Greetings,
I am currently building a custom electric symbol library and their associated datagroup items and I encountered several problems while trying to import 3D models into the electric library. I will present the problems encountered and list of suggestions and imo useful improvements.
I could successfully import a model RFA geometry in my cells library, however when I tried to import the cell in the Symbol Manager it fails to import the model.
I finally found the solution but it requires to "drop" the RFA cell geometry into simpler elements, however this method requires a lot of steps to import in the elctrical symbol manager:
- import the RFA geometry in the cells library
- drop the geometry
- place the cell (from the cells library) in the drawing
- import the cell in the symbol manager
For an architectural modelling, importing RFA models is not a problem, because AECOsim has a good RFA importer module, however the electric engineer cannot import the models this way, in order to use the electrical tools, all the models must be stored in the electrical database.
If we could import an RFA cell into the symbol manager it would be way easier to import an electric item in the symbol manager. In fact, the manufacturers produce their BIM models in the RFA format and, sometimes, in the IFC format.
The same thing happens with IFC models, sometimes an IFC cell can be successfully imported, in the symbol manager, with no need to "drop" the geometry, but dropping is the most reliable way to import a model and be sure it will be correctly placed by the electrical tools.
Also for the IFC format I would suggest to create an importer module similar to the RFA importer, in order to directly import manufacturer's models in the datagroup catalog.