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buildingSMART / NextGen-IFC

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Support for referencing other files via STEP anchors and references #9

Open theoryshaw opened 4 years ago

theoryshaw commented 4 years ago

Could any of the concepts outlined in the following issue play a role in NextGen-IFC? https://github.com/IfcOpenShell/IfcOpenShell/issues/668

TLiebich commented 4 years ago

This is part of ISO 10303-21:2016 - the third edition of STEP physical file structure. It also includes direct support of UTF-8 that takes away the need to encode any non ASCII character.

To me, it would definitely be worth considering for future versions of IFC, if those, providing IFC toolboxes upgrade as well.

alainroche commented 4 years ago

Support for referencing other files does not mean support for a specific element within a referenced file. ISO 10303-21:2016 is required only for referencing a specific element in an external file.

Especially in case we want to split an IFC file into one structure IFC file referencing other IFC files for each piece of geometry. For that purpose, it is possible to do something like the STEP AP214 External Reference mechanism enabling referencing an external file as a whole. see https://www.cax-if.de/documents/rec_prac_ext_ref_v21.pdf