Looking at a model¶

Properties¶

Click an element to select it, in a 3D view or a plan or section. Its properties replace the view's at the bottom of the left panel:

• IFC class, name and GlobalId (selectable, so you can copy it);
• storey and material, with the material's family;
• number of triangles and volume, in m³.

Esc, or ← View properties, clears the selection.

In a .bimble model, the same panel lets you change the element: see Editing a model.

Selecting several elements¶

Hold Ctrl (Cmd on macOS) and click to add an element to the selection, or take it out. A plain click selects one element again. The properties show the element clicked first.

Hide and isolate¶

Select one or more elements, then use View → Visibility or right-click on the view:

What is hidden is always said in the status bar: For now: 3 hidden × (its × shows them again) and, for the view, Hidden: 2 elements, 4 isolated × (its × shows everything in the view).

Section box¶

The section box is for 3D views; plans and sections are cut by their view range instead. The section box (B) shows only what is inside a box. Solids it cuts show their cut face, so you can see inside walls, slabs and columns.

• View → Section box, or press B. The box starts around the selected element, or around everything visible when nothing is selected.
• Drag the arrows on its faces to move them. A face follows the mouse whatever the view.
• Box to selection fits the box around the selected element, with a small margin. Box to visible, shown when nothing is selected, fits it around everything visible.
• B again switches the box off and the model comes back whole. The box is kept for the next time.

The same box can be used from the command line: bimble render model.ifc out.png --clip x0,y0,z0,x1,y1,z1 (model coordinates in mm).

Measuring¶

Measure (M) takes dimensions on the model: two clicks make one dimension.

1. Model → Measure, or press M.

2. Move over the model. The point snaps to what is under the cursor, in this order:

   • a corner within 10 pixels;
   • an edge within 8 pixels;
   • otherwise the face.

   Corners and edges hidden behind something are ignored. 3. Click the first point, then the second. Esc drops a first point you don't want.

   • Hold Shift for the second point to stay on the X, Y or Z axis through the first, the one it is nearest to (as Revit's Shift and AutoCAD's Ortho).
   • Hold Alt (Option on macOS) to measure to the face under the cursor, without snapping to corners and edges.

In a plan or a section, the points also snap to the corners and lines of the view's reference plans.

Each dimension is listed under Measurements in the model navigator with:

• the distance;
• its ΔX, ΔY and ΔZ;
• when both points lie on parallel faces, the distance between the faces, measured square to them. That gives a slab's thickness or the gap between two walls, wherever you click on them.

x deletes one dimension, Clear all deletes them all. Measurements last as long as the model is open: they aren't saved in the file yet.

Warnings¶

Problems found while reading a file are listed under Warnings at the bottom of the model navigator. A typical one: an opening that couldn't be cut because a wall's geometry isn't a closed solid. The element is then drawn uncut.

Share for viewing¶

File → Share for viewing… (.bimbleview) writes a file for someone who only wants to look at the model: a client, a site manager, a colleague on a small laptop or in a browser. It holds what the viewer shows (the elements with their class, name, storey, material and shape, the storeys and grid axes), compressed, with each repeated shape stored once. It opens without reading the IFC: much faster and in much less memory. It is read-only. It leaves out property sets and quantities, types, views, sheets, schedules, annotations, reference plans, linked models and the history (Bimble says so when it saves one, and on what you select in one); families are as imported, not as your standards move them.

Open it like any model: Open…, drop it on the window, bimble view model.bimbleview, or in the browser version. From the command line:

bimble pack model.ifc model.bimbleview      # also from a .bimble model

It isn't offered while only part of a model is shown (below): it would look like the whole.

Models too large for the machine¶

Before opening a file, Bimble estimates the memory it needs. When that is more than the memory setting allows (80 % of the computer's memory by default; 4 GB in a browser), it asks what to show first: pick by storey, IFC class or material, tick the ones to show, and it says how much memory they need and whether that fits. Show the chosen part opens only that; Show all of it anyway opens everything.

On the desktop, IFC files of 5 GB and more open on a machine with the memory for them. Large models stay smooth while you move around them: what is smallest on screen is left out while the view moves, at the rate set in Settings, and the still view is whole.