IFC as a database

Various experiments of IFC as a database

See the docs for a more in-depth exploration of how the EdgeDB schema currently is being used.

EdgeDB (EdgeIO)

The following pattern for EdgeDB allows you to roundtrip your IFC file

import pathlib
from ifcdb import EdgeIO

ifc_path = pathlib.Path("files/tessellated-item.ifc")

with EdgeIO(db_schema_dir="db/dbschema", database_name="testdb") as io:
    io.create_schema_from_ifc_file(ifc_path=ifc_path)
    io.setup_database(delete_existing_migrations=True)
    io.insert_ifc(ifc_path)
    # Do all kinds of query experiments here

    # When you are done just read the entire EdgeDB IFC content into an IFC file str using ifcopenshell like this
    res = io.to_ifc_file(f"temp/{ifc_path.stem}-roundtripped.ifc")

Resources

This repo was created as a result from a discussion here -> IfcOpenShell/IfcOpenShell#2025.

Here are some relevant resources I came across when I was searching online

• https://technical.buildingsmart.org/standards/ifc/ifc-schema-specifications/
• https://github.com/buildingSMART/IFC4.3.x-development
• https://github.com/gsimon75/IFC_parser
• https://rdflib.readthedocs.io/en/stable/intro_to_parsing.html [for reading TTL IFC from the IfcOWL project]