@Amber_OSL@Clayton
I think it is important that WikiHouse provide good quality resources, to help make the process from design, via manufacturing, to construction as smooth as possible. From what I could see from examining several design-kits, they are in a bad shape. The SKP file seems good at first, but the parts are laden with unnecessary hidden geometry (high poly), some sides have protrusions, some curves have a low number of segments, and I am not sure that all the parts would always fit together in real life. The Blender (240MB+) and IFC (300MB+) files seems even worse. The DXF files on GitHub seems good, though.
I suspect this is the result of poor implementations of export algorithms, maybe through several import/export steps. It might not be so bad, if you only care about putting blocks together for a design. But if you want to base the CNC milling on the same model, then it’s bad.
I find it good that WikiHouse focuses on 2D DXF files. It is always possible to revert back to these. And I see the challenge of keeping several 3D designs in sync with revisions of the base designs. But it would also be a potential in finding continuous and smooth workflows from 3D model to finished builds. At least in Sketchup, a remake of the components from the DXF files is quite feasible, and should result in a design-kit with better quality than the current file.
Maybe further development of the Wikihouse build configurator will render fiddling with components in different software mote. But I think the approaches could also co-exist.
I examined the SKP and IFC design-kits with Sketchup, and the Blender kit with blender. Do you use the Autocad kit for Fusion 360? I suspect the Autocad kit to be of better quality, because the DXF files in the repository looks fine.
Hi @towi Thanks for the feedback. We want to keep the 3D block models as useable in as many CAD platforms as possible. We model the original Skylark blocks in Rhino 3D, and use this to export into different file formats. The Autocad DWG format seems to be cleanest, but unfortunately despite trying different export methods some data loss does occur between Rhino and Sketchup, and particularly in IFC and blender. I hope we can resolve some of the Sketchup meshing issues with the upcoming 0.2.2 release but currently the best platforms are Autodesk or Rhino.
Frustratingly there better interoperability isn’t between various 3D tools, which is a long standing issue in the industry. We’re also considering data platforms like Speckle for block models to make it easier for superusers like yourself, but none of these are perfect and seamless yet.
Thanks for your answer, @Clayton . It sad that it doesn’t suffice to model something once. With the advanced state of technology we have, it shouldn’t still be a problem to pass geometric data between different software. Maybe Rhino could be tested against DAE and GLTF formats?
The polygon count for the SKP-kit was well above 2 million, if I remember correctly. The DWG-kit imported to Sketchup did indeed seem better, but it too had about 1.3 million polygons and protrusions and dents in the mesh. In contrast, even if the library has 1000 individual parts (I think it must be less), one should come a long way with say 100,000-200,000 polygons in their definitions.
I am curious if a rework of the 3D blocks in native IFC through BlenderBIM or FreeCAD (both use IfcOpenshell as an engine) could provide for a more solid and interoparable 3D library. Parametric models is another thing that would have been nice, for instance to account for slight variations in sheet material thickness, and maybe even for different loads and span lengths.