Errors when testing json2ifc

[mickey58github]

I'm trying to run json2ifc with a simple json test file, to convert it to ifc. I get an error:

json2ifc.py", line 28, in <module>
    ifc_json = ifcjson.JSON2IFC(jsonFilePath)
AttributeError: module 'ifcjson' has no attribute 'JSON2IFC'

Is conversion from json to ifc supported at this point? I read "round-tripping is supported", therefore my question....

[janbrouwer]

For now the main focus has been on IFC SPF to ifcJSON, roundtripping should work but it's not activated by default due to an additional dependency on pandas. Can you try again while uncommenting the JSON2IFC line in: https://github.com/buildingSMART/ifcJSON/blob/master/file_converters/ifcjson/__init__.py

[mickey58github]

Thanks, Jan, for responding late at night in Europe: I tried your suggestion, but indeed get a pandas related error:

python json2ifc.py -i myFirstTestModel.json -o myFirstTestModelRoundTripped.ifc
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\--\Documents\GitHub\ifcJSON\file_converters\json2ifc.py", line 11, in <module>
    import ifcjson
  File "C:\Users\...\Documents\GitHub\ifcJSON\file_converters\ifcjson\__init__.py", line 4, in <module>
    from ifcjson.to_ifcopenshell import JSON2IFC
  File "C:\Users\...\Documents\GitHub\ifcJSON\file_converters\ifcjson\to_ifcopenshell.py", line 2, in <module>
    import pandas as pd
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'pandas'

Can this be resolved somehow? I'm more experienced in Node and JS, not in Python, so my questions may sound a bit strange ;-)

[janbrouwer]

Yes, fixing that should be easy. Just:

pip install pandas

or

conda install pandas

[mickey58github]

I did this from my Conda shell:

conda activate ifcjson
conda install pandas

Which tells me it installed pandas successfully...but strangely, I get the same error when executing "python json2ifc ...". This might be due to my unusual"split" setup:

• I have a working Conda environment at c:\users.....conda\envs\ifcjson, where I installed pandas. I can issue "python import pandas" successfully from there.
• But due to my initial install problems, I have ifcjson at a separate path, at c:\users...Documents\GitHub\ifcJson - from there I run "python ifc2json/json2ifc...".

Not sure how to get these 2 unified somehow....

Update: I ran an additional "pip install pandas" from c:\users...Documents\GitHub\ifcJson,, which was successful. Now I can run "python json2ifc...", but get a different error, a bit further down:

python json2ifc.py -i myFirstTestModel.json -o myFirstTestModelRoundTripped.ifc
Not a valid ifcJson file
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\...\Documents\GitHub\ifcJSON\file_converters\json2ifc.py", line 29, in <module>
    ifc_model = ifc_json.ifcModel()
  File "C:\Users\...\Documents\GitHub\ifcJSON\file_converters\ifcjson\to_ifcopenshell.py", line 150, in ifcModel
    return self.model
AttributeError: 'JSON2IFC' object has no attribute 'model'

Further details:

• myFirstTestModel.json is is a json file generated earlier by ifc2json. It starts with ["type": "ifcJSON-5a", ... } . The original ifc input file for it was a simple copy of the UT_GeoRef_1.ifc sample (4.3) included in the package. Since I got an error message "...has no attribute 'inverse'", when running ifc2json with the default -v 4.3 against this ifc file at the first time, I then ran ifc2json -v 5a - which successfully created this myFirstTestModel.json file - which is now the input to json2ifc in the other direction,
• myFirstTestModelRoundTripped.ifc does not exist yet when issuing json2ifc, I assumed it will be created freshly.

[mickey58github]

@janbrouwer : Any chance to review the above problem with the backward conversion from json to ifc?

[janbrouwer]

I'm sorry, it's been a busy week! The round-trip currently only only works with "official" IFC schema versions that are recognized by ifcopenshell. The IFC5a version is the "forward looking" idea by the ifcJSON team, nothing official and currently with limited use. Can you give it a try with ifc2json set to version 4?