Projects and files

This chapter describes how a project is created, opened, saved and exchanged with other programs, its settings and the options of BIMopen itself.

Creating a project

application menu ➤ New ➤ Project… opens New project:

• Template file: BIMopen's default template, or the one set in Options ➤ File Locations; a template file chosen with Browse…; or None, which starts from two levels and one type of each kind.
• Create new: Project or Project Template.

A project made from a template has everything the template had: types, settings, views, sheets, project information and print settings. Saving it asks for a name, so the template is not overwritten.

Templates

A template is a .bimtpl file. application menu ➤ Save As ➤ Template… saves the open project as a template; a project created as a Project Template, or a template opened, is saved as a template too.

Opening a project

Ctrl+O, application menu ➤ Open… or Open on the quick access toolbar opens a project. application menu ➤ Recent Documents lists the latest projects, the most recent first; a pin keeps a project in the list. Without a file, BIMopen starts on Recent Files, with the recent projects, Open…, New and the Sample project (unless Enable Recent Files page at startup is unticked in the options). Dropping a project file on the window opens it too.

A project already open in another BIMopen window opens read-only: Save asks for a new name. If BIMopen stopped without saving (a crash, a power cut), opening the project again brings the unsaved work back as unsaved changes.

Saving

Ctrl+S, or Save on the quick access toolbar, saves the project; until then the file stays as it was last saved, and the title bar shows an asterisk. application menu ➤ Save As ➤ Project… writes it to a new file and goes on there.

Save As ➤ Options… opens File Save Options: Maximum backups keeps that many earlier versions beside the file (house.0001.bimopen, house.0002.bimopen…), deleting the oldest; Compact file rewrites the file without its obsolete parts at the next save.

When a changed project stays unsaved for the interval set in Options ➤ General (Save reminder interval, 30 minutes to start with), Save Reminder offers to save it, not to save it, or to change the interval.

Before New, Open…, a recent document, the sample project, or closing the window, a changed project asks Save changes to …?: Yes saves it, No drops the changes, Cancel keeps it open.

In the browser, Open… uses the browser's file chooser, and Save downloads the file; backups, crash recovery and read-only opening need a file on disk and are desktop-only.

Project settings

Project information

Manage ➤ Settings ➤ Project information sets the project's name, number, client, address, issue date and status: the title blocks of every sheet show them.

Project units

Manage ➤ Settings ➤ Project units lists the quantities (length, area, volume, angle, slope and the others) with a sample of each, and the Decimal symbol/digit grouping. Format… of a quantity sets its unit, its Rounding (a number of decimals, or Custom with an Increment factor, such as 5 mm), its Unit symbol, Suppress trailing zeros, the plus sign for positive values and digit grouping.

Sun Settings

Manage ➤ Additional settings ➤ Sun Settings opens the sun settings of the active view, the same as the sun button of the view control bar (see Views and graphics).

Options

application menu ➤ Options has four tabs; the choices are kept between sessions.

Transferring project standards

Manage ➤ Settings ➤ Transfer Project Standards copies settings from another project into this one. In Select Items To Copy, choose the project with Browse… (Copy from:), then tick what to copy: the types of walls, floors, roofs, doors and windows, stairs, railings, curtain panels and mullions, line styles, filled region types, materials, fill and line patterns, line weights, object styles, view templates, filters, viewport types, title blocks, the project units, the print settings and the project information (Check all, None).

What is copied brings along what it uses: a wall type its materials, a material its patterns, a view template its filters. When names are already in the project, Duplicate Types asks whether to Overwrite them or to transfer the New Only. The whole transfer is one step of undo.

Exchanging files

Exporting to IFC

application menu ➤ Export ➤ IFC… writes the model in IFC4: walls with their axis and body, openings, doors, windows, floors, roofs, stairs, railings, curtain walls, furniture and rooms as spaces, on their storeys.

Export ➤ Options ➤ IFC Options… opens IFC Export Classes: the IFC class of each category; Not Exported leaves a category out, and Default goes back to the standard classes. The classes are kept with the project.

Opening IFC files

application menu ➤ Open ➤ IFC… makes a new project from an IFC2x3 or IFC4 file, in metres or millimetres: storeys become levels, walls are rebuilt from their axis (or from the long side of their body), slabs become floors, doors and windows go in the walls their openings cut, and spaces become rooms. The messages count what was not read.

Open ➤ IFC Options… opens Import IFC Options: what each IFC class becomes (walls, floors, doors, windows, rooms or Not Imported), and Default. The choices are kept between sessions.

Revit projects

Opening a .rvt file makes a new project from what can be read of it: levels, wall types and walls, doors and windows, floors. The messages say what was approximated.

Other exports

Printing to PDF and exporting images are described in Sheets, schedules and printing; schedules export as delimited text from the same chapter. bimopen-cli convert exports from the command line (see Command line and MCP).