IFC 2x4 - Early Details

The next version of IFC (IFC 2x4) is currently available as an alpha spec review.

Quick details (courtesy of IAI Tech International):

• The IFC 2x edition 4 release is available now. The buildingSMART community is strongly encouraged to review the current alpha release and to provide feedback using the MSG issue resolution database. The deadline for comments is 20.08.2008.

  The IFC 2x edition 4 release (IFC2x4), combines a number of feature increases with some major rework and improvements of the existing IFC specification. It has been developed as the next basis for IFC enabled interoperability of Building Information Models. It is also intended that the IFC2x4 release will be submitted to the International Standardization Organization (ISO) for approval as a full International Standard ISO16739.

The spec is available for download here: http://ifc.buildingsmart.com

Note: You will need to register for free to be able to download the file and provide feedback. It looks like new registrations are currently down and should be back up soon.

Get Smart - With a new version of Maxwell Render v1.7

Next Limit announces the upcoming v1.7 release of Maxwell Render. Hot on the heels of v1.6 released 7 months ago, existing customers will get a notification in the next few days, the general public will get access within the following week.

Still looking for the list of new and improved features. In the meantime you can always watch these clips featuring Maxwell tests here or a clip of another Maxwell....

For anyone interested, the title is loosely connected to the movie and tv show where the lead character is called Maxwell Smart. ;)

Browse 3d Images with Firefox

Firefox users now have a new add-in, PicLens, that turns your browser into a 3d Screen for viewing web images. Billed as an interactive 3D Wall, this definately gives you another way to work with the multitude of image platforms out there via a search request (Google, Yahoo, SmugMug, Flickr, Photobucket, DeviantArt, Friendster, Facebook, MySpace, and more...).

This works for the Mac and Windows platform and has been an interesting way to work with images over the past 2 days. Thanks to Shannon for pointing this one out to me. :)

Work with SketchUp and IFC together

If your a SketchUp user listen up; you can now take an IFC file and import into your SketchUp model.

Joe passed this along earlier to me and it shows a proof of concept (free beta available) that allows you to take an IFC file and import the geometry and data (ex. Revit parameter information) into SketchUp. This plug-in (available here) was created by Secom and distributed by Cadalog, Inc.

Sounds interesting for the small niche of folks who need to go this direction (BIM to SKP) and I am in the process of downloading now to test with. More later...

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Update 1
There are two sample files you can download to work with from the site above:

• SmallerBuildingIFC2x3.ifc - 558kb file created with ArchiCAD 10.00 release 1 using IFC2x3 schema
• TOFU2.0_2x3_simplefied.ifc - 1.22mb created with ArchiCAD 11.00 release 1 using IFC2x3 schema

On my testing machine I only had the free download of Google SketchUp available and was pleasantly surprised that you can import the IFC file via plug-in with this version as well.

There seems to be overlapping geometry (not reversed faces) in many spots but the entire model comes in as groups (for the objects).

CES TV mischief - Video

Have you ever wanted to turn off multiple TV's at once, maybe for a bit of mischief/pranking or even a "real" life need (and I keep drawing a blank on what that could be). Well the Gizmodo crew did just that at CES:


In browsing the web this morning I ran across video from CES showing just such a scenario courtesty of Gizmodo here. For those who may want to tinker with this device, for under $20 it can be yours here.

prank on...

Developers Conference - 3ds Max, Maya

Autodesk is holding a combined 3ds Max and Maya developer conference in Scottsdale, Arizona on May 5-8, 2008. Early bird registration is now until 2/29/2008.

More details: http://area.autodesk.com/index.php/masterclass/event