Archicad and CYPECAD: Taking Your BIM Model into Structural Analysis

The first session in a series of three devoted to the connection between Archicad and the CYPE applications. The thread here is structural analysis: how information leaves the architectural model, how it travels in IFC and how it is recovered in CYPECAD as the starting point for the calculation. Taking part are Joana Alsasua, of SIMBIM, and Pablo Gilabert and Antonio González, of CYPE Ingenieros. The first part concentrates on the preparatory work inside Archicad. Before exporting, it is worth deciding what information a structural calculation actually needs and filtering the model accordingly, saving specific views that make it possible to repeat the operation throughout the project. A custom IFC translator is then configured: duplicating one of the predefined ones, choosing IFC 4 and the Design Transfer View model view definition, reviewing the mapping of classifications and properties, treating hierarchical elements as a single element and setting the units. The closing recommendation is to export from the publisher and check the result in a viewer before sending it. The second part is delivered by the CYPE colleagues on BIMserver.center, the platform through which their applications exchange information. It covers how a project is created, how a collaborator is invited with a given role and how the Archicad IFC is uploaded with the IFC Uploader tool, since the platform works through communication between applications rather than direct file upload. A local synchroniser keeps the team's folder and the information in the cloud aligned. From there, CYPECAD connects to the platform and reads the information relevant to the calculation. The import assistant makes it possible to choose storeys, map column types, keep the slab outlines and convert wall types into line loads. On the imported model, the session shows how to snap to the outlines, introduce beams, define panels and return the structure to the project. The session ends with Open BIM Model Checker: filtering by model, storey and category, manual creation of issues linked to entities and to their authors, and clash detection between two models. At the time of the recording the presenters describe the exchange between Archicad and the platform as a manual process. The questions block covers level changes between storeys, what happens when a column is moved in the architectural model, how to return the structure to Archicad and the known limits of interoperability.