Ifc4PowerBI

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<!-- PROJECT LOGO --> <br /> <div align="center"> <a href=""> <img src="https://github.com/shift-construction/ifc4PowerBI/assets/44708354/043504ab-7bbb-4511-be0d-6d2aa813c5ed" alt="Logo" height="80"> </a> <h3 align="center">IFC for PowerBI</h3> <p align="center"> Pull your IFC metadata directly into PowerBI <br /> <a href="https://github.com/github_username/repo_name">View Demo</a> · <a href="https://github.com/github_username/repo_name/issues">Report Bug</a> · <a href="https://github.com/github_username/repo_name/issues">Request Feature</a> </p> </div> </div> <!-- TABLE OF CONTENTS --> <details> <summary>Table of Contents</summary> <ol> <li> <a href="#about-the-project">About The Project</a> <ul> <li><a href="#built-with">Built With</a></li> </ul> </li> <li> <a href="#getting-started">Getting Started</a> <ul> <li><a href="#prerequisites">Prerequisites</a></li> <li><a href="#installation">Installation</a></li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="#usage">Usage</a></li> <li><a href="#roadmap">Roadmap</a></li> <li><a href="#contributing">Contributing</a></li> <li><a href="#license">License</a></li> <li><a href="#contact">Contact</a></li> <li><a href="#acknowledgments">Acknowledgments</a></li> </ol> </details> <!-- ABOUT THE PROJECT -->

About The Project

The goal of this function is to allow all the metadata from IFC files to be brought into PowerBI or Excel for analysis. By creating a function inside PowerQuery we have enabled teams to pull in multiple IFC models either locally or via an integration. As this is a function rather than a custom connector it also supports the cloud version of PowerBI, meaning dashboards can be automatically updated as and when new models arrive.

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Built With

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Getting Started

This is one example of how to get up and running, there are plenty of different way you can use the function, or even adapt it for your own requirements.

Prerequisites

Before you get to work you will need to have a basic understanding of the PowerBI or PowerQUery in Excel toolset and a copy of either one installed

Installation

1. Open up the IFC4PowerBI.pq file in notepad or your text editor of choice
2. In PowerBI or Excel create a blank query (in PowerBI it's Home > Get Data > Blank Query, in Excel Data > Get Data > From Other Sources > Blank Query
3. Right-click the Query in the query editor (often called "Query1" in new documents) and click Advanced Editor
4. Paste the contents of IFC4PowerBI.pq into the Advanced Editor and click done
5. You now have a function for opening IFC Binary files in PowerQuery, now you need to find your binaries
6. Rename the function by right-clicking it, the name of the function will be how we reference it later, so it's best to use IFC4PowerBI
7. The easiest way to do this is to locate a folder with one or many IFC files. New Source > Folder
8. Select your folder and click open. Use the PowerBI filters to filter out any files that are not required
9. Create a new column Add Column > Custom Column
10. In the formula box type IFC4PowerBI([Content]) . This assumes you named the function IFC4PowerBI and you now have a column called Content which contains Binary values
11. This will leave you with a new column consisting of a table, which you can expand to find all of the IFC metadata from your models. Make sure you delete the Content column before expanding to avoid exponential memory consumption

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Usage

Here are a few ideas to get you started. We have included a PowerBI .pbix file in the repository so that you can get started straight away, just find a folder with one or more IFC files

Assess models in your CDE for compliance

By Pulling in models directly from your CDE of choice via APIs you can automatically dashboard the results, leading to quick turn around on model sutability reviews

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Quantity Takeoff

Get your model data into Excel and use Pivot tables to understand and probe your data further

Model Progress Metrics

By extracting the data from multiple revisions of the same model you can quantify the changes that have taken place:

• Are there more elements
• Is the metadata quality improving
• Have certain elements dissapeared

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Roadmap

• [ ] Add number handling seperate to text strings
• [ ] Look for efficiencies

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Contributing

Contributions are what make the open source community such an amazing place to learn, inspire, and create. Any contributions you make are greatly appreciated.

If you have a suggestion that would make this better, please fork the repo and create a pull request. You can also simply open an issue with the tag "enhancement". Don't forget to give the project a star! Thanks again!

1. Fork the Project
2. Create your Feature Branch (git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature)
3. Commit your Changes (git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature')
4. Push to the Branch (git push origin feature/AmazingFeature)
5. Open a Pull Request

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License

Distributed under the GPL 3.0 License. See LICENSE.txt for more information.

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Contact

Matthew Osment - LinkeIn - matthew@shift-construction.com

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