osvaldo Mariani, Gianni Lanzillo, and Giorgio De Lorenzi, Harpaceas Srl.

Description

The developed application, at the moment in advanced Beta phase, permits the conversion of IFC rebars in native TS rebars, keeping also rebar groups.

The application is intended at the moment for

• all the users of the A&D Software ModeSt (as far as it concerns the A&D workflow)
• for all the TS users (regarding the conversion of rebars contained in an IFC exported from TS).

The application is considered "private" since we're trying to speed up the tool in A&D workflow and we need to finalize some minor aspect of the tool itself.
In short time (approx mid november) it will be published in Tekla Warehouse and we'll update also our A&D link between TS and ModeSt in order to transfer TS Guids to ModeSt and receive new guids from parts created in ModeSt.

We're also working to generalize as much as possible the tool in order to minimize our requirements regarding IFC rebar description and, therefore, extend the potential users of this tool also to other A&D softwares capable of exporting IFC containing rebars.

Problem that app solves

This application covers a gap between an A&D software capable of describing rebar spatial position and the Structural BIM Authoring software Tekla Structures. By means of a neutral IFC file and our tool, the A&D user (actually ModeSt user) is now able to transfer all the supported rebars from ModeSt to TS as native rebars, keeping also the rebar grouping and continue working in TS without remodeling all the rebars from scratch, saving a lot of time.

Moreover, the application is capable of converting an IFC exported from Tekla Structures (but it must contain assemblies) back in a new TS model or in an existing TS model. The requirement is, obviously, to convert the IFC parts in TS parts using the proper TS function. Again, the key fact for the customer is that he can convert rebars without recreating everyhing from scratch.

Feedback

At the moment the application is in advanced Beta phase but the tests done so far by our team gave really positive results (as you can see by the videos) both in conversion of IFC files exported by ModeSt and those exported from Tekla Structures.

We produced a video and officially said to the customers that this tool will arrive in a near future. Here are the links:
https://harpaceas.it/32948-2/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=94&v=noQ1t4iyAkY

We're thinking about the creation of an MVD in order to declare our requirements related to the exported IFC. Probably it will come in a mid-term future.

At the moment we're focusing in speed up the A&D workflow process time and in overcome some of the actual limitations which were out of scope for the first release (e.g. no circular reinforcement, no 2D meshes as real meshes [2 rebar layers crossing each other are covered], tapered rebars)

About the development project

This R&D project took 5 months, working averagely some hours per week.

The team project is composed by

• MEng. Osvaldo Mariani (BIM Development Center coordinator and principal investigator);
• Gianni Lanzillo (Developer)
• Geom. Giorgio De Lorenzi (Senior member of TS Support Team)

About the company - Harpaceas Srl

Harpaceas' activity, exclusive reseller of Tekla Structures for the Italian market, in the early life was oriented on providing information technology solutions for analysis and design, but quickly evolved and expanded into the sectors of architectural design and civil and geotechnical engineering, as well as into plant design (MEP), infrastructure design, project collaboration and facility management.

Harpaceas is the first Italian BIM Expert and we have been offering our software customization service according to customer needs for several years. Finally, our offer includes also all the services for the BIM implementation.