[{"content":"Petr Krysl has announced pystran, an open source Python package for structural analysis. The project started as a learning tool and remains a work in progress, but it already supports a useful set of structures for experimentation, teaching, and feedback from early users.\npystran handles two-dimensional and three-dimensional structures made up of truss and beam members, springs, and rigid bodies. It includes linear statics and free vibration solvers, supports concentrated masses at joints, and has gained rigid links, general springs, tutorials, documentation, and packaging through PyPI since the original community announcement.\nThe project is intentionally clear about its current limits: only elastic models are solved, beams use a Bernoulli-Euler formulation, members are straight, member loads need to be converted to nodal forces by the user, and several advanced beam and support behaviours are not implemented yet. That makes it especially interesting as an educational and hackable codebase for engineers who want to inspect, teach, or extend structural analysis workflows in Python.\npystran is available under the MIT license and can be installed with pip install pystran.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2026/06/01/pystran-python-structural-analysis/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://community.osarch.org/discussion/2722/announcement-open-source-python-for-3d-structural-analysis\"\u003ePetr Krysl has announced pystran\u003c/a\u003e, an open source Python package for structural analysis. The project started as a learning tool and remains a work in progress, but it already supports a useful set of structures for experimentation, teaching, and feedback from early users.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"pystran brings Python-based structural analysis to trusses and beams"},{"content":"Graphisoft, Speckle, and LINK Arkitektur present a webinar on unlocking Archicad model data for use beyond the authoring tool. The session focuses on keeping data connected and structured instead of flattening it through exports that lose context.\nThe webinar covers how Archicad data can support validation, reporting, coordination, and downstream workflows when it is made available as a reusable data layer through Speckle.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/graphisoft-speckle-archicad-data-webinar/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eGraphisoft, Speckle, and LINK Arkitektur present a webinar on unlocking Archicad model data for use beyond the authoring tool. The session focuses on keeping data connected and structured instead of flattening it through exports that lose context.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Graphisoft feat Speckle webinar: Make Archicad data work everywhere with Speckle"},{"content":"Speckle\u0026rsquo;s June webinar asks what it takes to make model data credible enough for AI workflows. Murat Melek from Suffolk Construction and Ryan Haunfelder from HGA share how their teams started extracting value from BIM portfolios, including what worked, what did not, and why broad lightweight extraction can be more useful than waiting for a perfectly conditioned subset.\nThe session covers a practical framework for validating and conditioning design data from historical and active projects, with a look at how Speckle can make that process continuous, automated, and actionable.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/ai-ready-model-data-with-speckle/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eSpeckle\u0026rsquo;s June webinar asks what it takes to make model data credible enough for AI workflows. Murat Melek from Suffolk Construction and Ryan Haunfelder from HGA share how their teams started extracting value from BIM portfolios, including what worked, what did not, and why broad lightweight extraction can be more useful than waiting for a perfectly conditioned subset.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Your model data is closer to AI-ready than you think"},{"content":"Blender Conference 2026 takes place from September 23-25 at Felix Meritis in Amsterdam. BCON26 brings together Blender artists, developers, contributors, and users for three days of talks, tutorials, meetings, and community sessions across four parallel tracks.\nThe conference is a useful place to follow Blender\u0026rsquo;s development direction, production workflows, and the wider free software graphics stack. Past editions have included material relevant to architectural visualisation, geometry nodes, open pipelines, photogrammetry, scripting, USD, robotics, and procedural modelling.\nTickets are available now, and sessions are usually recorded and shared online. See the conference site for details: https://conference.blender.org/2026/\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/blender-conference-2026/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eBlender Conference 2026 takes place from September 23-25 at Felix Meritis in Amsterdam. BCON26 brings together Blender artists, developers, contributors, and users for three days of talks, tutorials, meetings, and community sessions across four parallel tracks.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blender Conference 2026"},{"content":"Xchange 2026 is buildingSMART Australasia\u0026rsquo;s annual two-day event, running June 24-25, 2026 at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). Day 1 is the openBIM with IFC Technical Seminar, with workshops covering core buildingSMART technologies and digital workflows for building and civil infrastructure projects.\nDay 2 is a full-day conference focused on digital transformation in infrastructure and the role of open standards. The program includes government infrastructure delivery updates, new and upcoming digital standards, practical open standards case studies, and industry upskilling in Digital Engineering and BIM.\nSpeakers include Will Sharp, Gavin Cairns, Raymond Miller, Quinton Cooper, Robin Drogemuller, Holger de Groot, Jon Mirtschin, Dion Moult, and others working across openBIM, infrastructure delivery, asset information, surveying, and digital engineering. More details and tickets are available on the event page: https://www.buildingsmart.org.au/xchange2026\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/buildingsmart-australasia-xchange-2026/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eXchange 2026 is buildingSMART Australasia\u0026rsquo;s annual two-day event, running June 24-25, 2026 at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). Day 1 is the openBIM with IFC Technical Seminar, with workshops covering core buildingSMART technologies and digital workflows for building and civil infrastructure projects.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"buildingSMART Australasia Xchange 2026"},{"content":"Hippo3D has its first public release as a free and open source CAD modelling plugin for Blender. The project experiments with bringing Rhino-style, command-based, and coordinate-driven modelling workflows into Blender while keeping the tools integrated with Blender\u0026rsquo;s wider ecosystem.\nThe early release includes command-line style interaction, drawing with relative and absolute coordinates, interactive viewport feedback, CAD-style modelling tools, and a CPlane-style construction plane workflow. Development is still experimental and ongoing, with availability through the official Blender Extensions platform expected to follow.\nHippo3D is published under the GPL-3.0 license and adds another option for designers exploring free and open source AEC workflows. The source code is available on GitHub.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2026/05/30/hippo3d-public-release/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://github.com/victorcalixto/Hippo3D\"\u003eHippo3D\u003c/a\u003e has its first public release as a free and open source CAD modelling plugin for Blender. The project experiments with bringing Rhino-style, command-based, and coordinate-driven modelling workflows into Blender while keeping the tools integrated with Blender\u0026rsquo;s wider ecosystem.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Hippo3D brings Rhino-style CAD workflows to Blender"},{"content":"Work is underway on Bonsai Viewer, a dedicated free software IFC viewer for model coordination and review. The gap is straightforward: there is no mature free software equivalent of Revizto, BIMcollab, Solibri, and similar coordination viewers. Bonsai Viewer aims to fill that gap, while also making it easier for others to build their own desktop, tablet, kiosk, on-site screen, or web-based IFC viewer applications on top of IfcOpenShell.\nThe project is part of a wider push to address core IfcOpenShell issues around performance, web support, TypeScript support, faster model loading, and practical viewer application scaffolding. Blender remains important for authoring, but it is not optimised as a high-speed coordination viewer; separating viewer workflows from Blender opens the door to faster model review, federation, georeferencing, and lighter deployment targets.\nEarly Bonsai Viewer builds are now available for testing on the IfcOpenShell builds website, with Linux and Windows builds already hooked into the build system. The current UI is still early, with properties and the spatial tree shown as mockups, but georeferencing support has already landed. Coming work includes macOS builds, web support, actual model data in the panels, more speedups, streaming, and continued stability and geometry correctness improvements.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2026/05/29/bonsai-viewer-is-coming/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWork is underway on \u003ca href=\"https://community.osarch.org/discussion/3386/addressing-some-core-ifcopenshell-issues/p1\"\u003eBonsai Viewer\u003c/a\u003e, a dedicated free software IFC viewer for model coordination and review. The gap is straightforward: there is no mature free software equivalent of Revizto, BIMcollab, Solibri, and similar coordination viewers. Bonsai Viewer aims to fill that gap, while also making it easier for others to build their own desktop, tablet, kiosk, on-site screen, or web-based IFC viewer applications on top of IfcOpenShell.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Bonsai Viewer is coming"},{"content":"Speckle has launched Design Explorer beta, a new widget for Speckle Intelligence dashboards that turns Grasshopper option studies into browsable and shareable comparison views. The workflow is deliberately lightweight: tag option objects in Grasshopper, attach the relevant numeric properties, publish the model to Speckle, and the dashboard discovers the options and metrics automatically.\nDesign Explorer provides a grid view with live model thumbnails, a parallel coordinates chart for comparing trade-offs across metrics, and a detail view with an isolated 3D viewer and properties for the selected option. That makes it easier to expose the whole option space to engineers, project leads, and clients without rebuilding screenshots, spreadsheets, or presentation decks each time the Grasshopper definition changes.\nThe feature is aimed at the recurring gap in computational design: generating lots of options is easy enough, but making those options legible to people outside the script is the harder part. Design Explorer beta is available now as a widget in Speckle Intelligence dashboards for teams already publishing Grasshopper models to Speckle.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2026/05/28/speckle-design-explorer-beta/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://speckle.systems/blog/design-explorer-beta-browse-compare-and-share-all-of-your-grasshopper-options-in-one-place/\"\u003eSpeckle has launched Design Explorer beta\u003c/a\u003e, a new widget for Speckle Intelligence dashboards that turns Grasshopper option studies into browsable and shareable comparison views. The workflow is deliberately lightweight: tag option objects in Grasshopper, attach the relevant numeric properties, publish the model to Speckle, and the dashboard discovers the options and metrics automatically.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Speckle launches Design Explorer beta"},{"content":"Yorik van Havre has announced LinesCAD, a new side project exploring a simpler free software BIM and 2D CAD application. The first public code is a proof-of-concept IFC viewer in a single Python file, using IfcOpenShell, Pivy/Coin3D, and PySide/Qt to open IFC files without FreeCAD\u0026rsquo;s OpenCASCADE and C++ application stack.\nThe idea is not to replace FreeCAD or Bonsai, but to test a different shape of tool: fast, lightweight, native-IFC, non-parametric except where IFC itself supports it, and closer to a traditional drawing workflow. Yorik\u0026rsquo;s project manifesto describes a 2D/3D hybrid application that can handle large models and drawings, preserve IFC as the model itself, support DXF import and export, and keep the codebase small enough for users and architects to understand and modify.\nLinesCAD is very early, but the direction is interesting because it deliberately separates the BIM/CAD editing experience from heavyweight modelling kernels and complex object structures. If the viewer and scene graph approach proves fast enough, it could open another path for native IFC workflows alongside FreeCAD, Bonsai, and other IfcOpenShell-based applications.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2026/05/15/linescad-announced/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://community.osarch.org/discussion/3456/announcing-linescad\"\u003eYorik van Havre has announced LinesCAD\u003c/a\u003e, a new side project exploring a simpler free software BIM and 2D CAD application. The first public code is a proof-of-concept IFC viewer in a single Python file, using IfcOpenShell, Pivy/Coin3D, and PySide/Qt to open IFC files without FreeCAD\u0026rsquo;s OpenCASCADE and C++ application stack.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"LinesCAD announced as a new free software BIM and CAD experiment"},{"content":"NXT BLD 2026 runs May 13-14, 2026 at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in London. The conference covers BIM 2.0, AI, digital delivery, infrastructure platforms, and software development for the built environment.\nThe strongest free and open software thread is on Day 2, NXT DEV. The program includes That Open Company, Speckle, Ara 3D, and xeokit, with sessions on open BIM data, web-based 3D model access, open SDKs, portable AEC workflows, and in-house software development using APIs, SDKs, and AI-assisted coding.\nSessions of particular interest include \u0026ldquo;Not another tool\u0026rdquo; by Antonio González Viegas of That Open Company, \u0026ldquo;The Incumbents Don\u0026rsquo;t Want You to See This\u0026rdquo; by Dimitrie Stefanescu of Speckle, \u0026ldquo;Fast, Open, Queryable BIM Data on your Own Terms\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;Portable AEC Workflows with the Open Ara 3D SDK\u0026rdquo; by Christopher Diggins of Ara 3D, and \u0026ldquo;Unlocking BIM \u0026amp; 3D Data on the Web — with xeokit\u0026rdquo; by Diyan Rashevski of CREOOX. See the event and program pages for details: https://nxtbld.com/, https://nxtbld.com/conference-program-2026-day-1/, and https://nxtbld.com/conference-program-2026-day-2/\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/nxt-bld-2026/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eNXT BLD 2026 runs May 13-14, 2026 at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in London. The conference covers BIM 2.0, AI, digital delivery, infrastructure platforms, and software development for the built environment.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe strongest free and open software thread is on Day 2, NXT DEV. The program includes That Open Company, Speckle, Ara 3D, and xeokit, with sessions on open BIM data, web-based 3D model access, open SDKs, portable AEC workflows, and in-house software development using APIs, SDKs, and AI-assisted coding.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"NXT BLD 2026"},{"content":"Speckle\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;Beyond interop\u0026rdquo; session presents design data as a portfolio-scale resource rather than a file exchange problem. The session covers enterprise data layers, reducing rework, improving delivery confidence, and using design intelligence workflows across projects.\nThe update also highlights recent Speckle capabilities including a refreshed UI, project archiving for future reference and analysis, and the general availability of model data validation workflows.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/beyond-interop-managing-design-data-at-portfolio-scale/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eSpeckle\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;Beyond interop\u0026rdquo; session presents design data as a portfolio-scale resource rather than a file exchange problem. The session covers enterprise data layers, reducing rework, improving delivery confidence, and using design intelligence workflows across projects.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Beyond interop: Managing design data at portfolio scale to drive competitive advantage"},{"content":"Speckle has introduced a new release centred on a signals-first web interface and Model Validation beta. The updated interface surfaces more workspace, project, model, issue, and integration context up front, reducing the amount of manual digging needed to understand what is happening across a project or portfolio.\nThe headline feature is Model Validation, now in public beta. It checks model data for completeness, consistency, and rule compliance, then ties those checks to model versions so teams can see whether data quality is improving or degrading over time. That makes validation useful for day-to-day coordination, but also for teams preparing model data for analytics, automation, compliance workflows, and AI.\nThe release also adds enterprise access-control improvements, including SCIM support for identity providers such as Azure AD and Okta, global token revocation, and password protection for shared model or version links. Speckle says Model Validation beta is available on all plans, including free.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2026/05/06/speckle-model-validation-beta/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://speckle.systems/blog/finally-models-that-work-for-you-speckle-model-BIM-data-validation\"\u003eSpeckle has introduced\u003c/a\u003e a new release centred on a signals-first web interface and Model Validation beta. The updated interface surfaces more workspace, project, model, issue, and integration context up front, reducing the amount of manual digging needed to understand what is happening across a project or portfolio.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Speckle introduces Model Validation beta"},{"content":"Open PDF Studio is a new free software PDF editor and annotator from the OpenAEC Foundation. Licensed under the LGPL-3.0, it targets Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android, and is built with Tauri 2, SolidJS, PDF.js, and pdf-lib. The project describes itself as a lightweight native app without subscriptions, telemetry, or bloatware.\nThe feature list is unusually relevant to project documentation workflows: text markup, drawing and shape annotations, stamps, signatures, redaction, page insertion and reordering, PDF merging, bookmarks, forms, printing, export to images, and XFDF annotation import/export. Measurement tools are also included, with distance, area, perimeter, scale calibration, and object snapping.\nOpen PDF Studio is early, but it is already packaged through GitHub releases, Snap, Debian/Ubuntu packages, AppImage, macOS DMG, Windows installer, and Android APK. If it matures, it could become a useful free software option for reviewing drawings, specifications, submittals, markups, and other PDF-heavy coordination material.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2026/05/04/open-pdf-studio-free-software-pdf-editor/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://github.com/OpenAEC-Foundation/open-pdf-studio\"\u003eOpen PDF Studio\u003c/a\u003e is a new free software PDF editor and annotator from the OpenAEC Foundation. Licensed under the LGPL-3.0, it targets Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android, and is built with Tauri 2, SolidJS, PDF.js, and pdf-lib. The project describes itself as a lightweight native app without subscriptions, telemetry, or bloatware.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Open PDF Studio brings free software PDF markup to desktop and mobile"},{"content":"FreeCAD and BRL-CAD are both participating in Google Summer of Code 2026. GSoC remains one of the more practical ways for new contributors to enter established free software projects: applicants work with mentors on scoped development projects, while the host communities get focused time on features, refactoring, documentation, testing, and tooling that can otherwise be hard to fund.\nFreeCAD\u0026rsquo;s 2026 organisation page describes the project as a cross-platform parametric CAD modeler and BIM application, with Python, C++, Qt, OpenCASCADE, and OpenInventor listed among its core technologies. Its topics include engineering, graphics, CAD, 3D, architecture, BIM, and CAM. The project ideas are collected on the FreeCAD GSoC 2026 wiki page, making this a good entry point for contributors interested in the main FreeCAD codebase and its wider ecosystem.\nThe BRL-CAD GSoC page is broader than the name suggests. It is acting as an umbrella organisation for open computer-aided technology projects, listing OpenSCAD, LibreCAD, IfcOpenShell, BRL-CAD, and Manifold in its 2026 description. For OSArch readers, that means the relevant opportunity is not only BRL-CAD itself, but also the open BIM and geometry stack around IfcOpenShell, and by extension the Bonsai ecosystem that builds on it.\nThat spread is useful: FreeCAD covers a full end-user CAD/BIM application, while the BRL-CAD umbrella covers lower-level geometry, IFC, programmable modelling, 2D CAD, and mesh processing projects. Together they give contributors several paths into free software for design and construction, from user-facing application work to core model data, geometry, and interoperability tooling.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2026/05/03/google-summer-of-code-2026-freecad-brl-cad/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/programs/2026/organizations/freecad\"\u003eFreeCAD\u003c/a\u003e and \u003ca href=\"https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/programs/2026/organizations/brl-cad\"\u003eBRL-CAD\u003c/a\u003e are both participating in Google Summer of Code 2026. GSoC remains one of the more practical ways for new contributors to enter established free software projects: applicants work with mentors on scoped development projects, while the host communities get focused time on features, refactoring, documentation, testing, and tooling that can otherwise be hard to fund.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"FreeCAD and BRL-CAD join Google Summer of Code 2026"},{"content":"The FreeCAD Project Association has opened applications for its Q2 2026 grant program. The 2026 program uses a smaller quarterly budget of 10,000 EUR, limits developers to one grant application per quarter, and is focusing more strongly on documentation, testing, release-cycle improvements, bug fixing, and permanent positions.\nThat is a useful signal about FreeCAD\u0026rsquo;s maturity. After the 1.0 and 1.1 releases, funding is not only about new features; it is also about the less glamorous work that makes a large free software CAD/BIM platform easier to maintain and trust. Applicants can read the FPA grant program details and apply through the linked GitHub process.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2026/05/01/freecad-q2-2026-grant-program/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThe \u003ca href=\"https://blog.freecad.org/2026/05/01/q2-2026-grant-program/\"\u003eFreeCAD Project Association has opened applications for its Q2 2026 grant program\u003c/a\u003e. The 2026 program uses a smaller quarterly budget of 10,000 EUR, limits developers to one grant application per quarter, and is focusing more strongly on documentation, testing, release-cycle improvements, bug fixing, and permanent positions.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"FreeCAD opens Q2 2026 grant applications"},{"content":"Louis Trümpler announced that point clouds are coming to IFClite as part of the same browser-native openBIM workflow, rather than as a separate viewer or visual overlay. The first pass includes LAS / LAZ streaming, E57 / PLY / PCD readers, Web Worker decoding, WebGPU point rendering, colour modes for RGB, classification, intensity, height, and fixed colour, plus federation-aware point picking.\nThe goal is to load an IFC model and scan data together, then inspect, select, query, and eventually automate across both. That makes the work relevant to scan-to-BIM validation, as-built versus as-designed checks, existing condition review, browser-based progress inspection, and lightweight coordination without heavy desktop software.\nA follow-up LinkedIn post teases real-time multiplayer on IFC in the browser: actual collaborative editing of the model itself, not a render stream. Together, these updates point to IFClite growing from a fast IFC viewer into a broader openBIM toolkit for browser-based model, scan, and collaboration workflows.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2026/05/01/ifclite-adds-point-cloud-and-collaboration-workflows/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/posts/louistrue_ifc-openbim-pointcloud-activity-7455865786197426176-HE2T\"\u003eLouis Trümpler announced\u003c/a\u003e that point clouds are coming to \u003ca href=\"https://ifclite.dev/\"\u003eIFClite\u003c/a\u003e as part of the same browser-native openBIM workflow, rather than as a separate viewer or visual overlay. The first pass includes LAS / LAZ streaming, E57 / PLY / PCD readers, Web Worker decoding, WebGPU point rendering, colour modes for RGB, classification, intensity, height, and fixed colour, plus federation-aware point picking.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"IFClite adds point cloud and collaboration workflows"},{"content":"The FreeCAD Project Association has launched its first community design contest, partnering with UK open science hardware company Labcrafter. The contest asks participants to design an open hardware pinch valve, with the full brief and entry process hosted on the FreeCAD forum.\nThis is a good kind of community challenge: a real technical object, useful to open science hardware projects, and well suited to FreeCAD\u0026rsquo;s parametric modelling strengths. The contest offers cash prizes of $500, $250, and $100 for the first three places, but the more interesting outcome would be reusable open hardware designs that demonstrate FreeCAD as a practical tool for scientific and fabrication communities.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2026/05/01/freecad-open-science-design-contest-2026/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThe \u003ca href=\"https://blog.freecad.org/2026/05/01/freecad-community-design-contest-2026-open-science/\"\u003eFreeCAD Project Association has launched its first community design contest\u003c/a\u003e, partnering with UK open science hardware company Labcrafter. The contest asks participants to design an open hardware pinch valve, with the full brief and entry process hosted on the \u003ca href=\"https://forum.freecad.org/viewtopic.php?t=97888\"\u003eFreeCAD forum\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"FreeCAD launches an open science design contest"},{"content":"Suffolk Technologies has announced an investment in Speckle, following Suffolk Construction\u0026rsquo;s enterprise-wide deployment of the platform as part of its data strategy. Speckle says the partnership supports the shift from siloed BIM files toward normalized, queryable design data that can feed data lakes, AI workflows, cost coding, change tracking, and cross-project intelligence.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2026/04/20/suffolk-technologies-backs-speckle/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://speckle.systems/blog/suffolk-technologies-backs-speckle-to-unlock-ai-ready-design-intelligence-across-construction/\"\u003eSuffolk Technologies has announced an investment in Speckle\u003c/a\u003e, following Suffolk Construction\u0026rsquo;s enterprise-wide deployment of the platform as part of its data strategy. Speckle says the partnership supports the shift from siloed BIM files toward normalized, queryable design data that can feed data lakes, AI workflows, cost coding, change tracking, and cross-project intelligence.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Suffolk Technologies backs Speckle"},{"content":"Bonsai v0.8.5 has been released with 962 new features and fixes. The release is described as a \u0026ldquo;line in the sand\u0026rdquo;: a compatibility and consolidation checkpoint driven partly by Blender 5.1 support, the move to Python 3.13, and a lot of structural work preparing for larger changes ahead.\nHeadline Bonsai improvements include the new BonsaiPR community build channel, a parametric gizmo system for editing doors, windows, stairs, railings and roofs, quick favourites, UI customisation, linked IFC project improvements, ifcgit workflow updates, better search, snap and polyline robustness, drawing fixes, MEP port improvements, bSDD V5 API support, and ifcsverchok additions.\nIfcOpenShell also gains a larger command line and AI tooling layer: ifcquery for interrogating IFC models, ifcedit for scripting model changes, ifcopenshell-mcp for model querying and editing through MCP, and ifcchat for AI-assisted interaction with IFC files. Under the hood there are build system upgrades, Windows ARM64 support, Pyodide WASM wheels, critical bug fixes, API cleanups, geometry improvements, and IfcConvert enhancements. Download Bonsai from bonsaibim.org and read the full release notes.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2026/04/17/bonsai-0-8-5-released/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://community.osarch.org/discussion/comment/28676/#Comment_28676\"\u003eBonsai v0.8.5\u003c/a\u003e has been released with 962 new features and fixes. The release is described as a \u0026ldquo;line in the sand\u0026rdquo;: a compatibility and consolidation checkpoint driven partly by Blender 5.1 support, the move to Python 3.13, and a lot of structural work preparing for larger changes ahead.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Bonsai 0.8.5 released"},{"content":"FreeCAD 1.1.1 has been released shortly after version 1.1.0. The FreeCAD announcement describes it as a maintenance release with a large number of small fixes, with the full release notes and changelog available from the GitHub release page.\nPoint releases matter for production use because they are where early release issues get shaken out and packaged for normal users. If you are testing FreeCAD 1.1 for project work, teaching, fabrication workflows, or BIM-adjacent modelling, 1.1.1 is the more sensible target than the initial 1.1.0 packages.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2026/04/15/freecad-1-1-1-released/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://blog.freecad.org/2026/04/15/freecad-1-1-1-released/\"\u003eFreeCAD 1.1.1 has been released\u003c/a\u003e shortly after version 1.1.0. The FreeCAD announcement describes it as a maintenance release with a large number of small fixes, with the full release notes and changelog available from the \u003ca href=\"https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/releases/tag/1.1.1\"\u003eGitHub release page\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"FreeCAD 1.1.1 released with a large set of fixes"},{"content":"That Open Platform\u0026rsquo;s Release 3.4.0, presented in the \u0026ldquo;Native 2D Drawings for BIM\u0026rdquo; event, targeted one of the harder gaps in web-based BIM: producing real technical documentation from models. The release introduced a 2D drawing system built on Fragments and That Open Engine, designed to generate plans, sections, elevations, annotations, and exports directly in the browser.\nThe event covered model-to-2D projection, multi-viewport drawings, scale control, layers, DXF and PDF export, linear and angle dimensions, leaders, labels, slopes, elevations, coordinates, reusable drawing blocks, and custom annotation systems. It also introduced Paper Space and Infinite Canvas UI components for building complete drawing production interfaces rather than one-off screenshots or viewer overlays.\nFor AEC software, drawings are not a side feature; they are still one of the main delivery formats for construction information. Bringing drawing generation and annotation into an open web engine reduces the dependence on parallel CAD workflows and makes it easier for developers to build targeted documentation tools. If the system matures, it could become a useful building block for browser-based BIM authoring, checking, and deliverable workflows.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2026/04/09/that-open-engine-3-4-native-2d-drawings/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThat Open Platform\u0026rsquo;s Release 3.4.0, presented in the \u0026ldquo;Native 2D Drawings for BIM\u0026rdquo; event, targeted one of the harder gaps in web-based BIM: producing real technical documentation from models. The release introduced a 2D drawing system built on Fragments and That Open Engine, designed to generate plans, sections, elevations, annotations, and exports directly in the browser.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"That Open Engine 3.4 brings native 2D drawings to browser-based BIM"},{"content":"That Open Platform presented Release 3.4.0 of That Open Engine, introducing native 2D drawing generation, annotation tools, and DXF/PDF export workflows for browser-based BIM applications.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/that-open-platform-release-3-4-0-native-2d-drawings/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThat Open Platform presented Release 3.4.0 of That Open Engine, introducing native 2D drawing generation, annotation tools, and DXF/PDF export workflows for browser-based BIM applications.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"That Open Platform Release 3.4.0: Native 2D Drawings for BIM"},{"content":"Speckle\u0026rsquo;s March session looks at project data quality using Speckle Intelligence, including real-time analytics, model validation rules, issue tracking, responsibilities, and project signals.\nThe session is framed around closing the loop on Revit model quality: validating models, finding problems, and giving project teams a live dashboard they can use while work is still active.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/track-project-data-quality-with-speckle-intelligence/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eSpeckle\u0026rsquo;s March session looks at project data quality using Speckle Intelligence, including real-time analytics, model validation rules, issue tracking, responsibilities, and project signals.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe session is framed around closing the loop on Revit model quality: validating models, finding problems, and giving project teams a live dashboard they can use while work is still active.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Track project data quality with Speckle Intelligence"},{"content":"FreeCAD 1.1 has been released, bringing another substantial update after the 1.0 milestone. The release includes transparent Part Design previews, interactive draggers for tools such as Fillet and Chamfer, 3 point lighting, a Clarify Selection tool, Assembly and FEM improvements, animations, and a new CAM tool library system.\nThe headline for AEC users is not a single BIM-specific feature, but continued movement toward a more comfortable general-purpose CAD platform. Better selection, previews, direct manipulation, assemblies, analysis, and CAM all matter when FreeCAD is used across design, fabrication, and engineering workflows. The full technical details are in the FreeCAD 1.1 release notes, with installers available from the FreeCAD download page.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2026/03/25/freecad-1-1-released/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://blog.freecad.org/2026/03/25/freecad-version-1-1-released/\"\u003eFreeCAD 1.1 has been released\u003c/a\u003e, bringing another substantial update after the 1.0 milestone. The release includes transparent Part Design previews, interactive draggers for tools such as Fillet and Chamfer, 3 point lighting, a Clarify Selection tool, Assembly and FEM improvements, animations, and a new CAM tool library system.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"FreeCAD 1.1 released with workflow and usability improvements"},{"content":"Olympus has been open sourced as a toolkit for building and prototyping 3D web applications for architecture, engineering, construction, and operations. The project combines a Three.js-based 3D editor, Monaco code editor, Chart.js dashboards, undo-redo, configurable UI, and an extensible addon system.\nThe toolkit includes native IFC workflows through IfcOpenShell and ifc-lite integration, with hosted examples for a reference application and an addon-based host application. The GitHub README describes three AECO modes, from a basic viewport and IFC geometry setup through to IFC editing, code editing, and Python prototyping with Pyodide.\nOlympus is aimed at reducing the repeated setup work behind custom AECO web tools, so teams can spend more time on domain-specific workflows and less time rebuilding viewers, editors, scripting panels, and dashboards. See the OSArch community announcement, GitHub repository, or try the live addon demo.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2026/03/22/olympus-aeco-web-application-toolkit-open-sourced/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://github.com/myoualid/olympus\"\u003eOlympus\u003c/a\u003e has been open sourced as a toolkit for building and prototyping 3D web applications for architecture, engineering, construction, and operations. The project combines a Three.js-based 3D editor, Monaco code editor, Chart.js dashboards, undo-redo, configurable UI, and an extensible addon system.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Olympus AECO web application toolkit open sourced"},{"content":"Blender 5.1 has been released, with the Blender Foundation describing it as a refinement-focused update for performance and stability across the production pipeline. Cycles receives faster GPU rendering on benchmark scenes, faster CPU rendering on Windows, and shading consistency fixes, while the wider release includes hundreds of bug fixes, cleanups, and refactors.\nThe release also improves animation, Grease Pencil, the Video Sequencer, modelling, UV tools, and Geometry Nodes. Notable updates include the new Bone Info node for rig-driven node setups, improved String to Curves workflows, UV Unwrap and Pack UV Islands node improvements, better Grease Pencil drawing and fill tools, and a major Vulkan performance boost for the sequencer.\nThe result is less about a single headline feature and more about smoother day-to-day work: faster rendering, cleaner playback and sequencing, stronger procedural modelling tools, and more reliable drawing and asset workflows. Read the press release and the full release notes.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2026/03/17/blender-5-1-released/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://www.blender.org/download/releases/5-1/\"\u003eBlender 5.1\u003c/a\u003e has been released, with the Blender Foundation describing it as a refinement-focused update for performance and stability across the production pipeline. Cycles receives faster GPU rendering on benchmark scenes, faster CPU rendering on Windows, and shading consistency fixes, while the wider release includes hundreds of bug fixes, cleanups, and refactors.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blender 5.1 released"},{"content":"A heads up that there is another Sydney Australia open source AEC meetup on Friday March 13, 2026, from 9am to 1pm. It is a physical meetup at Level 14, ITS Tower Three, 300 Barangaroo Ave, with lunch afterwards for those who can stay.\nBring questions, a laptop, screenshots, demos, or anything else you are working on. The agenda includes presentations from OpenBIM Pledge signatories, bSDD, software guides, geometry, shape aspects, constituent correlations, and turning requirements into IDS.\nMore details are in the OSArch community thread: https://community.osarch.org/discussion/comment/28324/#Comment_28324\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/sydney-australia-open-source-aec-meetup-5/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eA heads up that there is another Sydney Australia open source AEC meetup on Friday March 13, 2026, from 9am to 1pm. It is a physical meetup at Level 14, ITS Tower Three, 300 Barangaroo Ave, with lunch afterwards for those who can stay.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Sydney Australia open source AEC meetup #5"},{"content":"The openBIM Hackathon Porto 2026 runs from March 22-24 at the Alfândega Congress Center in Porto, in the days leading up to the buildingSMART International Summit.\nThe in-person hackathon brings together developers, engineers, BIM specialists, designers, students, and researchers for a 48-hour build using open standards such as IFC, IDS, BCF, and bSDD. Teams will work on practical challenges, build prototypes, and present results to industry leaders during the Summit week.\nThe event includes team formation, lightning pitches, hacking sessions, mentor feedback, final presentations, and a Summit presentation of the winning projects. See the OSArch community announcement and buildingSMART event page for details and registration.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/openbim-hackathon-porto-2026/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThe openBIM Hackathon Porto 2026 runs from March 22-24 at the Alfândega Congress Center in Porto, in the days leading up to the buildingSMART International Summit.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe in-person hackathon brings together developers, engineers, BIM specialists, designers, students, and researchers for a 48-hour build using open standards such as IFC, IDS, BCF, and bSDD. Teams will work on practical challenges, build prototypes, and present results to industry leaders during the Summit week.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"openBIM Hackathon Porto 2026"},{"content":"Speckle\u0026rsquo;s February session focuses on production-ready Grasshopper workflows, with techniques for preparing and optimizing models for visualization, analysis, dashboards, and downstream systems.\nThe webinar also covers a workflow for converting Rhino blocks into Revit families using Speckle, showing how structured model data can move between Rhino, Grasshopper, and Revit without manually rebuilding context.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/from-grasshopper-to-revit-workflows-with-speckle/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eSpeckle\u0026rsquo;s February session focuses on production-ready Grasshopper workflows, with techniques for preparing and optimizing models for visualization, analysis, dashboards, and downstream systems.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe webinar also covers a workflow for converting Rhino blocks into Revit families using Speckle, showing how structured model data can move between Rhino, Grasshopper, and Revit without manually rebuilding context.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"From Grasshopper to Revit workflows: Model optimization and conversion with Speckle"},{"content":"FOSDEM 2026 takes place in Brussels on January 31 and February 1, with the Open Hardware and CAD/CAM devroom running on Sunday, February 1 in room H.1309 (Van Rijn).\nThe track brings together free software and open hardware projects across CAD, CAM, electronics, geometry kernels, and fabrication workflows. The 2026 schedule includes talks on ECAD/MCAD collaboration with IDX, KiConnect, Dune 3D, LibrePCB 2.0, KiCad status, FreeCAD, OCCT 8.0, and open hardware project ecosystems.\nThe devroom runs from 09:00 to 17:00 CET. See the full schedule here: https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/track/open-hardware-and-cadcam/\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/fosdem-2026-open-hardware-and-cad-cam-devroom/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eFOSDEM 2026 takes place in Brussels on January 31 and February 1, with the Open Hardware and CAD/CAM devroom running on Sunday, February 1 in room H.1309 (Van Rijn).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe track brings together free software and open hardware projects across CAD, CAM, electronics, geometry kernels, and fabrication workflows. The 2026 schedule includes talks on ECAD/MCAD collaboration with IDX, KiConnect, Dune 3D, LibrePCB 2.0, KiCad status, FreeCAD, OCCT 8.0, and open hardware project ecosystems.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"FOSDEM 2026 Open Hardware and CAD/CAM devroom"},{"content":"Louis Trümpler announced federated loading support in IFClite, a browser-native IFC viewer and toolkit built with WebGPU and Rust/WASM. For IFC4.3 and earlier workflows, federation means loading multiple IFC models side by side with collision-safe IDs, per-model visibility, unified spatial hierarchy handling, and selection across model boundaries.\nThe larger change is IFC5 support, where layered model composition can bring separate files together into a coherent model instead of simply displaying them alongside each other. That points toward workflows where base geometry, discipline additions, and property enrichment can live in separate files while still composing into one project view.\nIFClite is open source under the MPL-2.0 license and supports IFC2X3, IFC4, IFC4X3, and IFC5, with WebGPU rendering and a small browser-delivered WASM core. See the LinkedIn announcement and the IFClite project site for more details.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2026/01/28/ifclite-adds-federated-loading-support/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/posts/louistrue_bim-openbim-ifc-activity-7422182816823635969-s16S\"\u003eLouis Trümpler announced\u003c/a\u003e federated loading support in \u003ca href=\"https://ifclite.dev/\"\u003eIFClite\u003c/a\u003e, a browser-native IFC viewer and toolkit built with WebGPU and Rust/WASM. For IFC4.3 and earlier workflows, federation means loading multiple IFC models side by side with collision-safe IDs, per-model visibility, unified spatial hierarchy handling, and selection across model boundaries.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"IFClite adds federated loading support"},{"content":"That Open Platform\u0026rsquo;s Release 3.3.0, presented as \u0026ldquo;From BIM Data to BIM Insight\u0026rdquo;, focused on making model information easier to query, visualise, and act on. Instead of sending BIM data through generic dashboard tools and custom pipelines, the release introduced chart Web Components intended to work directly in BIM applications.\nThe release covered area, bar, bubble, pie, line, polar, radar, and scatter charts, along with BIM-specific chart components for attributes, categories, IDS results, and BCF topics. The event also demonstrated filtering, highlighting, chart-to-chart linking, chart-to-table linking, asynchronous loading, and styling workflows, backed by new tutorials for applying the components in real projects.\nThis matters because a lot of openBIM work stops at access: opening a model, reading properties, or validating a file. Analytics components move the discussion toward feedback loops inside the tools themselves, where model quality, issues, compliance checks, and project signals can be exposed without leaving the application. That makes Release 3.3.0 especially relevant to teams building dashboards, QA workflows, or model intelligence tools on open web technology.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2026/01/22/that-open-engine-3-3-bim-insight/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThat Open Platform\u0026rsquo;s Release 3.3.0, presented as \u0026ldquo;From BIM Data to BIM Insight\u0026rdquo;, focused on making model information easier to query, visualise, and act on. Instead of sending BIM data through generic dashboard tools and custom pipelines, the release introduced chart Web Components intended to work directly in BIM applications.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"That Open Engine 3.3 adds BIM-ready analytics components"},{"content":"That Open Platform presented Release 3.3.0 of That Open Engine, adding BIM-ready analytics and chart components for Fragments, IDS, BCF, and project dashboard workflows.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/that-open-platform-release-3-3-0-bim-insight/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThat Open Platform presented Release 3.3.0 of That Open Engine, adding BIM-ready analytics and chart components for Fragments, IDS, BCF, and project dashboard workflows.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"That Open Platform Release 3.3.0: From BIM Data to BIM Insight"},{"content":"Speckle has announced a new hosted-service business model, scheduled to launch on February 2, 2026. The company says it is moving away from seat-based pricing toward plans based on projects and usage, arguing that counting individual users creates friction when model and project data needs to move between designers, coordinators, construction teams, project managers, and clients.\nThe announcement connects the change to Speckle\u0026rsquo;s broader shift from geometry exchange toward a shared data layer for coordination, analytics, automation, integrations, and Speckle Intelligence. Speckle says existing users are being contacted with transition details, and that Enterprise features will be made available during the transition period.\nFor free software users, the key detail is that this is a change to Speckle\u0026rsquo;s hosted commercial plans, not a withdrawal of the self-hosting option. Speckle states that its core platform components remain open source, including the server, connectors, conversion, viewer, and related infrastructure, so organisations can still run their own Speckle stack if that better matches their budget, governance, or data control requirements.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2026/01/21/speckle-announces-project-and-usage-based-plans/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://speckle.community/t/psa-new-business-model/21591\"\u003eSpeckle has announced\u003c/a\u003e a new hosted-service business model, scheduled to launch on February 2, 2026. The company says it is moving away from seat-based pricing toward plans based on projects and usage, arguing that counting individual users creates friction when model and project data needs to move between designers, coordinators, construction teams, project managers, and clients.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Speckle announces project and usage-based plans"},{"content":"Speckle has launched an Autodesk Construction Cloud integration for Enterprise customers, automatically syncing ACC model data into Speckle so teams can use it in browser-based model access, dashboards, Power BI, Speckle Intelligence, internal analytics, and automation workflows. The integration is positioned as a way to turn ACC from a file-based system of record into a live source of normalized BIM data, including historical model versions and real-time project updates.\nThat matters because common data environments often hold years of project model history that is hard to query, compare, or reuse outside the original delivery context. By bringing that data into Speckle, teams can start treating historical BIM as a structured dataset for portfolio benchmarking, design change analysis, quantity and carbon dashboards, and future AI workflows rather than as archived files.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2025/12/02/speckle-launches-autodesk-construction-cloud-integration/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://speckle.systems/blog/speckle-launches-autodesk-construction-cloud-integration/\"\u003eSpeckle has launched an Autodesk Construction Cloud integration\u003c/a\u003e for Enterprise customers, automatically syncing ACC model data into Speckle so teams can use it in browser-based model access, dashboards, Power BI, Speckle Intelligence, internal analytics, and automation workflows. The integration is positioned as a way to turn ACC from a file-based system of record into a live source of normalized BIM data, including historical model versions and real-time project updates.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Speckle launches Autodesk Construction Cloud integration"},{"content":"Bonsai v0.8.4 has been released with 1111 new features and fixes. The release brings Bonsai compatibility with Blender 5.0, which matters because Blender 5.0 is a major platform update and required compatibility work throughout the add-on.\nThe largest user-facing addition is IfcTester.org, a browser-based IDS editor and checker created by Sayan Das during Google Summer of Code. It can create and edit IDS files, load IFC models locally in the browser, and audit them as the IDS changes. Bonsai integrates the same interface so users can launch a local IDS editor against the currently loaded IFC model.\nOn the IfcOpenShell side, 0.8.4 adds early RocksDB support for handling very large IFC models using a streaming parser and .rdb serialisation, along with Pyodide wheels for easier web app deployment, Linux ARM64 builds, shared library availability, and build system upgrades. Other notable improvements include snapping upgrades, curve object support, xeokit JSON serialisation, drawing and section annotation fixes, Mac crash fixes, work schedule improvements, zone property editing, an AGS-to-IFC IfcPatch recipe, alignment authoring API work, and better linked IFC path handling. Download Bonsai from bonsaibim.org and read the full release notes.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2025/11/20/bonsai-0-8-4-released/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://community.osarch.org/discussion/comment/27144/#Comment_27144\"\u003eBonsai v0.8.4\u003c/a\u003e has been released with 1111 new features and fixes. The release brings Bonsai compatibility with Blender 5.0, which matters because Blender 5.0 is a major platform update and required compatibility work throughout the add-on.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Bonsai 0.8.4 released"},{"content":"Blender 5.0 has been released. The major headline is a redesigned color management pipeline with native wide-gamut and HDR support, including ACES 1.3 and 2.0 views, Rec.2100 PQ and HLG display support, AgX HDR, and improved image and video export for P3 and Rec.2020 workflows.\nThe release also brings a large Video Sequencer refresh, including better properties, scene handling, timing controls, HDR scopes, and a compositor modifier. Grease Pencil gains improved corner and cyclic cap handling, Geometry Nodes powers a renewed Array modifier and additional built-in modifiers, and the Blender Extensions platform now hosts more than 700 free add-ons and themes.\nThe color pipeline, viewport and asset improvements, VSE and storyboarding tools, and Geometry Nodes work are all useful in architectural visualisation, procedural modelling, documentation, and presentation workflows. Read the press release and the full release notes.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2025/11/18/blender-5-0-released/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://www.blender.org/download/releases/5-0/\"\u003eBlender 5.0\u003c/a\u003e has been released. The major headline is a redesigned color management pipeline with native wide-gamut and HDR support, including ACES 1.3 and 2.0 views, Rec.2100 PQ and HLG display support, AgX HDR, and improved image and video export for P3 and Rec.2020 workflows.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blender 5.0 released"},{"content":"That Open Platform\u0026rsquo;s Release 3.2.0, presented in the \u0026ldquo;We Opened the Models. Now We Open Modeling\u0026rdquo; event, marked a shift from web-based BIM viewing toward web-based BIM authoring. The release introduced APIs for creating, editing, and deleting model geometry and data directly in the browser, positioning That Open Engine as a foundation for openBIM applications that are not limited to inspection and coordination.\nThe core additions were the Fragments Edit API, Fragments History API, and Fragments Geometry Engine API. Together they cover model changes, traceable history, undo and redo workflows, and parametric geometry operations such as booleans, extrusions, sweeps, and 3D curves. For developers, the significance is not just a new feature set, but a lower-level toolkit for building custom modeling applications on the web.\nFor open source AEC software, this points to a broader pattern: BIM tools are moving beyond desktop clones and file viewers into domain-specific applications that can be assembled around open formats and web-native engines. That Open Platform\u0026rsquo;s framing is deliberately about ownership of both data and technology, which makes the release relevant to teams who want to build their own authoring workflows instead of waiting for closed platforms to expose them.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2025/10/23/that-open-engine-3-2-open-modeling/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThat Open Platform\u0026rsquo;s Release 3.2.0, presented in the \u0026ldquo;We Opened the Models. Now We Open Modeling\u0026rdquo; event, marked a shift from web-based BIM viewing toward web-based BIM authoring. The release introduced APIs for creating, editing, and deleting model geometry and data directly in the browser, positioning That Open Engine as a foundation for openBIM applications that are not limited to inspection and coordination.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"That Open Engine 3.2 opens up BIM modeling in the browser"},{"content":"That Open Platform presented Release 3.2.0 of That Open Engine, introducing open modeling capabilities for creating, editing, deleting, and tracking BIM model geometry and data directly in the browser.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/that-open-platform-release-3-2-0-open-modeling/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThat Open Platform presented Release 3.2.0 of That Open Engine, introducing open modeling capabilities for creating, editing, deleting, and tracking BIM model geometry and data directly in the browser.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"That Open Platform Release 3.2.0: We Opened the Models. Now We Open Modeling"},{"content":"The Blender Foundation has announced a major leadership transition. Ton Roosendaal, Blender\u0026rsquo;s founder and long-time chair and CEO, will step down from those roles on 1 January 2026. Francesco Siddi, currently Blender\u0026rsquo;s COO, will take over as executive director.\nThe change was announced during the Blender Conference 2025 keynote and comes with a new Blender Foundation board: Sergey Sharybin as Director of Development, Dalai Felinto as Director of Product, and Fiona Cohen as Director of Operations. Roosendaal will continue supporting Blender through a newly created supervisory board.\nFor AEC professionals, Blender\u0026rsquo;s governance matters because Blender is a cornerstone of the free software graphics stack used across visualisation, geometry processing, openBIM workflows, and tools such as Bonsai. A planned handover to an experienced internal team is a strong signal that the project is preparing for long-term continuity while keeping its free and open source mission intact.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2025/09/17/blender-foundation-announces-new-board-and-executive-director/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThe \u003ca href=\"https://www.blender.org/press/blender-foundation-announces-new-board-and-executive-director/\"\u003eBlender Foundation has announced\u003c/a\u003e a major leadership transition. Ton Roosendaal, Blender\u0026rsquo;s founder and long-time chair and CEO, will step down from those roles on 1 January 2026. Francesco Siddi, currently Blender\u0026rsquo;s COO, will take over as executive director.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blender Foundation announces new board and executive director"},{"content":"Blender Conference 2025 takes place from September 17-19 at Felix Meritis in Amsterdam. It is the main annual gathering for Blender artists, developers, contributors, and users, with four parallel tracks of talks, tutorials, meetings, and community sessions.\nThe 2025 schedule includes topics around geometry nodes, pipelines, USD, photogrammetry, scripting, robotics, and architectural visualisation.\nSessions are recorded and shared online. See the conference site and schedule for details: https://conference.blender.org/2025/\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/blender-conference-2025/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eBlender Conference 2025 takes place from September 17-19 at Felix Meritis in Amsterdam. It is the main annual gathering for Blender artists, developers, contributors, and users, with four parallel tracks of talks, tutorials, meetings, and community sessions.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blender Conference 2025"},{"content":"Bonsai v0.8.3 has been released with 770 new features and fixes. The release notes describe this as a polish-heavy update, with a lot of work going into bug fixes, usability, optimisation, and smaller improvements across the project.\nHeadline changes include Blender 4.5 support, an overhaul of bSDD support with multiple dictionaries and improved dictionary navigation, IFC5D improvements, array support for openings and spatial elements, editable topology representation items, Python 3.9 support across utilities, a more robust IfcSQL, and interface tools for managing IfcApplication, organisations, people, and applications.\nThe release also lands alongside growing training and community material, including Ryan Schultz\u0026rsquo;s Bonsai tutorial library, Yassine Oualid\u0026rsquo;s AECO.DEV IfcOpenShell programming course, and the launch work around BIMVoice Academy. Download Bonsai from bonsaibim.org and read the full release notes.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2025/07/13/bonsai-0-8-3-released/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://community.osarch.org/discussion/comment/25777/#Comment_25777\"\u003eBonsai v0.8.3\u003c/a\u003e has been released with 770 new features and fixes. The release notes describe this as a polish-heavy update, with a lot of work going into bug fixes, usability, optimisation, and smaller improvements across the project.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Bonsai 0.8.3 released"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s been a year since our last meetup! Let\u0026rsquo;s organise another! More details here: https://community.osarch.org/discussion/1749/sydney-australia-open-source-aec-meetup\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/sydney-australia-open-source-aec-meetup-4/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIt\u0026rsquo;s been a year since our last meetup! Let\u0026rsquo;s organise another! More details here: \u003ca href=\"https://community.osarch.org/discussion/1749/sydney-australia-open-source-aec-meetup\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://community.osarch.org/discussion/1749/sydney-australia-open-source-aec-meetup\"\u003ehttps://community.osarch.org/discussion/1749/sydney-australia-open-source-aec-meetup\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Sydney Australia open source AEC meetup #4"},{"content":"The Castle Game Engine is a free, open source, cross-platform (desktop, mobile, console, web) 3D and 2D game engine. It comes with a powerful visual editor and support for open standards like glTF, X3D, \u0026hellip; and now IFC - a key open standard used in BIM.\nThis now opens up IFC capabilities in Pascal! For the full implementation details, check out the Castle Game Engine IFC Documentation. You can also watch a video demonstration.\nHere\u0026rsquo;s the highlights:\nThe engine can load, modify, and save 3D models in IFCJSON. Because it\u0026rsquo;s IFC, you can create models with Bonsai or FreeCAD, and then use them as-is in the Castle Game Engine’s tools, such as the Castle Model Viewer. Our model viewer, https://castle-engine.io/castle-model-viewer (the \u0026ldquo;snapshot\u0026rdquo;, 5.3.0 version) supports now viewing IFC files and converting between X3D, glTF, and IFC. IFC data is converted to X3D nodes for display. This includes support for various geometric entities (lines, meshes, extrusions, curves, etc.) and maintains a transformation hierarchy. IFC files can be loaded into a TCastleScene—either directly via its loading methods or by setting the scene’s URL. However, converting IFC to X3D nodes may lose some IFC details. For a full round-trip without loss, a native approach is recommended. Instead of relying solely on the X3D conversion, you can work directly with IFC entities using the provided Pascal classes (from the CastleIfc unit). Pascal classes and properties correspond 1-1 to IFC concepts. This “native BIM” approach lets you modify and update IFC data directly and then convert or save it back, preserving all the original information. A set of utility functions makes it easier to add, move, and manage elements (like walls or floors) within an IFC model. Future enhancements include additional support for textures, more curve types, STEP encoding, and performance optimizations for updating IFC-to-X3D conversions. The project is sponsored by Sorpetaler Fensterbau GmbH.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2025/03/16/castle-game-engine-now-supports-ifc/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThe \u003ca href=\"https://castle-engine.io/\"\u003eCastle Game Engine\u003c/a\u003e is a free, open source, cross-platform (desktop, mobile, console, web) 3D and 2D game engine. It comes with a powerful visual editor and support for open standards like glTF, X3D, \u0026hellip; and now IFC - a key open standard used in BIM.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Castle Game Engine now supports IFC"},{"content":"Join the Speckle Community at our first ambassador meet up generously hosted by UNStudio in the heart of Amsterdam. This will happen on Friday, October 11th from 2pm - 5pm and you will be joined by AEC leaders, developers and enthusiasts who build with, and want to learn about Speckle.\n🗓️Friday, October 11th ⏰ 2pm - 5pm\nHosted by the amazing UNStudio team, you will attend presentations, talks and a networking session. So, fill in this form if you\u0026rsquo;d like to attend, and we will send you more information about the event.\nPS. We\u0026rsquo;re looking for someone to present a use case highlighting the use of Speckle, so fill in the last bit of this form if you\u0026rsquo;re interested in presenting at this event!\nSubmit this form to attend: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSccJEaj618jFqSRVS9T36K8w5gpP2X_8fwuo9lH0DQJR0nKRQ/viewform\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/first-speckle-ambassador-meetup/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eJoin the Speckle Community at our first ambassador meet up generously hosted by UNStudio in the heart of Amsterdam. This will happen on \u003cb\u003eFriday, October 11th from 2pm - 5pm\u003c/b\u003e and you will be joined by AEC leaders, developers and enthusiasts who build with, and want to learn about Speckle.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"First Speckle Ambassador MeetUp"},{"content":"Other conferences talk about the future of AEC.\nAt SpeckleCon, you\u0026rsquo;ll see it.\nCheck out SpeckleCon November 13-14 in-person in London, more details here: https://conf.speckle.systems/\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/specklecon-november-london/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eOther conferences talk about the future of AEC.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt SpeckleCon, you\u0026rsquo;ll see it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCheck out SpeckleCon November 13-14 in-person in London, more details here: \u003ca href=\"https://conf.speckle.systems/\"\u003ehttps://conf.speckle.systems/\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"SpeckleCON, November, London"},{"content":"The Blender event of the year! The largest gathering of artists, developers and contributors will take place again at the beautiful 18th century neo-classical Felix Meritis in the heart of Amsterdam.\nThis year’s edition of the Amsterdam Blender Conference will have as a main theme “Making Blender”. We welcome presentations and case studies with a wide range of interpretations of the theme - everything that’s interesting for contributors to Blender. Think of “Making Blender better”, or “Making Blender possible”, or “Making Blender work in a pipeline”.\nSee more details: https://conference.blender.org/2024/\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/blender-conference-2024/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThe Blender event of the year! The largest gathering of artists, developers and contributors will take place again at the beautiful 18th century neo-classical Felix Meritis in the heart of Amsterdam.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis year’s edition of the Amsterdam Blender Conference will have as a main theme “Making Blender”. We welcome presentations and case studies with a wide range of interpretations of the theme - everything that’s interesting for contributors to Blender. Think of “Making Blender better”, or “Making Blender possible”, or “Making Blender work in a pipeline”.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blender Conference 2024"},{"content":"In Springfield, Illinois, on August 15 — 18, we will be hosted by Innovate Springfield, just south of the Old State Capitol downtown.\nWith an open invitation to the public, please come ready to showcase what you can do with FreeCAD, or even things you’ve done or made; how to use FreeCAD, how to make it better, or lessons you’ve made to help learn it.\nSee more details: https://blog.freecad.org/2024/06/14/announcing-the-freecad-2024-north-american-meetup/ ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/freecad-2024-north-american-meetup/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIn Springfield, Illinois, on August 15 — 18, we will be hosted by Innovate Springfield, just south of the Old State Capitol downtown.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith an open invitation to the public, please come ready to showcase what you can do with FreeCAD, or even things you’ve done or made; how to use FreeCAD, how to make it better, or lessons you’ve made to help learn it.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"FreeCAD 2024 North American Meetup"},{"content":"OpenSource.Construction is launching our community standup on June 20th at 12:30 CET with a presentation about the journey of Ifcopenshell. Thomas Krijnen will talk about how he maintained, grew and contributed to one of the most popular open source BIM libraries.\nhttps://www.linkedin.com/events/7204460419552321536/about/\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/opensource-construction-community-standup-the-journey-of-ifcopenshell/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eOpenSource.Construction is launching our community standup on June 20th at 12:30 CET with a presentation about the journey of Ifcopenshell. Thomas Krijnen will talk about how he maintained, grew and contributed to one of the most popular open source BIM libraries.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"opensource.construction Community Standup: The Journey of IfcOpenShell"},{"content":"Xchange 2024 is the first of its kind, a brand new buildingSMART Australasia annual event running over 2 days. It combines a unique technical learning experience on Day 1, and a line-up of handpicked speakers who will discuss how Digital transformation and open standards are changing the infrastructure industry on Day 2. This inaugural event is a must for anyone working in the infrastructure sector.\nJon Mirtschin, developer of various open source GeometryGym packages https://github.com/geometrygym will be presenting. Dion Moult will also be presenting on model quality and will demonstrate open source software.\nhttps://www.buildingsmart.org.au/xchange2024\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/buildingsmart-australasia-xchange-2024/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"color_42 wixui-rich-text__text\"\u003eXchange 2024 is the first of its kind, a brand new buildingSMART Australasia annual event running over 2 days. It combines a unique technical learning experience on Day 1, and a line-up of handpicked speakers who will discuss how Digital transformation and open standards are changing the infrastructure industry on Day 2. This inaugural event is a must for anyone working in the infrastructure sector.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"buildingSMART Australasia Xchange 2024"},{"content":"For the first time ever, there will be an official Blender Conference in the United States. Taking place on April 19 and 20 in Hollywood, Los Angeles. The event has already sold out, but the sessions will be recorded and shared on the CG Cookie YouTube channel later. See the schedule here, in particular the \u0026ldquo;3D in Construction\u0026rdquo; talk by Daniel Bridges, highlighting the BlenderBIM Add-on.\nhttps://bconla.org/2024/schedule/\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/blender-conference-bon-la-2024/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eFor the first time ever, there will be an official Blender Conference in the United States. Taking place on April 19 and 20 in Hollywood, Los Angeles. The event has already sold out, but the sessions will be recorded and shared on the CG Cookie YouTube channel later. See the schedule here, in particular the \u0026ldquo;3D in Construction\u0026rdquo; talk by Daniel Bridges, highlighting the BlenderBIM Add-on.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blender Conference BON-LA 2024"},{"content":"Speckle's online global hackathon crafted for the dauntless, the innovators, and the perpetually curious within the AEC realm. Last year, we embarked on a journey Into the Speckleverse, where your groundbreaking ideas began to reshape the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) landscape. This year, we\u0026rsquo;re going even further. Welcome to Beyond the Speckleverse: The AEC Innovation Odyssey, our second edition of the online global hackathon crafted for the dauntless, the innovators, and the perpetually curious within the AEC realm. This new chapter promises to expand the horizons of what we achieved last time, opening up to an even wider audience of professional developers, computational designers, and every kind of innovator in between. Our themes are tailored to challenge your creativity and push the boundaries of the possible. WHAT IS A HACKATHON, AND HOW DOES IT WORK? New to Hackathons? No problem! A Hackathon is an event where participants, in this case, developers, computational designers, and other AEC experts, come together to solve problems by developing innovative technology projects within a short timeframe. It starts with idea pitches and team formation, followed by intense project development. The event concludes with teams presenting their prototypes to judges for a chance to win prizes. Hackathons are excellent opportunities for newcomers to learn new skills, network, and experience rapid innovation and teamwork. This Hackathon is virtual, meaning that people from all over the world can participate and collaborate online towards a joint submission (more details below).\nApply Now ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/hackathon-beyond-the-speckleverse/","summary":"\u003ch3 class=\"mb-6\"\u003eSpeckle's online global hackathon crafted for the dauntless, the innovators, and the perpetually curious within the AEC realm.\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"flex-row-medium-up justify-content-start\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"ctas-col\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLast year, we embarked on a journey \u003ca href=\"https://speckle.systems/blog/hackathon-wrap-up/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"\u003eInto the Speckleverse\u003c/a\u003e, where your groundbreaking ideas began to reshape the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) landscape. This year, we\u0026rsquo;re going even further.  \u003cimg src=\"https://emoji.aranja.com/static/emoji-data/img-apple-160/1f52d.png\" alt=\"Telescope\" width=\"20\" height=\"20\" /\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Hackathon - Beyond The Speckleverse"},{"content":"If you\u0026rsquo;re in Sydney and love open source, join the technical get-together in Barangaroo in Sydney on 5th April 9am to 1pm. We\u0026rsquo;ll discuss technical topics around the BlenderBIM Add-on, IFC, and anything else open source! Contact dion@thinkmoult.com for more details and the meeting invitation.\nhttps://community.osarch.org/discussion/1749/sydney-australia-open-source-aec-meetup#latest\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/sydney-australia-open-source-aec-meetup-3/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIf you\u0026rsquo;re in Sydney and love open source, join the technical get-together in Barangaroo in Sydney on 5th April 9am to 1pm. We\u0026rsquo;ll discuss technical topics around the BlenderBIM Add-on, IFC, and anything else open source! Contact \u003ca href=\"mailto:dion@thinkmoult.com\"\u003edion@thinkmoult.com\u003c/a\u003e for more details and the meeting invitation.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Sydney Australia Open Source AEC Meetup"},{"content":"BILT is an annual event, designed to cater to the needs of those who design, build, operate and maintain our built environment. As a community of professionals, it is committed to improving the many ways the industry works together. BILT EUROPE 2024 will be held 07 - 09 MAY, 2024, at RIGA, LATVIA.\nThis year, there will be number of open source talks being given, including 3 classes by Speckle, 1 double lab about the BlenderBIM Add-on, and 1 class from ThatOpenCompany.\nhttps://bilteur2024.dekon.com.tr/schedule/ https://www.dekon.com.tr/bilteurope2024/en/ ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/bilt-europe-2024/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eBILT is an annual event, designed to cater to the needs of those who design, build, operate and maintain our built environment. As a community of professionals, it is committed to improving the many ways the industry works together. BILT EUROPE 2024 will be held 07 - 09 MAY, 2024, at RIGA, LATVIA.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"BILT Europe 2024"},{"content":"FOSSASIA Summit 2024 will take place from Monday 8th April to Wednesday 10 April in Ha Noi, Viet Nam. With over a decade of fostering collaboration and knowledge exchange, the FOSSASIA Summit has become a platform for developers, enthusiasts, and industry leaders. This year, we expect to welcome a diverse community of 3,000 attendees from across the globe, providing a unique opportunity to connect with like-minded individuals and explore the latest advancements in open source.\nFreeCAD will be represented with a lightning talk and a booth so go and check them out!\nhttps://eventyay.com/e/55d2a466/exhibition/245\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/fossasia-summit-2024/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eFOSSASIA Summit 2024 will take place from Monday 8th April to Wednesday 10 April in Ha Noi, Viet Nam. With over a decade of fostering collaboration and knowledge exchange, the FOSSASIA Summit has become a platform for developers, enthusiasts, and industry leaders. This year, we expect to welcome a diverse community of 3,000 attendees from across the globe, providing a unique opportunity to connect with like-minded individuals and explore the latest advancements in open source.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"FOSSASIA Summit 2024"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s time for your favorite Community StandUp! On February 28th from 3-4pm GMT, we will be showcasing our new Front End: The New Speckle.\nhttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeJeC4oH6dqzA2ZOlqsx3cK_pAMMOYHl2wBvImpeusfnGh-Sg/viewform\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/speckle-february-community-standup/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIt\u0026rsquo;s time for your favorite Community StandUp! On February 28th from 3-4pm GMT, we will be showcasing our new Front End: The New Speckle.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeJeC4oH6dqzA2ZOlqsx3cK_pAMMOYHl2wBvImpeusfnGh-Sg/viewform\"\u003ehttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeJeC4oH6dqzA2ZOlqsx3cK_pAMMOYHl2wBvImpeusfnGh-Sg/viewform\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Speckle February Community Standup"},{"content":"What: Sydney Australia open source AEC meetup #2\nWhen: 9am to 1pm (but feel free to stay for lunch onwards) Feb 14th Wednesday. Where: Lendlease Barangaroo Office (email dion@thinkmoult.com if interested to come) Why: Meet and greet, come prepared with questions, share what you\u0026rsquo;re up to (bring a laptop? screenshots? live demo?)\nWho: You, but please feel free to bring a friend!\nThis will be a more practical session involving software and code, demoing: IDS, what it is, what it can do, what open source tools are available to create, check, and validate models with IDS Extracting tabular data from BIM models with free software such as IfcCSV and Pandas A demo of how Lendlease does dashboarding with free software ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/sydney-australia-open-source-aec-meetup-2/","summary":"\u003cp class=\"x_elementToProof\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"x_ContentPasted0\"\u003eWhat: Sydney Australia open source AEC meetup #2\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"x_ContentPasted0\"\u003eWhen: 9am to 1pm (but feel free to stay for lunch onwards) Feb 14th Wednesday. \u003c/span\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"x_ContentPasted0\"\u003eWhere: Lendlease Barangaroo Office (email \u003ca href=\"mailto:dion@thinkmoult.com\"\u003edion@thinkmoult.com\u003c/a\u003e if interested to come)\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"x_ContentPasted0\"\u003eWhy: Meet and greet, come prepared with questions, share what you\u0026rsquo;re up to (bring a laptop? screenshots? live demo?)\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Sydney Australia open source AEC meetup #2"},{"content":"This year again, there will be a FreeCAD (and this time together with KiCAD) developers and community meeting in Brussels on February 2nd, 2024,, the day prior to FOSDEM. It is a great opportunity to meet developers and other users and+discuss about that itching topic ;)\nMore details at https://blog.freecad.org/2023/10/31/fosdem-freecad-day-and-hackathon-2024/\nSee you there!\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/freecad-kicad-meeting-in-brussels/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThis year again, there will be a FreeCAD (and this time together with KiCAD) developers and community meeting in Brussels on February 2nd, 2024,, the day prior to FOSDEM. It is a great opportunity to meet developers and other users and+discuss about that itching topic ;)\u003c/p\u003e","title":"FreeCAD/KiCAD meeting in Brussels"},{"content":"Our first Community StandUp of 2024 is happening soon! This time, we\u0026rsquo;re focusing on ways you can make the most of Grasshopper and Speckle. We\u0026rsquo;ll also share our latest release updates and improvements. Don\u0026rsquo;t miss out! ?\n? When? Wednesday, January 31st, 3-4 pm GMT ? Where? Virtually.\nhttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeJeC4oH6dqzA2ZOlqsx3cK_pAMMOYHl2wBvImpeusfnGh-Sg/viewform\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/speckle-january-community-standup/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eOur first Community StandUp of 2024 is happening soon! This time, we\u0026rsquo;re focusing on ways you can make the most of Grasshopper and Speckle. We\u0026rsquo;ll also share our latest release updates and improvements. Don\u0026rsquo;t miss out! ?\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Speckle January Community Standup"},{"content":"FOSDEM is a free event for software developers to meet, share ideas and collaborate. Every year, thousands of developers of free and open source software from all over the world gather at the event in Brussels.\nThis year, the Open Hardware and CAD/CAM devroom includes talks by legend Thomas Krijnen on Multi-disciplinary geometry (libraries) in BIM and the IfcOpenShell software library, and legend Yorik van Havre on FreeCAD - state of the union.\nhttps://fosdem.org/2024/schedule/\nhttps://fosdem.org/2024/schedule/track/open-hardware-and-cadcam/\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/fosdem-2024-open-hardware-and-cad-cam-devroom/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eFOSDEM is a free event for software developers to meet, share ideas and collaborate. Every year, thousands of developers of free and open source software from all over the world gather at the event in Brussels.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"FOSDEM 2024 Open Hardware and CAD/CAM devroom"},{"content":"Up to 150 digital doers (and those who want to become one) come together for 40 hours and collaboratively build solutions that solve existing problems from their daily work. You can either work on a challenge proposed by one of our event partners or bring your own – an exciting weekend is guaranteed!\nAnd yes, there is something to win! Next to great new connections and valuable insights for everyone, the best projects will be awarded based on the judgement of the Hackathon jury.\nTo make your experience not only inspiring and entertaining but also a bit educational, we also organised really cool talks: The Public Talks on Friday will investigate the impact of open source in the construction industry. In his keynote, Roger Meier will discuss how Siemens is implementing open source as one of the key pillars of its digital transformation, followed by concrete examples of how companies from the AEC industry like vyzn or luucy, are interacting with open source solutions like compas, Speckle or QGis.\nThe Tech Talks on Saturday will give you detailed insights into current tech trends on a variety of topics, delivered by experts like Michael Drobnik (Herzog\u0026amp;deMeuron), Antonio González Viegas (ThatOpenCompany), Alar Jost (beyondBIM), Yashar Moradi (Bimondis), Thomas Glaettli (Bauen Digital Schweiz), Paul Curschellas (Burckhardt), as well as representatives from DFAB ETH Zurich and Implenia.\nThe presentations and award ceremony on Sunday will be a great platform to learn about the work done on the weekend and to connect with all participants.\nEveryone is invited to attend the talks, also people who do not participate in the Hackathon.\nhttps://www.opensource.construction/events/aec-hackathon/\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/open-source-construction-aec-hackathon-zurich-edition/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eUp to 150 digital doers (and those who want to become one) come together for 40 hours and collaboratively build solutions that solve existing problems from their daily work. You can either work on a challenge proposed by one of our event partners or bring your own – an exciting weekend is guaranteed!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Open Source Construction AEC Hackathon - Zurich Edition"},{"content":"A small casual social, show and tell, and Q\u0026amp;A meetup will be held at Lendlease Australia offices all about open source in AEC.\nStarting 10am Jan 17th Wednesday. Come to Level 14, ITS Tower Three, 300 Barangaroo Ave and there should be a room booked for us for the Sydney Australia open source AEC meetup. If you\u0026rsquo;d like, send me a message / email (dion@thinkmoult.com) and I\u0026rsquo;ll let you know my phone number in case something goes wrong. We can start in the morning say around 10am and if people want to stay longer through lunch and beyond they can or if they want to drop off early they can as well :) We can play it by ear.\nIt\u0026rsquo;ll be a casual combo of social, show and tell, and Q\u0026amp;A.\nThere was an email thread where everyone suggested ideas on topics they were interested in:\nIDS (ways to format output and what are current limitations) \u0026amp; bsDD general ideology; IFC schema deep dive into the structure and relationships; IfcOpenshell code writing tips, anything around automating validation from multiple IFC files or is IDS just as flexible Always keen for Blender and Blender BIM tips and tricks. The IDS process and technology stack Headless checking/dashboarding BlenderBIM capabilities, in general ifcOpenShell, geo-referencing, ifc model viewing… If you haven't RSVPed please get in touch if coming and even better, bring something fun to showcase! Any FOSS is on-topic: Speckle, QGIS, CloudCompare, IFCJS, Godot... https://community.osarch.org/discussion/1749/sydney-australia-open-source-aec-meetup\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/sydney-australia-open-source-aec-meetup/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eA small casual social, show and tell, and Q\u0026amp;A meetup will be held at Lendlease Australia offices all about open source in AEC.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStarting 10am Jan 17th Wednesday. Come to Level 14, ITS Tower Three, 300 Barangaroo Ave and there should be a room booked for us for the Sydney Australia open source AEC meetup. If you\u0026rsquo;d like, send me a message / email (\u003ca href=\"mailto:dion@thinkmoult.com\"\u003edion@thinkmoult.com\u003c/a\u003e) and I\u0026rsquo;ll let you know my phone number in case something goes wrong. We can start in the morning say around 10am and if people want to stay longer through lunch and beyond they can or if they want to drop off early they can as well :) We can play it by ear.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Sydney Australia open source AEC meetup"},{"content":"Start the Year Off Right with Our Computational Design Day!\nWe are excited to announce the Computational Design Day, organized by Revit User Group. This event is the perfect opportunity to start your year productively and inspiringly.\nWhat can you expect?\nEngaging presentations from industry experts on BlenderBIM, among others Interactive workshops on Topologic, IfcOpenSchell, Dynamo and Revit Adaptive Components Networking opportunities with peers and leaders in the technology and design world Q\u0026amp;A Sessions Date: 26 January at 10:00 Location: The Hague University of Applied Sciences - Johanna Westerdijkplein 75, 2521 EN The Hague\nDon\u0026rsquo;t miss this opportunity to start your year in a dynamic and innovative way. Tickets are available now!\nhttp://www.revitgg.nl/nieuws/computational-design-day\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/netherlands-computational-design-day/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"break-words\n\"\u003e\u003cspan dir=\"ltr\"\u003eStart the Year Off Right with Our Computational Design Day!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe are excited to announce the Computational Design Day, organized by Revit User Group. This event is the perfect opportunity to start your year productively and inspiringly.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Netherlands Computational Design Day"},{"content":"On January 23-25th, 2024, be part of the Creative Freedom Summit, a virtual conference dedicated solely to the features and benefits of Open Source creative tools. Be inspired by fellow artists, designers, and makers, and learn how you can enjoy more creative freedom! Summit schedule coming soon.\nThe Creative Freedom Summit is open to anyone who is interested in learning more about Open Source tools, how and why to use them, as well as to connect with other creatives working in the Open Source ecosystem Among other software, the event will feature creatives wielding: Penpot, Inkscape, Blender, Krita, GIMP, and Kdenlive.\nSee https://creativefreedomsummit.com/ and https://creativefreedomsummit2024.sched.com/ ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/creative-freedom-summit-2024/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eOn January 23-25th, 2024, be part of the Creative Freedom Summit, a virtual conference dedicated solely to the features and benefits of Open Source creative tools. Be inspired by fellow artists, designers, and makers, and learn how you can enjoy more creative freedom! Summit schedule coming soon.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Creative Freedom Summit 2024"},{"content":"The second in a series of webinars introducing and extending industry knowledge of IFC and the range of buildingSMART tools and resources.\nIn this session:\nIFC – the basics – Emma Hooper, BuildData Group Research Institute Unlocking the data within IFC with databases – Mo Shanna, Morta Native IFC authoring with free and open-source software – Dion Moult, Lendlease \u0026amp; BlenderBIM Q\u0026amp;A https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/b2d0fac0-8ee1-406b-ac93-725dd2a51242@f0b3c7a9-3720-482c-a604-099806e8c229 ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/buildingsmart-uki-a-different-view-of-ifc/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThe second in a series of webinars introducing and extending industry knowledge of IFC and the range of buildingSMART tools and resources.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this session:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n \t\u003cli\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIFC – the basics\u003c/strong\u003e – Emma Hooper, BuildData Group Research Institute\u003c/li\u003e\n \t\u003cli\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eUnlocking the data within IFC with databases\u003c/strong\u003e – Mo Shanna, Morta\u003c/li\u003e\n \t\u003cli\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNative IFC authoring with free and open-source software\u003c/strong\u003e – Dion Moult, Lendlease \u0026amp; BlenderBIM\u003c/li\u003e\n \t\u003cli\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eQ\u0026amp;A\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\nhttps://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/b2d0fac0-8ee1-406b-ac93-725dd2a51242@f0b3c7a9-3720-482c-a604-099806e8c229","title":"buildingSMART UK+I - A different view of IFC"},{"content":"By Carlos Dias: No dia 13 farei um Webinar no meu canal do youtube falando sobre o BlenderBIM Add-on! Estão todos convidados!\nhttps://www.youtube.com/@c4rlosdias\nhttps://www.linkedin.com/posts/carlos-dias-6a293868_blenderbim-ifc-openbim-activity-7127994904051392513-oTf7\nhttps://www.linkedin.com/events/webinarsobreblenderbim7127999051790204928/\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/youtube-webinar-on-the-blenderbim-add-on-by-carlos-dias/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"break-words \"\u003e\u003cspan dir=\"ltr\"\u003eBy Carlos Dias: No dia 13 farei um Webinar no meu canal do youtube falando sobre o BlenderBIM Add-on! Estão todos convidados!\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/@c4rlosdias\"\u003ehttps://www.youtube.com/@c4rlosdias\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/posts/carlos-dias-6a293868_blenderbim-ifc-openbim-activity-7127994904051392513-oTf7\"\u003ehttps://www.linkedin.com/posts/carlos-dias-6a293868_blenderbim-ifc-openbim-activity-7127994904051392513-oTf7\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/events/webinarsobreblenderbim7127999051790204928/\"\u003ehttps://www.linkedin.com/events/webinarsobreblenderbim7127999051790204928/\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"YouTube Webinar on the BlenderBIM Add-on by Carlos Dias"},{"content":"A free webinar presented by Dion Moult.\nBIMForum \u0026amp; Building Smart presenting a webinar on IFC and how you can work with the data. Presented at a special time for viewers in both the US, and Australia \u0026amp; New Zealand. We\u0026rsquo;ll cover:\nThe difference between traditional BIM, translated OpenBIM, and native IFC Demonstrations of what native IFC can do A deep dive into how IFC works under the hood Software demonstrations of how free software is changing the industry https://bimforum.org/event/ifc-show-and-tell-what-you-can-do-with-ifc-and-how-to-work-with-the-data/ ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/bimforum-webinar-ifc-show-and-tell-what-you-can-do-with-ifc-and-how-to-work-with-the-data/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eA free webinar presented by Dion Moult.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBIMForum \u0026amp; Building Smart presenting a webinar on IFC and how you can work with the data. Presented at a special time for viewers in both the US, and Australia \u0026amp; New Zealand. We\u0026rsquo;ll cover:\u003c/p\u003e","title":"BIMForum Webinar: IFC Show and Tell – What you can do with IFC and how to work with the data"},{"content":"Dion Moult will be providing a guest lecture at the Metropolia FI University (https://www.metropolia.fi/en) introducing OpenBIM, IFC, the BlenderBIM Add-on, and more free and open source software.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/intro-to-openbim-and-the-blenderbim-add-on-presentation-metropolia-fi-university/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eDion Moult will be providing a guest lecture at the Metropolia FI University (\u003ca href=\"https://www.metropolia.fi/en\"\u003ehttps://www.metropolia.fi/en\u003c/a\u003e) introducing OpenBIM, IFC, the BlenderBIM Add-on, and more free and open source software.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Intro to OpenBIM and the BlenderBIM Add-on Presentation Metropolia FI University"},{"content":"O projeto Softwares Livres para Arquitetura e Engenharia (Solare) irá promover o 1º Seminário Solare nos dias 30 e 31 de outubro. Segundo o coordenador do projeto, Danilo Matoso, será um importante momento para agregar novas pautas e dialogar com novos atores, tanto na área política, quanto na área acadêmica. “A adoção de softwares livres e de formatos de arquivos abertos por órgãos públicos e na contratação de obras públicas é um importante vetor de fomento a estas tecnologias. Acreditamos que a universidade ainda é o melhor lugar para formar profissionais capacitados a trabalhar com elas”, ressalta.\nhttps://solare.org.br/2023/10/20/1o-seminario-solare-acontece-nos-dias-30-e-31-de-outubro/\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/1o-seminario-solare-acontece-nos-dias-30-e-31-de-outubro/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eO projeto Softwares Livres para Arquitetura e Engenharia (Solare) irá promover o 1º Seminário Solare nos dias 30 e 31 de outubro. Segundo o coordenador do projeto, Danilo Matoso, será um importante momento para agregar novas pautas e dialogar com novos atores, tanto na área política, quanto na área acadêmica. “A adoção de softwares livres e de formatos de arquivos abertos por órgãos públicos e na contratação de obras públicas é um importante vetor de fomento a estas tecnologias. Acreditamos que a universidade ainda é o melhor lugar para formar profissionais capacitados a trabalhar com elas”, ressalta.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"1º Seminário Solare acontece nos dias 30 e 31 de outubro"},{"content":"SpeckleCon: our free online conference, now including one dev day! We will focus on how to unlock data to fuel collaboration, automation, and connectivity across all design workflows.\nOver two days, you’ll participate in talks and workshops with fellow designers, coders, and entrepreneurs. Together, we will explore and build the tools and workflows you need to deliver and create value at scale - let’s push the boundaries of design with data-driven workflows and unprecedented connectivity!\nWhy are we doing this? Data is at the heart of AEC: vendors are increasingly locking it in, and it’s down to us to build an open, modern ecosystem that delivers for all - let’s join forces!\nCheck out the schedule and impressive list of presenters featuring other open data and open source technologies like Topologic, buildingSMART Data Dictionary, and more!\nhttps://hopin.com/events/specklecon\nhttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdF_ZtRtMIvd7hmBg7--LPCLYQVpr_5KHG3va1crpYr2wwUOA/viewform\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/specklecon-the-free-online-aec-conference-of-the-year/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eSpeckleCon: our free online conference, now including one dev day! We will focus on how to unlock data to fuel collaboration, automation, and connectivity across all design workflows.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOver two days, you’ll participate in talks and workshops with fellow designers, coders, and entrepreneurs. Together, we will explore and build the tools and workflows you need to deliver and create value at scale - let’s push the boundaries of design with data-driven workflows and unprecedented connectivity!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"SpeckleCon - the free online AEC conference of the year"},{"content":"In this workshop, we will explore current 4D and 5D capabilities of the BlenderBIM add-on with Yassine. Come say hello and ask questions!\nWe\u0026rsquo;ll delve into essential topics such as managing calendars, schedules, tasks, resources, productivities, and base costs. How to assign products and resources, perform task-resource calculations, and utilize animation tools to visualize your schedule.\nFor costing, we\u0026rsquo;ll cover cost schedules, cost items, product assignments for quantities, manual quantities; how to add cost values, and how to incorporate a schedule of rates.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/elevate-your-bim-game-4d-5d-capabilities-in-blenderbim-unveiled/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIn this workshop, we will explore current 4D and 5D capabilities of the BlenderBIM add-on with Yassine. Come say hello and ask questions!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe\u0026rsquo;ll delve into essential topics such as managing calendars, schedules, tasks, resources, productivities, and base costs. How to assign products and resources, perform task-resource calculations, and utilize animation tools to visualize your schedule.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Elevate Your BIM Game: 4D \u0026 5D Capabilities in BlenderBIM Unveiled"},{"content":"IDS Masterclass on October 12th at 15:30 CEST. Elevate Your BIM Projects and Career. A transformative experience awaits you!\nWhat You\u0026rsquo;ll Learn:\nIntroduction to IDS and free tools (featuring free software IfcTester)\nTypes of IDS specifications\nInteractive Q\u0026amp;A session\nLimited-Time Offer: Secure your spot by Monday, Sept 25th, and get an exclusive €50 discount. Invest in a future-proof skill.\nHow to Register: Visit https://buff.ly/44YHexv to secure your spot. Limited to 20 seats. For More Details: Visit https://buff.ly/44QrigR\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/ids-masterclass/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0\"\u003eIDS Masterclass on October 12th at 15:30 CEST. Elevate Your BIM Projects and Career. A transformative experience awaits you!\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat You\u0026rsquo;ll Learn:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIntroduction to IDS and free tools (featuring free software IfcTester)\u003c/p\u003e","title":"IDS Masterclass"},{"content":"If you had to choose software to begin working in architectural design, which would be your first choice? Many might think that a BIM solution such as BlenderBIM or FreeCAD would be the ideal choice. In many cases, they offer numerous advantages. However, despite these advanced and modern workflows, a simple 2D CAD solution can still address most of our project needs.\nUsing a 2D CAD solution has numerous benefits and a more manageable learning curve, especially if you\u0026rsquo;re already familiar with 2D CAD. Is there a reliable open-source CAD solution for architecture? Indeed, several open-source CAD projects stand out as excellent choices for architectural designs.\nWould you like to learn a 2D CAD solution for architecture? With that in mind, we developed in Blender 3D Architect collection of resources to learn QCAD. This tool is perfect for architectural technical drawing. Currently, there are two versions available:\nQCAD Community Edition (open-source | GPLv3) QCAD Professional We\u0026rsquo;ve created resources to assist in learning and using the Community Edition in architecture. If you wish to incorporate an open-source CAD into your workflow, here\u0026rsquo;s where you can begin:\nQCAD for Architecture (Workshop) : A video-based workshop where you craft a 2D floor plan using QCAD based on a reference drawing. This workshop encompasses the entire design process, from conception to exporting a print-ready PDF. It includes both Metric and Imperial units. QCAD for Technical Drawing (Book) : A comprehensive guide on utilizing QCAD to produce technical drawings with an architectural design example. This book mirrors the workshop\u0026rsquo;s structure but unfolds at a more measured pace. If you\u0026rsquo;re interested in the book, it\u0026rsquo;s available in both eBook and Paperback formats in four variants: QCAD for Technical Drawing (Imperial units) : Paperback - eBook QCAD for Technical Drawing (Metric Units) : Paperback - eBook QCAD para dibujo técnico [Spanish] (Metric Units): Paperback - eBook QCAD para desenho técnico [Portuguese] (Metric Units): eBook The workshop link comes with a 20% discount. If you haven\u0026rsquo;t integrated any 2D CAD software into your workflow, this is an excellent opportunity to learn and start utilizing it for your projects.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2023/09/01/qcad-for-technical-drawing-workshop-and-books/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIf you had to choose software to begin working in architectural design, which would be your first choice? Many might think that a BIM solution such as BlenderBIM or FreeCAD would be the ideal choice. In many cases, they offer numerous advantages. However, despite these advanced and modern workflows, a simple 2D CAD solution can still address most of our project needs.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"QCAD for technical drawing (Workshop and books)"},{"content":"We\u0026rsquo;re thrilled to continue our series of monthly online meetups, and this time we\u0026rsquo;re diving deep into the tools within BlenderBIM. Whether you\u0026rsquo;re a seasoned professional or starting out, this session is for you. Join us and be part of a community eager to share and grow together.\nIn this edition, we\u0026rsquo;ll focus on tools like ifcCsv and possibly more. Dion will walk us through the intricacies and capabilities of these tools, ensuring you leave with a wealth of knowledge.\nWhere: Online (meet.jit.si/osarch)\nAgenda: A warm welcome to all attendees Deep dive into BlenderBIM tools: IfcCsv (and more if we have time) Interactive Q\u0026amp;A session\nDon\u0026rsquo;t miss out on this opportunity to learn, ask questions, and network with like-minded individuals. Mark your calendars and see you there!\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/ifcdiff-and-other-blenderbim-tools/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWe\u0026rsquo;re thrilled to continue our series of monthly online meetups, and this time we\u0026rsquo;re diving deep into the tools within BlenderBIM. Whether you\u0026rsquo;re a seasoned professional or starting out, this session is for you. Join us and be part of a community eager to share and grow together.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"IfcCsv and Other BlenderBIM Tools"},{"content":"Last week, a new stable release of FreeCAD has been published, tagged 0.21. This release is mostly there to provide a stable point before implementing Toponaming resolution functionality. Toponaming is how we call the problem of unstable reference names in FreeCAD (Edge1 might become Edge5 after a shape recompute), it is the last big issue the development team wants to solve before deeming FreeCAD good for the mythical 1.0 release.\nNevertheless, this release brings a number of interesting improvements for BIM users, among which are:\nNew spline tools for the sketcher A new, easy-to-use section tool that works interactively, and works for Arch/BIM objects too Better styling tools for texts and dimensions, which now use an unified structure The BIM layer manager is now in Draft too FreeCAD now supports several different DWG converters to import and export DWG files The FEM workbench has received a lot of improvements, and is now more and more fit for civil engineering (see this post and the work of Ebrahim) Revamped addons manager More about these features and much more can be found in the release notes.\nIn parallel to the work being done in FreeCAD itself, many things have happened on the BIM workbench, namely the arrival of a new NativeIFC module, that allows FreeCAD to open, manipulate and save IFC files natively. This turns FreeCAD the second NativeIFC-enabled authoring application, after BlenderBIM (Both actually share a lot of code). The NativeIFC structure is progressively being integrated into the BIM workbench, and a lot of it is already directly usable by BIM users. Check the documentation to know more, of follow this osarch discussion thread to keep updated on the progresses.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2023/08/13/freecad-0-21-released/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eLast week, a new stable release of \u003ca href=\"https://freecad.org\"\u003eFreeCAD\u003c/a\u003e has been published, tagged 0.21. This release is mostly there to provide a stable point before implementing Toponaming resolution functionality. Toponaming is how we call the problem of unstable reference names in FreeCAD (Edge1 might become Edge5 after a shape recompute), it is the last big issue the development team wants to solve before deeming FreeCAD good for the mythical 1.0 release.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"FreeCAD 0.21 released"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s time for your favorite Community StandUp! On August 23rd, Speckle will be sharing with you our latest updates with PowerBI, and leave time for questions.\nRegister here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfjITs101fPiUgK_2e4DAHh8myd7X5fdYJR7rsDXfoUPN_ZLA/viewform\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/community-standup-with-speckle/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIt\u0026rsquo;s time for your favorite Community StandUp! On August 23rd, Speckle will be sharing with you our latest updates with PowerBI, and leave time for questions.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRegister here: \u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfjITs101fPiUgK_2e4DAHh8myd7X5fdYJR7rsDXfoUPN_ZLA/viewform\"\u003ehttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfjITs101fPiUgK_2e4DAHh8myd7X5fdYJR7rsDXfoUPN_ZLA/viewform\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Community StandUp With Speckle"},{"content":"For the past 8 weeks, I\u0026rsquo;ve been working on the BlenderBIM Add-on\u0026rsquo;s Brickschema authoring module as part of the Google Summer of Code Program. I’m pretty new to the schema, but I’ve learned a lot about its usage and implications!\nI’ve listed some resources that have helped me familiarize myself with the ontology below:\nhttps://wiki.osarch.org/index.php?title=Brick_Schema https://groups.google.com/g/brickschema https://brickschema.org/ https://www.esmagazine.com/articles/101566-how-brick-schema-defines-the-digital-landscape-of-smart-buildings https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w3uu_vevCA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hetd6cIKueA https://itc.scix.net/pdfs/w78-2021-paper-037.pdf https://brickschema.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html https://github.com/BrickSchema !\nBrick is a semantic structure and ontology designed to represent the relationships between building services. Compared to IFC’s generic descriptions for some smart building equipment relations, Brick is a format that is more scalable, fine-tuned, and targeted. Specifically, Brickschema targets building automation and control systems. Demonstrated in the images above and below, Brick’s standardized framework for describing building components and behaviors includes sensors, systems, locations, and more.\n!\nBrick is open-source under the BSD license, which makes it the perfect option to integrate with other open-source applications. In regards to the BlenderBIM Add-on’s mission to cover full building lifecycles, Brick will contribute to enhancing its facility management features. In fact, Brick is largely complementary to IFC, so combining the Add-on’s native IFC authoring tools and Brickschema will prove particularly crucial in enriching the standard exchange of BIM. Here, Brick helps to interface with smart sensor time-series databases, large interconnected equipment graphs, and the machine-readable formatting of building data.\n!\nCurrently, in the BlenderBIM Add-on, most of the basic features necessary for authoring Brick models are implemented. This includes adding/removing Brick entities in a project, prefixing entities with custom namespaces to identify them, and (most complicated of all) adding/removing relationships between the entities. Meanwhile, other quality-of-life features have been implemented such as undo/redo and hierarchy options for viewing a Brick graph. There are still more features to come, and community feedback and support will prove crucial in turning the module into a practical utility!\n!\nBrick has far-reaching implications for the industry as a whole. For one, Brick universalizes the building management workflow whilst many industry building systems remain unstructured and non-standardized, often using new systems designed only once for a particular building. With Brick\u0026rsquo;s focus on portability and standardization, the logic for analyzing a Brick building\u0026rsquo;s system can be applied to multiple sites. Furthermore, Brick enables efficient data integration, analytics, and interoperability which helps to better design IoT applications. This in turn helps with calculating richer building diagnostics, meeting sustainability goals, and improving budgeting accuracy.\nStay tuned as the Brick module continues to develop!\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2023/07/29/what-is-brickschema-and-how-can-i-use-it-update-blenderbim-add-ons-brick-module/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eFor the past 8 weeks, I\u0026rsquo;ve been working on the BlenderBIM Add-on\u0026rsquo;s Brickschema authoring module as part of the \u003ca href=\"https://osarch.org/2023/03/09/google-summer-of-code-2023-starting-soon/\"\u003eGoogle Summer of Code Program\u003c/a\u003e. I’m pretty new to the schema, but I’ve learned a lot about its usage and implications!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"What is Brickschema and how can I use it? Update: BlenderBIM Add-on's Brick module."},{"content":" We\u0026rsquo;re excited to announce the return of our monthly online meetups! No matter your skill level, everyone\u0026rsquo;s invited. Whether you\u0026rsquo;re an old friend or new, we can\u0026rsquo;t wait to learn and share knowledge together again.\nOur upcoming session will feature Dion, who\u0026rsquo;ll be giving us a tour of the BlenderBIM software. Plus, Dion will answer questions from Petru. If you have questions too, don\u0026rsquo;t hesitate to ask!\nEvent Details:\nWhen: Once a month (the exact date will be sent via email) Where: Online. Just click on this link: meet.jit.si/osarch Agenda: Start with a welcome to everyone Dion will guide us through BlenderBIM Question and answer time with Dion Closing up and details about the next meetup So, come along, join the conversation, and let's learn together. See you at the meetup! ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/osarch-monthly-meeting-back-on-track-with-blenderbim/","summary":"\u003cdiv class=\"flex flex-grow flex-col gap-3\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"min-h-[20px] flex items-start overflow-x-auto whitespace-pre-wrap break-words flex-col gap-4\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"markdown prose w-full break-words dark:prose-invert dark\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe\u0026rsquo;re excited to announce the return of our monthly online meetups! No matter your skill level, everyone\u0026rsquo;s invited. Whether you\u0026rsquo;re an old friend or new, we can\u0026rsquo;t wait to learn and share knowledge together again.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"OSArch Monthly Meeting: Back on Track with BlenderBIM"},{"content":"The FreeCAD Project Association is sponsoring a FreeCAD Hackathon 11–13 August 2023. The in-person event will be held in Vancouver, BC, and we’ll be live-streaming/live-blogging the event so that those who can’t make it to the event can still participate. It’s open to anyone who is interested in hacking on the FreeCAD source code (or working on translations, or developing an Addon, or creating themes, or really anything else FreeCAD-related). Financial support for travel expenses is available from the FPA: for information and to apply for funding, contact the FPA at fpa@freecad.org. FreeCAD Hackathon 11–13 August, 2023 Vancouver, BC https://blog.freecad.org/2023/05/24/freecad-hackathon-11-13-august-2023/ ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/freecad-vancouver-hackathon/","summary":"\u003cdiv\u003eThe FreeCAD Project Association is sponsoring a FreeCAD Hackathon 11–13 August 2023. The in-person event will be held in Vancouver, \u003cspan class=\"caps\"\u003eBC\u003c/span\u003e, and we’ll be live-streaming/live-blogging the event so that those who can’t make it to the event can still participate. It’s open to anyone who is interested in hacking on the FreeCAD source code (or working on translations, or developing an Addon, or creating themes, or really anything else FreeCAD-related). Financial support for travel expenses is available from the \u003cspan class=\"caps\"\u003eFPA\u003c/span\u003e: for information and to apply for funding, contact the \u003cspan class=\"caps\"\u003eFPA\u003c/span\u003e at \u003ca href=\"mailto:fpa@freecad.org\"\u003efpa@freecad.org\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/div\u003e\nFreeCAD Hackathon 11–13 August, 2023\nVancouver, BC\n\u003ca href=\"https://blog.freecad.org/2023/05/24/freecad-hackathon-11-13-august-2023/\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003ehttps://blog.freecad.org/2023/05/24/freecad-hackathon-11-13-august-2023/\u003c/a\u003e","title":"FreeCAD Vancouver Hackathon"},{"content":"Imagine GIT for IFC files.\nThat is, imagine a tool that keeps track of changes to an IFC file over the duration of a design project\u0026ndash;a tool that allows branching or forking of different design options from a distributed team, and tool that can asynchronously merge these revisions together.\nBruno Postle has created the seeds of such a tool\u0026ndash;an IFC/GIT interface inside BlenderBIM.\nCode base here: https://github.com/brunopostle/ifc-git\nhttps://www.youtube.com/embed/-Y5-LR4oik8\nFunding for this project will go toward further refinement of the tool, as well as additional functionality such as visual diffing and atomized conflict resolution\u0026ndash;as reflected in the following mock up.\nhttps://www.youtube.com/embed/EYqT5EceA_g\nPlease note, however, this tool will only work on IFC files that were created using a NativeIFC approach. That is, tools that do not rewrite the entire IFC file when exported, but instead only change the portion of the IFC file that was modified at any one commit. Currently only BlenderBIM and FreeCAD provide NativeIFC support. See the NativeIFC white paper for a more nuanced description.\nSince this project won the most community votes as a project OSArch should center a funding campaign around, OSArch will use their current funds to match any outside funding, up to $1000.\nNot only is this a call for funding this project, it is also a general call for any developers that might be interested to help extend what Bruno has started already. It is our hope that these funds could help bring on additional developers. If you\u0026rsquo;d like to help, please create an issue on the repo to share your thoughts and proposed intentions.\nTo Fund Project\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2023/03/27/funding-for-a-git-ifc-interface-in-blenderbim/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eImagine GIT for IFC files.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat is, imagine a tool that keeps track of changes to an IFC file over the duration of a design project\u0026ndash;a tool that allows branching or forking of different design options from a distributed team, and tool that can asynchronously merge these revisions together.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Funding for a GIT/IFC Interface in BlenderBIM."},{"content":"CNPA Lab invites you to the Open Source for Architects Conference on emerging Open Source, Interoperability, Free Software \u0026amp; Open Standards in Architecture.\nThursday 16 March 2023 13:00-17:30 – EPFL CAMPUS, Foyer SG – ZOOM, ID : 614 2193 0542 Free Registration to attend on Campus\nThe conference is free and open to both EPFL community and external public. It will be held in English, in hybrid mode (campus + zoom).\nRead more at https://www.epfl.ch/labs/cnpa/open-source-for-architects-conference/\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/open-source-for-architects-conference/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eCNPA Lab invites you to the Open Source for Architects Conference on emerging Open Source, Interoperability, Free Software \u0026amp; Open Standards in Architecture.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThursday 16 March 2023 13:00-17:30\n– EPFL CAMPUS, Foyer SG\n– ZOOM, ID : 614 2193 0542\nFree Registration to attend on Campus\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Open Source for Architects Conference"},{"content":"Google Summer of Code is an annual programme that helps students and those new to open source software make their first steps into contributing code to software projects. GSoC Contributors work with an open source organization on a 12+ week programming project under the guidance of mentors.\nThis year, there are 172 open source projects sponsored by Google. 11 of those organisations are part of the ecosystem of software that heavily benefits the architecture, engineering, and construction industry. They are:\nOpenStreetMap: a crowdsourcing project that creates and distributes free geographic data for the world. OSGeo (Open Source Geospatial Foundation): a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to foster global adoption of open geospatial technology by being an inclusive software foundation devoted to an open philosophy and participatory community driven development. Note that OSGeo further represents many GIS related subprojects, including GRASS and QGIS. Blender Foundation: a free and open source 3D creation suite, providing individuals and small teams a complete pipeline for 3D graphics, modeling, animation and games. GNU Image Manipulation Program: a cross-platform image editor available for GNU/Linux, macOS, Windows and more operating systems. FreeCAD: a general-purpose parametric 3D computer-aided design (CAD) modeler and a building information modeling (BIM) software application with finite element method (FEM) support. CGAL Project: a software library that offers a number of reliable geometric data structures and algorithms. Inkscape: a free and open-source vector graphics editor used to create vector images, primarily in Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format. OpenSCAD: a solid 3D modeler with a rich syntax for programmable geometry. LibreCAD: a 2D modeling system specializing in blueprint-style drawings and draftings. IfcOpenShell: a library for working with standard IFC building model data BRL-CAD: a solid modeling suite with conversion and advanced solid ray tracing features. Potential contributors are required to submit their project proposal and applications to Google between March 21 and April 5. Check out the organisations webpage, start talking with their developers, get inspired by a list of project ideas, and make a proposal on how you can start with your very first code contribution!\n!\nEligible contributors are students, or those new to contributing to open source.\nVisit the Google Summer of Code 2023 website See the list of open source organisations ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2023/03/09/google-summer-of-code-2023-starting-soon/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eGoogle Summer of Code is an annual programme that helps students and those new to open source software make their first steps into contributing code to software projects. GSoC Contributors work with an open source organization on a 12+ week programming project under the guidance of mentors.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Google Summer of Code 2023 starting soon!"},{"content":" Delivered by key team from Speckle Development\nAEC has rapidly become a data focused industry with tools emerging to facilitate the management of this data. Speckle is open source digital infrastructure for anything designed in 3D. We handle interoperability between software silos, real-time collaboration, data management, versioning, automation, and more.\nIn this workshop, you will learn how to use Speckle to create multiplayer design workflows between Rhino, Grasshopper, Revit, and other AEC software. You will explore new ways to collaborate in real-time with your colleagues and peers while working alongside leading experts in AEC data exchange.\nRead more: https://shapetofabrication.com/workshop/multiplayer-design-workflows-connecting-people-with-3d-data/ Monday April 24, 2023 From 09:30 to 17:30 University of Westminster (Marylebone Campus, London NW1 5LS) ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/multiplayer-design-workflows-connecting-people-with-3d-data/","summary":"\u003cdiv class=\"workshop_details\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDelivered by key team from Speckle Development\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAEC has rapidly become a data focused industry with tools emerging to facilitate the management of this data. Speckle is open source digital infrastructure for anything designed in 3D. We handle interoperability between software silos, real-time collaboration, data management, versioning, automation, and more.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Multiplayer Design Workflows: Connecting People With 3D Data"},{"content":"CAD Sketcher is an add-on to Blender based on SolveSpace that brings the ability to draw parametrically constrained CAD profiles, arcs, and circles. These sketches may have multiple orientations, and are then booleaned together to form parts.\nThis functionality is critical in the makerspace field, but also has applications in the AEC industry, such as through prototyping bespoke connections or in the fabrication stage of construction. It is also useful when drawing complex forms in architectural designs in Blender where vanilla Blender lacks the constraint solvers that other CAD platforms have. For example, you can draw a profile and specify fixed lengths, angles, or orthogonality / equality of lines and arcs in that profile. These profiles can then be extruded into solids. Multiple solids may be combined, either through a union or a boolean difference to create mechanical parts or other 3D objects. For those familiar with FreeCAD (or have used SolveSpace directly), you\u0026rsquo;ll find similar workflows now possible in Blender.\nWatch the video update here:\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98mdZ1FXLBI\u0026amp;feature=youtu.be\nThe new update is a huge improvement to usability, including the ability to copy, paste, and duplicate sketches, use a marquee selection, and the ability to align a workplane to Blender\u0026rsquo;s 3D cursor. As usual, a number of bugfixes and polish is also expected.\nThe next milestone is the big 1.0.0 release. This will represent CAD Sketchers migration from alpha software to a more mature tool for all users. CAD Sketcher has grown significantly since its inception in mid 2021. Since then, it has had over 40,000 download on Gumroad, and over 3,000 users on Discord. Thanks to funding on their OpenCollective, they can now finance 3,000USD towards development to finish the work required to achieve the 1.0.0 release.\nDownload CAD Sketcher Visit the CAD Sketcher Github Watch the video update on YouTube See the bugs required for the 1.0.0 milestone Help finance their OpenCollective Join the CAD Sketcher Discord ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2023/02/28/cad-sketcher-0-27-0-for-blender-update/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eCAD Sketcher is an add-on to Blender based on SolveSpace that brings the ability to draw parametrically constrained CAD profiles, arcs, and circles. These sketches may have multiple orientations, and are then booleaned together to form parts.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"CAD Sketcher 0.27.0 for Blender update"},{"content":"Join us for the first annual FreeCAD (and free CAE) conference hosted by the University of Pretoria (South Africa). We will bring together experts and enthusiasts from around the world to share their knowledge, experience, and vision for the future of open-source CAD.\nThis is a unique opportunity to learn from and network with the FreeCAD community, and to help shape the direction of the software and its impact globally.\nWhether you are a seasoned professional or a beginner, there will be something for everyone at this exciting event. Don\u0026rsquo;t miss out – register now to reserve your spot!\u0026quot;\nLearn more: https://hopin.com/events/freecad-and-free-cae-users-conference/registration\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/freecad-and-free-cae-conference/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eJoin us for the first annual FreeCAD (and free CAE) conference hosted by the University of Pretoria (South Africa). We will bring together experts and enthusiasts from around the world to share their knowledge, experience, and vision for the future of open-source CAD.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"FreeCAD (and free CAE) conference"},{"content":"Join us for a fun break between the two Shape To Fabrication Conference days - whether you attend the conference or not. Everyone who is passionate about 3D tech, BIM, and AEC is welcome for an evening of networking, drinks, and gossip - powered by Speckle?\nRead more: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-night-with-speckle-in-real-life-irl-tickets-549130352667\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/a-night-with-speckle-in-real-life-irl/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eJoin us for a fun break between the two \u003ca href=\"https://shapetofabrication.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\"\u003eShape To Fabrication\u003c/a\u003e Conference days - whether you attend the conference or not. Everyone who is passionate about 3D tech, BIM, and AEC is welcome for an evening of networking, drinks, and gossip - powered by Speckle?\u003c/p\u003e","title":"A night with Speckle In Real Life (IRL)"},{"content":"Topic: Parametric Design with Blender Date: February 25 – 26, 2023 Time: 16:00 – 20:00 GMT Format: Online on Zoom Duration: 2 Sessions ( 9 Hours) Registration Deadline: February 24, 2023 Total Seats: 50 Seats Early-bird Registration: 90 EUR (Available for first 10 seats and Digital Members) Seats up to 50 seats: 105 EUR General Registration: 120 EUR Organized By: PAACADEMY Tutor: Dimitar Pouchnikov Videos: The recordings will be available after the workshop\nIn a field overflowing with various different applications used for architectural concept design, Blender significantly stands out as a program that is; highly capable of extensive modelling tools including subdivision, widely accessible as it’s free and open source, inherently parametric, highly expandable as it has excellent addons like Tissue for tessellation and many others, and it’s equally excellent for presentation with Cycles rendering engine and Eevee.\nSee more https://parametric-architecture.com/parametric-design-with-blender-studio-dimitar-pouchnikov/\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/parametric-design-with-blender-studio-dimitar-pouchnikov/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTopic:\u003c/strong\u003e Parametric Design with Blender\n\u003cstrong\u003eDate:\u003c/strong\u003e February 25 – 26, 2023\n\u003cstrong\u003eTime: \u003c/strong\u003e16:00 – 20:00 GMT\n\u003cstrong\u003eFormat:\u003c/strong\u003e Online on Zoom\n\u003cstrong\u003eDuration:\u003c/strong\u003e 2 Sessions ( 9 Hours)\n\u003cstrong\u003eRegistration Deadline:\u003c/strong\u003e February 24, 2023\n\u003cstrong\u003eTotal Seats:\u003c/strong\u003e 50 Seats\n\u003cstrong\u003eEarly-bird Registration:\u003c/strong\u003e 90 EUR (Available for first 10 seats and \u003ca href=\"https://parametric-architecture.com/subscribe/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"\u003eDigital Members\u003c/a\u003e)\n\u003cstrong\u003eSeats up to 50 seats:\u003c/strong\u003e 105 EUR\n\u003cstrong\u003eGeneral Registration:\u003c/strong\u003e 120 EUR\n\u003cstrong\u003eOrganized By:\u003c/strong\u003e PAACADEMY\n\u003cstrong\u003eTutor:\u003c/strong\u003e Dimitar Pouchnikov\n\u003cstrong\u003eVideos: \u003c/strong\u003eThe recordings will be available after the workshop\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Parametric Design with Blender – Studio Dimitar Pouchnikov"},{"content":"In the AEC industry, integrating game engines into the design process has become increasingly popular due to technological advances. Add-ons such as Enscape, Twinmotion, Lumion and D5 Render provide real-time visualisation and VR capability to traditional authoring software, including Revit, Rhino and Sketchup. The common ground of that software is that those add-ons are developed based on game engines like Unreal Engine and Unity 3D. Even though they are free to use for the AEC purpose, they are not entirely open source but rather source available.\nhttps://youtu.be/AoiRvmSfGOo?t=166\nAbout 6 months ago, the youtube channel FinePointCGI demonstrated the workflow of importing a Blender file into Godot 4 Alpha. As shown in the video, the procedure is much more straightforward than the steps in Godot 3, indicating that Godot is improving the integration with Blender and standardising the importing feature.\n!\nThe new importing capability paves a future for using Godot as the real-time visualisation engine of the BlenderBIM Add-on. Features such as exporting a BIM model as a standalone executable file and presenting model progress with a gaming-like UI become possible. Not only can it provides a more user-friendly environment, but it also prevents the original BIM model from leaking into unwanted parties.\nIt is exciting to see that the open-source toolchain for openBIM is improving. It enables users to have complete control of their BIM data and BIM tools without being blocked by the increasing subscription fee.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2023/01/22/the-potential-open-source-game-engine-for-blender-bim/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIn the AEC industry, integrating game engines into the design process has become increasingly popular due to technological advances. Add-ons such as Enscape, Twinmotion, Lumion and D5 Render provide real-time visualisation and VR capability to traditional authoring software, including Revit, Rhino and Sketchup. The common ground of that software is that those add-ons are developed based on game engines like Unreal Engine and Unity 3D. Even though they are free to use for the AEC purpose, they are not entirely open source but rather source available.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The potential open-source game engine for Blender-BIM"},{"content":"The FreeCAD project association (FPA) is organizing a meeting day in Brussels, Belgium, one day prior to FOSDEM 2023. The event will be held at Atelier des Tanneurs, on Friday, February 3rd from 9:00 to 17:30. The event is open to anyone interested in meeting other FreeCAD developers and users and discuss about FreeCAD. No registration is required.\nMore information https://fpa.freecad.org/programs/freecad-day-2023e\n[wpdevart_countdown text_for_day=\u0026ldquo;Days\u0026rdquo; text_for_hour=\u0026ldquo;Hours\u0026rdquo; text_for_minut=\u0026ldquo;Minutes\u0026rdquo; text_for_second=\u0026ldquo;Seconds\u0026rdquo; countdown_end_type=\u0026ldquo;date\u0026rdquo; font_color=\u0026quot;#000000\u0026quot; hide_on_mobile=\u0026ldquo;show\u0026rdquo; redirect_url=\u0026quot;\u0026quot; end_date=\u0026ldquo;03-02-2023 09:00\u0026rdquo; start_time=\u0026ldquo;1673226474\u0026rdquo; end_time=\u0026ldquo;0,1,1\u0026rdquo; action_end_time=\u0026ldquo;hide\u0026rdquo; content_position=\u0026ldquo;center\u0026rdquo; top_ditance=\u0026ldquo;10\u0026rdquo; bottom_distance=\u0026ldquo;10\u0026rdquo; ][/wpdevart_countdown]\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/freecad-meeting-day-2023/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThe FreeCAD project association (FPA) is organizing a meeting day in Brussels, Belgium, one day prior to FOSDEM 2023. The event will be held at Atelier des Tanneurs, on Friday, February 3rd from 9:00 to 17:30. The event is open to anyone interested in meeting other FreeCAD developers and users and discuss about FreeCAD. No registration is required.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"FreeCAD meeting day 2023"},{"content":"Over the past year, Sigma Dimensions™️ has been releasing free short-format video tutorials on IFC basics. The IFC-101 series contains 10 free episodes taking you from an introduction to the IFC schema up to building a native IFC native application - All with python.\nThe course uses various tools to explain how the interaction with an IFC database works:\nBlender + BlenderBIM as an User Interface to interrogate IFC data, The IFC Schema specifications, Blender’s console to test some code, An IDE ( Integrated Development Environment) to write scripts \u0026amp; build a data app. Pre-requisites Beginner python level. Course Structure: The course is split in 6 sections spread over a total of 10 episodes.\n1️⃣ Set-up We first start by installing Blender and BlenderBIM. We then learn how to load ifc files, and navigate around the graphical interface.\n2️⃣ IFC basics We delve into the IFC Spatial Structure: such as a project, site, building, storeys that help us to organise our building elements.\nWe follow up with other basic concepts such as Classes, Attributes, Relationships, and how inheritance works in IFC.\n3️⃣ IFC Quantities \u0026amp; Properties In part 3, we dig into properties and quantities and how they are organized in the IFC data model.\n4️⃣ IFC and 4D possibilities Let\u0026rsquo;s now convert a .XML Construction Schedule into IFC data. We\u0026rsquo;ll also have fun making an animation with BlenderBIM !\nHere, we demonstrate what is possible beyond the architectural domain. You could skip this part, as it was made to introduce unknown capabilities of IFC, and relax the atmosphere from all the previous seriousness !\n5️⃣ Export IFC Data Let\u0026rsquo;s forget about IFC complexity, and simply use utility functions to get data easily, and process \u0026amp; export this data to .JSON, .CSV and Excel formats.\n6️⃣ Create a native IFC App In the last episode, we learn how to create a BIM application from scratch using famous open source libraries.\nList of Episodes Episode Number Topic Episode - 01 Installing Blender and BlenderBIM ( \u0026amp; Ifcopenshell) Episode - 02 Loading a file and navigation Basics Episode - 03 IFC Spatial Structure and IFC Relationships Episode - 04 IFC Classes, Attributes, Relationships and Class Hierarchy Episode - 05A IFC Property Sets Episode - 05B IFC Quantity Sets Episode - 06 Importing 4D data with IFC4D module Episode - 07 Quick Animation Tools - 4D BlenderBIM Episode - 08 .IFC to Json, Pandas, .csv , excel Episode - 09 Creating an IFC Application with streamlit List of Episodes from the IFC-101 series Course Link: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbFY94gzUJhGkxOUZknWupIiBnY5A0KUM\nGithub Repo: https://github.com/myoualid/ifc-101-course\nCourse Instructor Yassine Oualid is a Digital Construction Consultant for Sigma Dimensions. He holds a bachelor in Civil Engineering from UCL and a Master in Structural Engineering from Imperial College London.\nYassine has previously practiced in leading property development and contracting firms in the United Kingdom and Morocco. In his free time, Yassine collaborates in open-source projects IfcOpenShell, BlenderBIM and IFC.js.\nFind Yassine on Linkedin\nSigma Dimensions on Twitter\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2022/11/12/ifc-101-a-free-ifc-crash-course-with-python/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eOver the past year, Sigma Dimensions™️ has been releasing free short-format video tutorials on IFC basics. The IFC-101 series contains \u003cstrong\u003e10 free episodes\u003c/strong\u003e taking you from an \u003cstrong\u003eintroduction to the IFC schema\u003c/strong\u003e up to \u003cstrong\u003ebuilding a native IFC native application\u003c/strong\u003e - All with \u003cstrong\u003epython\u003c/strong\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"IFC-101 - A Free IFC crash course with python"},{"content":"There is a new suite of open source 4D project planning and controls libraries developed by Hassam Emam, a professional project planner.\nDriven by the lack of collaboration in project planning and controls, we decided to create a suite of open source planning and controls libraries that tackles the gap in this domain. The toolkit is a set of libraries and packages developed in different languages to assist project controls and planning professionals to develop their own software. We have created the following tools:\nPyP6XER: a parser to process Primavera XER format. https://github.com/HassanEmam/PyP6Xer XERNative: C++ library to parse Primavera XER files. https://github.com/Constology/XERNative xer.js: Javascript parser for xer files https://github.com/HassanEmam/xer.js 4D Gantt Chart: a gantt chart that have the look and feel of commercial tools https://github.com/HassanEmam/4D-Gantt Schedule Viewer: a web-based schedule viewer (currently supporting xer but more formats are in progress) https://hassanemam.github.io/xer.js/ CPM.js a library to perform critical path method calculations https://github.com/HassanEmam/cpm.js Location-based planning tools to convert Gantt chart to Time-location diagrams Our future plans include the following tools:\nPower BI Gantt Chart Custom Visual BIM 4D Simulation Tracker and registers (design and procurement progress trackers mapped to the schedule) Collaborative planning tools Cost management and earned value analysis tools 5D BIM estimation tool Automated schedule generation from BIM models Mobile applications for progress collection from site using BIM models !\nWe are growing the community contributing to these tools as the main goals to create toolkit by planners for planners. We rely on our community to define their requirements and work very closely with them to test and validate created tools. All tools are under active development and code is publicly available on GitHub. If you are a planning or project controls professional that would like to join us, please feel free to reach out.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2022/10/22/new-open-source-4d-project-planning-and-controls-toolkit/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThere is a new suite of open source 4D project planning and controls libraries developed by Hassam Emam, a professional project planner.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDriven by the lack of collaboration in project planning and controls, we decided to create a suite of open source planning and controls libraries that tackles the gap in this domain. The toolkit is a set of libraries and packages developed in different languages to assist project controls and planning professionals to develop their own software. We have created the following tools:\u003c/p\u003e","title":"New open source 4D project planning and controls toolkit"},{"content":"A new whitepaper has been published on Native IFC methodologies, authored by Bruno Postle, developer of Native IFC software Homemaker, and co-authored by Thomas Krijnen and Dion Moult, developers of Native IFC libraries and interfaces. The whitepaper helps define Native IFC, and how applications can collaborate in a decentralised, distributed manner.\nBruno Postle writes:\nAfter an eternity of stagnation where nothing seemed to change from one year to the next, the world of BIM is suddenly moving very fast. With Open-Source tools such as IFC.js and BlenderBIM throwing up new features and applications seemingly every week, it is hard to keep up – even for those of us who make it our business to track these things.\nFinally, here in 2022, we are witnessing an explosion of new possibilities, of new ways of working.\nAside from being free to use, modify and redistribute, and free for others to build new applications on top, what links this new class of tool is what we call Native IFC authoring.\nIFC is both a classification schema, a list of defined names so that we can all agree on what a door is, and it is a file format for BIM models. As a classification schema, IFC is the only game in town, even technologies such as COBie use IFC as a foundation.\nYou may also be familiar with IFC files as a way of not very successfully exporting and importing BIM models between different software; but IFC is much more than this – from the start IFC files were designed to be your primary store of BIM data.\n! Native IFC modeling demonstration where distributed material changes were merged with a base model\nNative IFC Applications that work with IFC files directly can access data very efficiently. A small alteration changes just a small part of the file, this means that we can use other Open-Source technologies to track our changes as we work, retrieving older versions instantly without consuming vast amounts of storage. More than that, the same tools allow us to ‘fork and merge’ BIM data, letting multiple users to work on copies of the same model, merging changes as we go – all using free tools that won’t get discontinued or priced out of reach, producing normal IFC files that can be imported into any old application that supports IFC.\nWant to know more? These new ways of working are set out in this Native IFC Whitepaper: https://github.com/brunopostle/ifcmerge/blob/main/docs/whitepaper.rst\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2022/10/15/whitepaper-published-on-native-ifc-methodologies/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eA new whitepaper has been published on Native IFC methodologies, authored by Bruno Postle, developer of Native IFC software Homemaker, and co-authored by Thomas Krijnen and Dion Moult, developers of Native IFC libraries and interfaces. The whitepaper helps define Native IFC, and how applications can collaborate in a decentralised, distributed manner.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Whitepaper published on Native IFC methodologies"},{"content":"The Seed Eco-Home 2 is an ambitious project to be the world\u0026rsquo;s only open source house design to be offered as a product you can replicate, not only as a DIY, but as a commercial offering. The open source design features a 1,000sf house that you can build for only 50,000USD in just one week with a friend. The house is code compliant, modular construction for a incredibly short build time, with the ability to build in parallel with non-skilled workers who can put together pieces like Lego. The end goal? To help solve affordable housing, and to transition the built environment economy away from the proprietary and towards the collaborative.\nAs the name suggests, the Seed Eco-Home 2 is highly environmentally friendly, with a number of LEED and Living Building Challenge qualities. It can run off-grid, with sustainable nickel and iron battery banks and 5.6kW of roof PV, an induction cooktop for half the energy requirements compared to gas, all water saving fixtures, tankless water heaters, and an edible garden, aquaponics, and miniature forest. The house is zero energy, producing more energy than it uses, and can operate without a grid connection or a gas connection.\nThis project comes from a larger offering of tested and proven designs by Open Source Ecology. Open Source Ecology is a network of farmers, engineers, architects and supporters, whose main goal is the eventual manufacturing of the Global Village Construction Set. It is a series of cost effective open source hardware designs for the easy fabrication of the 50 types of industrial machines that it takes to build a small civilization with modern comforts. This begins from things like how to create bricks, weld, build a tractor, and of course, build your own house. This means that the entire system is open source, right down to the PV and water systems. Not only are the designs open source, the funding and revenue model is also designed to be sustainable, to upskill and empower the local communities who choose to build and occupy these homes.\nThe 2022 product release of the Seed Eco-Home 2 involves the publication of all CAD models used to design the home. These are produced using the free and open source parametric modeling package FreeCAD.\n!\nImages are licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 from the OSE Wiki.\nRead more about the original product release announcement Learn more about the Seed Eco-Home 2 Visit the Open Source Ecology website Watch the TED Talk ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2022/10/09/open-source-ecology-seed-eco-home-2-product-release/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThe Seed Eco-Home 2 is an ambitious project to be the world\u0026rsquo;s only open source house design to be offered as a product you can replicate, not only as a DIY, but as a commercial offering. The open source design features a 1,000sf house that you can build for only 50,000USD in just one week with a friend. The house is code compliant, modular construction for a incredibly short build time, with the ability to build in parallel with non-skilled workers who can put together pieces like Lego. The end goal? To help solve affordable housing, and to transition the built environment economy away from the proprietary and towards the collaborative.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Open Source Ecology Seed Eco-Home 2 product release"},{"content":"As many of you know, we recently created a funding platform on Open Collective: https://opencollective.com/osarch\nHere the community can fund OSArch in general, and/or fund specific projects directly. To just get the ball rolling, the steering committee choose to post the following (2) projects.\nRoundtrip IFC annotation: FreeCAD and BlenderBIM Consolidating efforts: 2D documentation in Blender Going forward, however, we would like the community to propose and decide which projects we could post there in the future.\nIn that light, if you have a project in mind, please post your idea on the dedicated forum thread here.\nWe ask you, however, to…\nKeep your proposal concise, under 200 words and only two images max. Keeping it concise so it will not overwhelm this thread with too many details–allowing others to quickly review your project idea and later vote on it. Feel free, however, to provide url links in your description to further details. Please post projects that have a tight, atomized scope of work. A tight delineated scope will allow us to determine when the project is done, and when the funds should be distributed to the author(s). Please keep it to (1)project per (1)reply. At the end of your proposal include a link to a dedicated thread for discussing your proposal. Please do not reply with a comment about a project posted here. If you’d like to comment on a project, please go to the relevant discussion thread. We will delete any replies that are not specific project proposals. If you want, refine your proposal over time If you get some good comments about your proposal from discussion elsewhere, please feel free to update and refine your original proposal by simply editing the original post. Please consider the following points (pulled from our funding mission) when formatting your proposal. That’s okay, if your proposal doesn’t apply to all of them. Does the project… avoid duplication of effort? That is, will the project’s code base integrate with existing projects instead of creating its own separate, but similar, solution. support interoperability? That is, will the project support, extend and/or create open exchange standards between separate software. extend an existing technology with a broad and distributed contributor base? make a measurable contribution to the industry? If you are proposing a project that you, yourself plan on working on, please provide a minimal amount of funding, in US dollars, you would need to help make the project a reality. We ask this, in order to make the project more realistic and attainable. We will keep this discussion thread going until the end of October. After which, the steering committee will take those projects that have demonstrated support, as well as represent OSArch’s funding mission, and make a project shortlist.\nThis shortlist will be transferred (copy and pasted) to another post on the forum where the community can make their final voting. Voting will last a week.\nIf you having any ideas on how to improve this process of making funding proposals, and ultimately how we vote on them, please offer your comments here .\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2022/10/03/a-call-for-projects-to-fund-via-osarchs-open-collective-site/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eAs many of you know, we recently created a funding platform on Open Collective: \u003ca href=\"https://opencollective.com/osarch\"\u003ehttps://opencollective.com/osarch\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHere the community can fund OSArch in general, and/or fund specific projects directly. To just get the ball rolling, the steering committee choose to post the following (2) projects.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"A Call for Projects to Fund via OSArch's Open Collective Site"},{"content":"Learn how to create a procedural pavilion using free software Blender for architects in this upcoming course by Dimitar Pouchnikov. Read more here! https://osarch.org/2022/09/22/procedural-pavilion-blender-for-architects-course-open-for-registration/\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/procedural-pavilion-blender-for-architects-course/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eLearn how to create a procedural pavilion using free software Blender for architects in this upcoming course by Dimitar Pouchnikov. Read more here! \u003ca href=\"https://osarch.org/2022/09/22/procedural-pavilion-blender-for-architects-course-open-for-registration/\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://osarch.org/2022/09/22/procedural-pavilion-blender-for-architects-course-open-for-registration/\"\u003ehttps://osarch.org/2022/09/22/procedural-pavilion-blender-for-architects-course-open-for-registration/\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Procedural pavilion Blender for architects course"},{"content":"Learn how to create a procedural pavilion using free software Blender for architects in this upcoming course by Dimitar Pouchnikov.\nBlender\u0026rsquo;s tools are a perfect mixture between the freedom to create in Maya with the inherent and very easy-to-use parametricism that can achieve results like Grasshopper, while preserving some of the precision that people may be used to from Rhino and Sketchup. Can you believe all this power is offered in an open source software.\n!\nBlender is an essential part of my professional toolkit that helps me work with clients and consultants to create concepts quicker and better. I have created a new course with Futurly to help show more people how use Blender for architectural design. Here is a link with more info: https://www.futurly.com/s/store/courses/description/blender-architecture\nThis course focuses on creating a beach procedural pavilion. You will learn how to work with subdivision modeling with Blender\u0026rsquo;s modifiers, where we create a small part that is then radially aligned with the rest of the parts. The setup is parametric and very flexible. The same process can be used to generate larger forms and massings like buildings and towers. The hybrid course consists of 5+ hours of recorded lectures and two live sessions per month, where I can answer any questions you may have.\n!\nThis course is aimed for beginner and intermediate users. Also, if you happen to be experienced with Maya or Rhino subdiv tools, you may be interested in this course to learn how to apply those techniques within Blender.\nWe also touch briefly upon Geometry Nodes, which is closer to Houdini than Grasshopper, but can do a lot of the work that can be done in Grasshopper also. Due to working with meshes instead of nurbs, Blender handles large geometry sets much better than Rhino.\nVisit and sign up for the course! Learn more about Blender Visit the UHStudio website, author of the course Check out Dimitar\u0026rsquo;s Twitter, author of the course ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2022/09/22/procedural-pavilion-blender-for-architects-course-open-for-registration/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eLearn how to create a procedural pavilion using free software Blender for architects in this upcoming course by Dimitar Pouchnikov.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBlender\u0026rsquo;s tools are a perfect mixture between the freedom to create in Maya with the inherent and very easy-to-use parametricism that can achieve results like Grasshopper, while preserving some of the precision that people may be used to from Rhino and Sketchup. Can you believe all this power is offered in an open source software.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Procedural pavilion Blender for architects course open for registration"},{"content":"When you start working with Blender to create architectural models, one of the last things you imagine is that it is possible to output technical drawings instead of a traditional render. Did you know that you can produce technical drawings with Blender? Today, I want to share another workshop from Blender 3D Architect, the Technical drawing creation with Blender and Inkscape.\nAs you can imagine from the name, I describe the workflow required to start creating architectural drawings using Blender in the workshop. You can save those drawings as either images or vector files (SVG). In the case of vector files, I also explain how to use Inkscape to edit and enhance some of the details for the drawing.\n!\nHere is a list of what you will learn:\nBlender UI basics How to render lines for technical drawing Use collections Compose scenes with view layers Filter drawing elements for rendering Organize a scene with Line Sets and Styles Draw architectural elements like walls, doors, and windows Add and edit dimension lines (Metric and imperial units) Include text labels Work with architectural symbols Import CAD files to Blender (DXF and DWG) Use CAD blocks to add furniture to a technical drawing Render the project as an image (PNG) Export the drawing as a vector (SVG) Edit and fix SVG problems in Inkscape Add new drawing elements in Inkscape Set a page layout in Inkscape to export as a PDF The workshop has ten lessons and 52 video files you can either download or stream.\n!\nFor readers of OSArch, I\u0026rsquo;m offering a 20% discount on the workshop using this link.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2022/09/15/technical-drawing-creation-with-blender-and-inkscape-workshop/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWhen you start working with Blender to create architectural models, one of the last things you imagine is that it is possible to output technical drawings instead of a traditional render. Did you know that you can produce technical drawings with Blender? Today, I want to share another workshop from Blender 3D Architect, the \u003ca href=\"https://blender3darchitect.gumroad.com/l/technicaldrawingBlender/0sarch20\"\u003eTechnical drawing creation with Blender and Inkscape\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Technical drawing creation with Blender and Inkscape (Workshop)"},{"content":"We\u0026rsquo;ve been quietly working away in the steering committee to make a platform ready to present projects and manage donations. If you\u0026rsquo;re ready to become a regular (or one time) supporter just head over to our new OSArch Open Collective and sign up!\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s the OSArch Open Collective for? Basically it\u0026rsquo;s your way to support OSArch and the work we do. You can donate a little to OSArch every month so we can plan our activities and start building strong relationships with projects \u0026amp; activities which need financial support. If you like what we\u0026rsquo;re doing it\u0026rsquo;s also just a way to say thanks and let us know. It\u0026rsquo;s also a way for you to see which projects we believe can give open source / free software the most value for your money right now.\nHow will the money be used? Money is either for OSArch itself or specific projects. For now we just have two specific projects while we keep working out the best way to use the platform, select projects and manage money. We\u0026rsquo;ve started with these two projects which we think strongly represents our aims and values:\nRoundtrip IFC annotation: FreeCAD and BlenderBIM Consolidating efforts: 2D documentation in Blender As you can see in the diagram below there are lots of projects that could be supported in different ways. We\u0026rsquo;re working on finding out what works and we still have a lot to learn. Join in on the forum if you have strong opinions or some knowledge about good ways to support the projects we love.\nIs it only for software projects? No! Absolutely not. There are lots of things we would love to be able to support. So many that we had trouble finding a way to organize all the ideas that came out of our Brainstorm on projects we\u0026rsquo;d like to be able to fund! So we made a diagram to start organizing the ideas.\n!\nIs this just about money? OSArch is about much more than money. We\u0026rsquo;re all about learning, community, sharing knowledge, open standards, open data, and of course libre \u0026amp; opensource software. For some types of projects money is useful. That\u0026rsquo;s what the OSArch Open Collective is put in the world to help us manage. The OSArch Open Collective is currently the only way to support us directly. But if you\u0026rsquo;re ready to support libre / opens source software for AEC we\u0026rsquo;re not the only place to send your money. We want you to give support in whatever way is best for you. We\u0026rsquo;ve made a whole directory of software projects you can support directly. If you already have a pretty good idea of what you want to support then that\u0026rsquo;s a good place to look.\nHelp us spread the word If you\u0026rsquo;re ready to help us spread the word and build some finances share this post, join our social media, subscribe to our newsletter.\nMastodon Twitter LinkedIn YouTube We think this is a big step so we\u0026rsquo;re excited to hear what people think and hope you\u0026rsquo;ll join the conversation.\nThanks for being involved!\nThe OSArch Steering Committee\nPeter Sande (cadgiru), Bruno Postle, Ioannis Christovasilis (jesusbill), Ryan Schultz (theoryshaw), Dion Moult \u0026amp; Duncan Lithgow\nSupport us by helping spread the word\nBoost our Toot on Fosstodon Share our tweet on Twitter Share our post on LinkedIn ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2022/09/05/support-osarch-with-money/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWe\u0026rsquo;ve been quietly working away in the steering committee to make a platform ready to present projects and manage donations. If you\u0026rsquo;re ready to become a regular (or one time) supporter just head over to our new \u003ca href=\"https://opencollective.com/osarch\"\u003eOSArch Open Collective\u003c/a\u003e and sign up!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Support OSArch with Money!"},{"content":"OpenProject 12.2.0 has just been released, with the biggest feature being a new integration with Nextcloud. OpenProject is an open source GPLv3 licensed web-based project management platform, with over 2 million downloads and 190 contributors. OpenProject has a BIM module, which allows basic navigation of OpenBIM models, and is one of the few open source options to use as a Common Data Environment (CDE) for AEC professionals.\n!\nPrior to this release, OpenProject focused primarily on issue management. Although there was an OpenBIM viewer (based on the open source Xeokit project), there was no way to see a central filesystem of project documents, such as drawings, schedules, and specifications. This major omission did not make it feasible for larger companies to adopt OpenProject as a model platform, and it had to be used together with other filesharing software.\nThis release combines the issue management capabilities of OpenProject with the filesharing capabilities of the well-established open source Nextcloud project. Nextcloud is a mature, enterprise-ready project that offers an alternative to the proprietary Microsoft cloud offerings. When combined with OpenProject, this allows you to store project documents, along with all the features of Nextcloud Files, such as filesharing access controls, integration with FTP, Windows Network Drives, SharePoint, NFS, web, desktop, and mobile apps, locked files, and GDPR compliance.\nDocuments on Nextcloud Files may be linked to issues on OpenProject, and vice versa. Clicking a document will show all relevant issues. Permissions are linked between OpenProject and Nextcloud, so a user who does not have the permission to access the file in Nextcloud will also not be able to open, download, modify or unlink the file in OpenProject.\n!\nIssue related notifications (such as issue status changes) will also then be available as a widget in your Nextcloud dashboard.\n!\nNote that Nextcloud does not yet have features tailored to the AEC industry, such as document revisioning, and custom metadata fields. However, this integration is still a huge step forward for firms concerned about data sovereignty.\nOther features include improvements to the date picker, the ability to log time for other users for administrators, and numerous bug fixes and improvements.\nVisit the OpenProject homepage Help develop OpenProject on Github Read the official release notes Read the documentation on Nextcloud integration Learn more about Nextcloud ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2022/09/02/openproject-released-with-nextcloud-integration/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eOpenProject 12.2.0 has just been released, with the biggest feature being a new integration with Nextcloud. OpenProject is an open source GPLv3 licensed web-based project management platform, with over 2 million downloads and 190 contributors. OpenProject has a BIM module, which allows basic navigation of OpenBIM models, and is one of the few open source options to use as a Common Data Environment (CDE) for AEC professionals.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"OpenProject 12.2.0 released with Nextcloud integration"},{"content":"OSArch has a new banner image! The image is courtesy of a collaboration between Ioannis Christovasilis of Aether Engineering and Ryan Schultz of OpeningDesign. These two companies are known for applying an open source approach to the AEC industry.\nA round-tripping IFC The collaboration used BlenderBIM to model an external three story porch for a multifamily project in Bryan, Texas, USA. Ioannis works from Italy, and Ryan works from the United States. BlenderBIM\u0026rsquo;s native IFC file(s) followed the sun as it was roundtripped back and forth over the Atlantic.\nAlthough 2D documentation functionality in BlenderBIM is steadily maturing, the plan for this project was to import the BlenderBIM IFC file into Revit to complete the documentation. This is similar to how OpeningDesign and OpeningDetail have worked in the past by round-tripping, via IFC, large scale details back and forth between FreeCAD, BlenderBIM, and Revit (see illustrations below).\nDocumentation is hard Although their past experience modeling these isolated details in FreeCAD/BlenderBIM worked surprisingly well (and they will continue exploring this approach), modeling the balcony\u0026rsquo;s larger scope, with so many repetitive parts, proved less efficient. For example Blender\u0026rsquo;s collection instances did not survive the IFC roundtrip, instead the models objects lost too much data to accommodate design changes. For now they abandoned their intention to annotate the model in Revit. This was not necessarily a shortcoming of BlenderBIM, but was more related to the current IFC schema\u0026ndash;a shortcoming they hope will be addressed in the near future.\nHaving talked to the team, they will continue to explore round-tripping these large scale details, as the scope is more manageable when using BlenderBIM in its alpha state. They have high hopes for the future as the platform matures.\nWays forward for distributed work The team are especially excited to adopt Bruno Postle\u0026rsquo;s new IFCmerge tool in the future. This tool will allow distributed version and merge control of IFC files. Suddenly it will be possible for the team to work on the same model at the same time. The future is bright.\nThis project, like most OpeningDesign\u0026rsquo;s projects, is open source (Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International\u0026ndash;CC BY-SA 4.0)\u0026ndash;freely available to any party for future use, assuming the terms such as Attribution and ShareAlike are honored. The project files are located here:https://hub.openingdesign.com/OpeningDesign/Marco_Polo\n!These details were a collaboration with Regis Tene, Maíra Zasso, Bruno Perdigão de Oliveira, Yorik van Havre and Ryan Schultz ! ! ! !\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2022/08/09/a-banner-for-using-blenderbim-in-production/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eOSArch has a new banner image! The image is courtesy of a collaboration between Ioannis Christovasilis of \u003ca href=\"https://www.aethereng.com\"\u003eAether Engineering\u003c/a\u003e and Ryan Schultz of \u003ca href=\"http://openingdesign.com/\"\u003eOpeningDesign\u003c/a\u003e. These two companies are known for applying an open source approach to the AEC industry.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"A 'Banner' for Using BlenderBIM in Production"},{"content":"Part of our mission at OSArch is bringing people together \u0026amp; sharing knowledge. The OSArch Wiki plays an important role in this goal. In the OSArch Community Forum we discuss topics and on the wiki we document them. At least that\u0026rsquo;s the idea, but it takes a lot of dedicated work.\nI had some free time this week so I\u0026rsquo;ve been working on the OSArch wiki. Read on if that sort of information goldmine is interesting for you \u0026hellip; maybe you\u0026rsquo;d like to help.\nHierarchies I\u0026rsquo;ve reorganized a number of pages so they are now in a hierarchy with sub pages. This is the case now for BlenderBIM Add-on, FreeCAD, IFC - Industry Foundation Classes, MVD - Model View Definitions, MicroMVDs for information exchange \u0026amp; Revit Setup for OpenBIM. This means some categories will be removed over time.\nWe can see in the site statistics that the pages on OpenBIM with Revit really deserve more attention, supporting people in liberating their projects from this proprietary format.\n!Revit Setup for OpenBIM now uses sub pages\nSoftware pages Quite a few software pages have also had a quick clean up. Sverchok (programming nodes for Blender), Ladybug Tools (programming nodes for analysis in Rhinoceros 3D \u0026amp; more recently Blender), MeasureIt Arch got a cleanup, IFC.js had no Infobox - how embarrassing!\n!MeasureIt Arch screenshot (Blender Add-on)\nSoftware maturity can be worth browsing for, so now the Software Maturity categories are linked to software pages when the Software Infobox is filled in correctly. So now you can browse software pages by maturity level, but it will take time for software pages appear in their categories because pages need re-saving before this change goes through.\n!Software Infobox for BlenderBIM Add-on\nOpenBIM Standards The COBie - Construction Operations Building Information Exchange page almost didn\u0026rsquo;t exist. It\u0026rsquo;s now looking useful with description, links and examples. The IFC, IDS \u0026amp; MVD pages also got a bit of a general cleanup and some new links. Have you seen the IDS creator?\nStyling A new page is OSArch Style Guide where images/logos and info on colors and fonts are collected. If you\u0026rsquo;re making a presentation and want to mention OSArch - that\u0026rsquo;s the place to get a logo.\nImages are great, we recognize a familiar image much faster than a name, so I add them where it makes sense, like on the Software Directory page where we\u0026rsquo;ve come a long way finding logos for projects (sometimes this is surprisingly hard). The next page to focus on for logos might be AEC Open Data Standards Directory but personally I think that page needs re-thinking. Actually I think the libre/OSS software community needs a new type of software directory.\nSome small changes to note:\nThe software infobox now links back to the directory COBie page has a nice image so it\u0026rsquo;s easier to understand IFC has a whole section on libre/OSS software libraries, better links to the official documentation \u0026amp; a great link to the IFC Myth Busters videos by Leon van Berlo. The Donation Directory lists 20 projects and ways to support them, the page now includes project icons - it would help with recognizable icons for each donation service \u0026hellip; Share Your Knowledge If you\u0026rsquo;re ready to give a little bit of your time to OSArch and want to help with the wiki a good place to start is the Category \u0026lsquo;Software missing an infobox\u0026rsquo;. Just find software you\u0026rsquo;ve heard and improve the page! Pages need:\nA Software Infobox A Description A \u0026lsquo;See also\u0026rsquo; section linking to OSArch sites An \u0026lsquo;External Reference\u0026rsquo; section for external links. Logo \u0026amp; Screenshot are great - let us know if you need upload rights. Working on a software page is a great way to learn about the software on the wiki. If you\u0026rsquo;re ready to start a whole new page for something in the Software Directory, that doesn\u0026rsquo;t even have its own page, drop by the forum or chat and let us know if you need a hand (the Inkscape page shows the preferred setup).\nSo drop by the wiki and have a look around - you\u0026rsquo;ll learn something and maybe teach something to someone else as well.\nDuncan Lithgow\ncontact me\nPS. Send this article to anyone who might be interested and encourage them to subscribe to our newsletter from https://osarch.org/\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2022/07/29/news-from-the-osarch-wiki/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ePart of our \u003ca href=\"https://wiki.osarch.org/index.php?title=Open-Source_Architecture_Community\"\u003emission at OSArch\u003c/a\u003e is bringing people together \u0026amp; sharing knowledge. \u003ca href=\"https://wiki.osarch.org/\"\u003eThe OSArch Wiki\u003c/a\u003e plays an important role in this goal. In the \u003ca href=\"https://community.osarch.org/\"\u003eOSArch Community Forum\u003c/a\u003e we discuss topics and on the wiki we document them. At least that\u0026rsquo;s the idea, but it takes a lot of dedicated work.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"News from the OSArch wiki"},{"content":"In the May/June issues of a leading UK AEC publication, AEC Magazine there was a 16 page special section starting on page 67 all about IFC (sponsored by buildingSMART UK \u0026amp; Ireland). The whole section is all about something we value here at OSArch: OpenBIM, Open Standards \u0026amp; even a mention for the Open Source / Free Software Community. So why is OpenBIM \u0026amp; Open Standards important?\nUsing a standard data model approach means that the data we create is not locked into proprietary software, or indeed locked into one company’s systems. It can instead be exploited by other technologies for greater insight into built environment assets, helping to achieve better outcomes\nbuildingSMART UK \u0026amp; Ireland\nNaturally enough a lot of the articles in AEC Magazine are about Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) which is the backbone of most OpenBIM implementations. If you\u0026rsquo;re not very familiar with the ISO standard IFC data format then it\u0026rsquo;s a great read to get an overview of what all the fuss is about.\nA rather new concept around the IFC standard is Native IFC - simply put this is using IFC as a native authoring format, currently implemented in the BlenderBIM Add-on.\nA founder of OSArch, Dion Moult, was invited to write an article \u0026lsquo;Native OpenBIM, and the rise of open source in AEC\u0026rsquo;\nBringing together OpenBIM standards and open source software, we can start to put data first and expose the full functionality of the IFC schema. Open-source software like IfcOpenShell, xBIM and IFC.js are platforms for the development of native IFC tools. These open data platforms have helped start-ups develop new products for our industry.\nDion Moult\n!\nAnother of our friends, Tim Davies writes about the use of the IFC format for coordinating the massive Hinkley Point nuclear power station in England. He writes:\nOur engineers love to use IFC because of the freedom it gives them. They can choose the best\ntool for the job from a large ecosystem of tools, regardless of vendor. This has caused a weird\nirony to emerge whereby we have the ability to use many more tools than most but, because\nIFC is the only model data structure we need to support, we get away with using fewer tools.\nSo, if you haven\u0026rsquo;t read this special section of AEC Magazine yet, go and take a look.\nDuncan Lithgow\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2022/07/12/openbim-blenderbim-add-on-in-aec-magazine/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIn the \u003ca href=\"https://issuu.com/x3dmedia/docs/aec_mayjune22\"\u003eMay/June issues of a leading UK AEC publication, AEC Magazine\u003c/a\u003e there was a 16 page special section starting on page 67 all about IFC (sponsored by buildingSMART UK \u0026amp; Ireland). The whole section is all about something we value here at OSArch: \u003ca href=\"https://wiki.osarch.org/index.php?title=OpenBIM\"\u003eOpenBIM\u003c/a\u003e, \u003ca href=\"https://wiki.osarch.org/index.php?title=AEC_Open_Data_Standards_Directory\"\u003eOpen Standards\u003c/a\u003e \u0026amp; even a mention for the Open Source / Free Software Community. So why is OpenBIM \u0026amp; Open Standards important?\u003c/p\u003e","title":"AEC Magazine features OpenBIM \u0026 BlenderBIM add-on"},{"content":"Since this is my first article, let me introduce myself and Blender 3D Architect. My name is Allan Brito, and I\u0026rsquo;ve been an architect working with Blender since version 2.35.\nWhen I started using Blender in 2005, it wasn\u0026rsquo;t something that many architects and designers were actively doing. FLOSS was appealing because it gave me control over my workflow, and I never stopped using Blender for all my projects. In 2008, I started sharing everything I had learned about Blender for architecture on Blender 3D Architect.\nMy mission is to teach other architects and designers about all the fantastic things Blender can do for them. To achieve this, I\u0026rsquo;ve written books and created workshops with relevant subjects for architecture and design. My most recent workshop, Blender for Architecture, was updated and released last month.\nThis workshop is a great place to start if you\u0026rsquo;re interested in learning how to use Blender for architecture. You\u0026rsquo;ll learn everything you need to know, from the basics up. So why not give it a try? I\u0026rsquo;m sure you won\u0026rsquo;t be disappointed!\nThe workshop has a total of 12 lessons that has everything you need to get started. In the first lesson, you find a quick introduction to Blender, and from there, we cover lots of subjects of interest for architects:\nBlender UI basics 3D Navigation and shortcuts Working with precision modeling (Metric and Imperial) Saving projects in Blender Modeling for architecture Creating accurate 3D models based on numeric inputs Produce architectural elements such as walls, doors, windows, floors, stairs, and more Add materials and textures to models Use Add-ons to improve your work Import references for modeling (SketchUp, AutoCAD, BIM, and images) Use the Asset Browser Manage furniture models Work with the Blender camera for architecture Render projects with Cycles and Eevee Use multiple types of lights for architecture To enroll in the workshop, you can follow this link. All videos and lessons are available for either download or stream. Most of the lessons also provide sample files that you can use to track each explanation.\nThe link above also has a 25% discount for readers of OSArch.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2022/07/07/blender-for-architecture-workshop/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eSince this is my first article, let me introduce myself and \u003ca href=\"https://www.blender3darchitect.com\"\u003eBlender 3D Architect\u003c/a\u003e. My name is Allan Brito, and I\u0026rsquo;ve been an architect working with Blender since version 2.35.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen I started using Blender in 2005, it wasn\u0026rsquo;t something that many architects and designers were actively doing. FLOSS was appealing because it gave me control over my workflow, and I never stopped using Blender for all my projects. In 2008, I started sharing everything I had learned about Blender for architecture on Blender 3D Architect.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blender for architecture workshop"},{"content":"Please welcome the new release of FreeCAD, version 0.20! Installers and images available for Windows, MacOS and Linux on the FreeCAD website and on GitHub.\nhttps://www.youtube.com/embed/-Mqh4-irSO4\nThis version is pretty much a \u0026ldquo;stable version\u0026rdquo;, and a continuation of the work done on the 0.19 version. It is backwards-compatible with it, which means the files you produce with 0.20 are still openable with 0.19.\n!\nHere is a short overview of some of the most interesting features. Check the full release notes for more!\n!\nTree view improvements : The Tree and Properties views have seen a number of new features and fixes. With a right-button click, you can now add and remove custom properties, or select group contents or dependent objects. Multiple edit modes implementation : Although FreeCAD supported multiple edit modes since the start, it was never used a lot. Now, you can choose which edit mode to use, which one is the default one, and workbenches are progressively implementing support for it too. A shiny new section cut tool allows you to make gorgeous, solid-based section views of your models. The add-ons manager has been almost completely recoded, and shows a much better preview of add-ons. It also allows to search and bulk-update your addons. A new structure now also allows addons to provide preference packs, which can set many FreeCAD preferences at once. This also allows you to easily export your preferences settings. he documentation system of FreeCAD has also been completely recoded. Although it is still based on the FreeCAD wiki, it prepares the way for a possible migration to a markdown-based system. It also gives much more flexibility, such as offering you to choose between an online or offline version, or to use a specific translated version of the documentation. An improved BIM-to-2D workflow, as I documented earlier, with support for hatches, section marks, and much more. Support for 2D elements in IFC files. This is done in collaboration with BlenderBIM devs. !\nMore info:\nOfficial 0.20 release notes FreeCAD 0.20 announcement on Yorik\u0026rsquo;s blog ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2022/06/26/freecad-0-20-released/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ePlease welcome the new release of FreeCAD, version \u003cstrong\u003e0.20\u003c/strong\u003e! Installers and images available for Windows, MacOS and Linux on the \u003ca href=\"https://freecad.org/downloads.php\"\u003eFreeCAD website\u003c/a\u003e and on \u003ca href=\"https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/releases/tag/0.20\"\u003eGitHub\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/-Mqh4-irSO4\"\u003ehttps://www.youtube.com/embed/-Mqh4-irSO4\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis version is pretty much a \u0026ldquo;stable version\u0026rdquo;, and a continuation of the work done on the \u003cstrong\u003e0.19\u003c/strong\u003e version. It is backwards-compatible with it, which means the files you produce with 0.20 are still openable with 0.19.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"FreeCAD 0.20 released!"},{"content":"BabylonJS is an open source web developer library to build rich 3D apps on the browser. The new version 5.0 release is one of the largest releases ever made for BabylonJS. This includes full support for WebGPU, the ability to build cross platform, web, and native apps, performance profiler, GUI editor, WebXR light estimation, node based materials, full glTF support, and more.\nYou might\u0026rsquo;ve heard of ThreeJS before, which is the web developer library that powers IFC.JS. BabylonJS is similar to ThreeJS, but differentiates itself by offering a structured framework to build 3D content, more akin to a game engine than the more granular approach by ThreeJS. Both libraries are mature and pack a lot of features, making the choice between them less clear cut. For beginners to web development who want to quickly get going with powerful visual tools, intuitive camera movements out of the box, and pretty visuals, BabylonJS is an excellent choice.\nBabylonJS is not new to applications in AEC, being used in the open source Vi-sense prototype to display IoT sensor data alongside building plant rooms.\n!\nBeing backed by Microsoft, BabylonJS isn\u0026rsquo;t limited to prototypes. BabylonJS is mature open source software powering proprietary offerings like Microsoft Azure Digital Twins. With this foundation, it\u0026rsquo;s a pretty safe bet to use it for your own digital twin, CDE, or online BIM viewer. Here\u0026rsquo;s an example from Teia Solution, visualising a federated model BIM model broken down into disciplines, with the spatial tree shown and information callouts. This demo is available on the BabylonJS website.\n!\nAs an equivalent of IFC.JS doesn\u0026rsquo;t yet exist for BabylonJS, getting BIM data into BabylonJS takes a couple of steps. The first step is bringing in geometry. Supported 3D formats include OBJ and glb / glTF. Using the open source IfcConvert tool by IfcOpenShell, you can easily automate the conversion of IFC data into either OBJ or glb / glTF. For those not working with IFC, geometry can come in through the integration with Blender. For bringing in data, IfcConvert can convert IFC data into XML, or IfcJSON may convert IFC data into JSON, both of which can be extracted by JavaScript. Alternatively, tools like Speckle may help extract data from proprietary software.\nOther inspiring examples available on the BabylonJS website include the College Room Planner by Target:\n!College Room Planner by Target\n\u0026hellip; as well as this Apartment Configurator by Axeon Software.\n!\nWhat does the new version 5.0 release bring for AEC? Support for web GPU means more speed for beautiful textured models. Cross platform support means you can support native software, even on iPhone and Android. The performance profiler helps you scale up to the large models typical of the BIM world. The new GUI editor means that it\u0026rsquo;s much more user friendly to prototype visual model interfaces, without getting stuck into the code.\nVisit the BabylonJS website Watch the BabylonJS release feature trailer video Read the BabylonJS 5.0 release notes See the demo BIM project by Teia Solution Check out the College Room Planner by Target View the Apartment Configurator by Axeon Software ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2022/05/28/babylonjs-5-0-release-makes-3d-web-apps-easier-than-ever/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eBabylonJS is an open source web developer library to build rich 3D apps on the browser. The new version 5.0 release is one of the largest releases ever made for BabylonJS. This includes full support for WebGPU, the ability to build cross platform, web, and native apps, performance profiler, GUI editor, WebXR light estimation, node based materials, full glTF support, and more.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"BabylonJS 5.0 release makes 3D web apps easier than ever"},{"content":"Inkscape 1.2 is the leading open source vector design program. Based on the SVG open standard, it has applications in AEC from early concept stage architectural design, sheet and technical drawing layouting, creating client presentations, PDF editing, and general graphic design for signage, design concepts, and fabricated textures on facades, panels, and coverings.\nThe developers have been extra busy and this release includes a number of game-changing new features in addition to about 80 major bugfixes and many more minor ones. The 5 most relevant to AEC are listed below.\nAll images have been taken from the official Inkscape website and release notes, linked at the end of this article.\nMulti-page documents now supported Inkscape now has a new page tool which allows multiple pages of same or different sizes in the same document. Pages can then be used to export to a multi-page PDF. Objects can move from one page to another, pages can be labeled, added, and removed.\nNote that pages are not a native SVG concept, so this behaviour is unique to Inkscape. Other SVG viewers will only see the first page in an Inkscape document, which correlates to the viewbox area of your SVG data.\n!\nAlignment and distribution snapping The alignment and distribution interface has been improved to make it clearer to new users on how to align and distribution items, with all the alignment options now merged into a single dialog. The best part is the new snapping menu which changes the snap options for a toolbar of 20 or so icons into a clear menu using snapping text jargon that users will recognise, like edges, corners, midpoints, centers, and so on.\nEven better than the interface changes is the new on-canvas alignment. Just like proprietary software such as Adobe Illustrator or InDesign, snapping now occurs while dragging objects on the canvas itself, with hotspots and tooltips popping up to guide alignments and equal distributions between objects. This makes doing page layouts and presentations significantly much more user friendly.\n!\nText flow, padding inside shapes, and markers Architects occasionally have to prepare presentation panels which include text columns and labels. Text editing in Inkscape previously did not lend itself well to encasing text in boxed frames the way Adobe InDesign does, but the new features in Inkscape make it much easier to create text layouts alongside the graphic designs.\nWhen text is flowed into a shape, there is now a handle that lets you adjust the internal padding with that shape. This means you can use rectangles for text columns or box labels and the padding can be adjusted. You can then set an exclusion zone for text to flow around one or more other objects, such as images or features which overlap with the text column. This feature makes use of the new SVG shape-padding and shape-subtract features\nMarkers are a bit of a niche feature but are increasingly used (such as in the BlenderBIM Add-on and IfcOpenShell) for customising arrowheads, or architectural dimension ticks, datum marks, section markers, and other annotative markers. Markers can now be previewed, scaled, direction changed, offset, or edited directly on the canvas. For those generating drawings with IfcOpenShell, this is a great way to visually modify annotation symbols!\n!\nLayers and object dialog A new dialog merges the layers and objects into a hierarchical tree similar to what users may be used to in other design software. This makes it easy to see the entire structure of objects including names, visibility, locks, and masks. Layers and objects can be multi selected for bulk operations, as well as to isolate elements or affect all elements excluding an active selection.\n!\nImproved gradient editing If you\u0026rsquo;ve ever tried to work out how editing gradients work in Inkscape for any purpose whatsoever, you\u0026rsquo;d love the new updates to the gradient editor. The fill and stroke dialog now has gradient editing built in: this means you can add, remove, and slide the position of colour stops in one location.\n!\nVisit the official Inkscape website Read the Inkscape 1.2 release announcement Read the Inkscape 1.2 release notes Watch the Inkscape 1.2 release video trailer Visit the Inkscape page on the OSArch Wiki ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2022/05/19/inkscape-1-2-released-with-major-improvements-in-vector-design/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eInkscape 1.2 is the leading open source vector design program. Based on the SVG open standard, it has applications in AEC from early concept stage architectural design, sheet and technical drawing layouting, creating client presentations, PDF editing, and general graphic design for signage, design concepts, and fabricated textures on facades, panels, and coverings.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Inkscape 1.2 released with major improvements in vector design"},{"content":"A casual session to share workflows and ask questions on how to do things with the BlenderBIM Add-on. Hosted by @theoryshaw.\nAlso, it might or might not help, but in the following chat rooms, we\u0026rsquo;re in the trenches teasing out BB workflows around a specific project.\nhttps://app.element.io/#/room/#OD_Workflow_Discussions:matrix.org https://app.element.io/#/room/#101_W_33rd_St:matrix.org Files located here: https://gitlab.com/openingdesign/101_W_33rd_St/-/tree/main/Models and CAD/IFC In short, we modeling large scale details in BB and FreeCAD, and annotating (w/ intelligent ifcmaterial tagging) them in Revit. ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/blenderbim-add-on-knowledge-exchange/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eA casual session to share workflows and ask questions on how to do things with the BlenderBIM Add-on. Hosted by @theoryshaw.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlso, it might or might not help, but in the following chat rooms, we\u0026rsquo;re in the trenches teasing out BB workflows around a specific project.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"BlenderBIM Add-on Knowledge Exchange"},{"content":"Speckle will be hosting a community standup. At Speckle we host monthly meetings with our community members to get to know them better, share what we’re working on and hear feedback.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/speckle-community-standup-may-the-4th-be-with-you/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eSpeckle will be hosting a community standup. At Speckle we host monthly meetings with our community members to get to know them better, share what we’re working on and hear feedback.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Speckle Community Standup - May the 4th Be With You!"},{"content":"Have you ever thought about creating your own BIM software? The IFC.js crash course is available for signups for the next few days and will help teach you how to turn your web browser and more into a BIM app. The course is aimed at beginners, so don\u0026rsquo;t worry if you haven\u0026rsquo;t done programming before!\nIFC.js is the leading open source developer library for developing Native IFC based viewers, applications, and integrations on the web. It is unique that it uses a technology called WASM, which means that anybody can quickly turn their web browser into a BIM application just with Javascript, but still get the benefits of a responsive, speedy experience just like a desktop application. It\u0026rsquo;s based on another famous open source project, called Three.js, which has been powering a huge amount of 3D content that you already see on the internet.\n!\nThe IFC.js crash course includes 20 hours of videos split into 90 lessons, which you will have lifetime access to. You\u0026rsquo;ll learn the basics of web technologies, including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and how to then use developer libraries and tools like Git, Three.js, and IFC.js on top. You\u0026rsquo;ll learn how to read IFCs, write IFCs, edit IFCs, integrate with GIS, generate CAD drawings, manipulate 3D scans, and connect to databases.\nThe course is only 100USD, with discounts if you\u0026rsquo;re a patron or based on your country and costs of living. Funds will be invested in further development in IFC.js. So not only do you learn some new tricks, IFC.js will continue to improve, and this will create a mature platform for future innovations and web-based technologies in the AEC industry. To date, IFC.js have raised 20,000USD to help fund their development.\nRead more about the course Sign up for the crash course (3 days left!) Help fund IFC.js via OpenCollective Learn what is IFC.js ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2022/04/28/ifc-js-crash-course-available-this-week/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eHave you ever thought about creating your own BIM software? The IFC.js crash course is available for signups for the next few days and will help teach you how to turn your web browser and more into a BIM app. The course is aimed at beginners, so don\u0026rsquo;t worry if you haven\u0026rsquo;t done programming before!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"IFC.js crash course available this week"},{"content":"JJ_Nelson shares an initiative in open sourcing the architectural design process in his studio, Studio GIB. He is working on designing a table and open air workshop, with an open source design under a CC-BY 4.0 licence.\nModel replicating one of BIG\u0026rsquo;s smallest projects - studying minimal shelters for an Open Source cabin concept\nEmboldened by professor Carlo Ratti\u0026rsquo;s essay: “Open Source Architecture”, I started working on an idea which could have helped me into shaping a different way we could work, by rejuvenating our aging business model and at the same time opening our work to both the general public and fellow designers.\nWhat I’m trying to do is to apply the OS idea to any design process, handling projects the way you would do in software development. Treating design as if it was software, with briefs, goals, intermediate releases and fixes, would help fellow designers who are facing the same problems all around the world to join in on the process, or even just take the data you’ve built and start their own design from whichever point in the job, saving time and resources.\nHow many people in the world are trying to solve the same problem at the same time? This way, they’d be free to employ their creative energies toward new tasks, adding to the general progress and convergence of the field.\nThere are multiple implications to an Open Source Architectural model: you lose the unique property off your designs and decide to share all your hard earned trade secrets “en plain air”, handing out both the complete design and the process for everyone to see and use (costs, design decisions, meeting outcomes, fails and setbacks, etc..).\nMill_Table, a CNC plywood table, is the first project being developed by the office.\nThe goal is to offer free, transparent knowledge in order to gain public support in the form of networks and new ideas. Hence, I’d like to take advantage of today\u0026rsquo;s ease of sharing and communication (from discord channels to instagram or twitch), in order to gather a network and form a community. Moreover, online mecenatism would enable us to self-start our designs/problems, make our own briefs and develop them as if was an independent research lab, through the help of online communities rallying behind one\u0026rsquo;s flag.\nI’m testing these ideas through a series of self-started projects, published on Github; Feel free to join or download the projects and let’s discuss them together!\nVisit GIB\u0026rsquo;s Github repository Visit GIB on IG Reach out on the Discord server, or by mail See the latest developments on the OSArch Community thread ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2022/04/16/studio-gib-open-source-architecture-as-a-business-model/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eJJ_Nelson shares an initiative in open sourcing the architectural design process in his studio, Studio GIB. He is working on designing a table and open air workshop, with an open source design under a CC-BY 4.0 licence.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Studio GIB - Open Source Architecture as a business model"},{"content":"Wojciech Radaczyński shares:\nA few days ago there was a release of a open-source, accessible, simple, minimalistic file format for BIM called dotbim (.bim as an extension), that will allow you to store geometry and data with it. The obvious question could be: what difference does it make to the existing work-flows or file formats?\nDotbim was built with an idea of having whole documentation of it on 1 page only. It was made on purpose to make it as minimalistic and as simple and it possibly can be. Yet still it allows to transfer geometries and data attached. Such approach can make a huge difference for the developers of different software. You\u0026rsquo;d spent much less time on building parsers, importers, exporter, and other tools around it. Think of it as the \u0026ldquo;markdown\u0026rdquo; of BIM - the bare minimum, but just enough structure for your content.\n!\nSuch limited number of features can also help to make sure that you can get all of them, not only some part of it, which is something that many exporters and importers do actually: they accept only some % of all of the features that file format provides. And even if it would be 90% of it, then they can add new features in a new version, or break the user space within new version. In dotbim the goal was to keep it simple and minimalist all the time.\n!\nSuch approach obviously has it\u0026rsquo;s own drawbacks: dotbim doesn\u0026rsquo;t have large number of features in comparison to the existing solutions. So yes, it is limited, but yes: that\u0026rsquo;s what makes it powerful.\nThe goal was to provide a simple alternative. For many tasks using other file formats is an absolute overkill, and that\u0026rsquo;s where .bim files can come in handy.\nCheck out the repository here: https://github.com/paireks/dotbim See the introduction video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bpWEdWcHvw Python library: dotbimpy - https://github.com/paireks/dotbimpy Grasshopper plugin: dotbimGH - https://github.com/paireks/dotbimGH dotbim-ifc, converts to and from IFC and dotbim: https://github.com/Moult/dotbim-ifc, Author: Dion Moult Online 3d Viewer, supports.bim files and converts to other file formats: https://3dviewer.net/, Author: Viktor Kovacs ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2022/02/26/dotbim-minimalist-file-format-for-bim/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWojciech Radaczyński shares:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA few days ago there was a release of a open-source, accessible, simple, minimalistic file format for BIM called dotbim (.bim as an extension), that will allow you to store geometry and data with it. The obvious question could be: what difference does it make to the existing work-flows or file formats?\u003c/p\u003e","title":"dotbim - minimalist file format for BIM"},{"content":"Join us this year for FOSDEM 2022! A free event for software developers to meet, share ideas and collaborate.\nEvery year, thousands of developers of free and open source software from all over the world gather at the event for hundreds of lectures and devrooms.\nBIM (Building Information Modeling) is a paradigm for 3D CAD models made for Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC). Long a closed, proprietary garden, it becomes more and more an open, hackable world thanks to several Free and Open-Source tools and formats.\nThis talk will try to illustrate how rich that world has become when your tinkering, hacking, coding itch starts to scratch\u0026hellip;\nIn this talk, Dion (developer of BlenderBIM) and Yorik (developer of FreeCAD, specifically its BIM tools) will use these two applications and try to show some clever tricks that you can do with BIM models, that no proprietary software would dream to achieve.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/fosdem-2022-hacking-through-bim-models/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eJoin us this year for FOSDEM 2022! A free event for software developers to meet, share ideas and collaborate.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEvery year, thousands of developers of free and open source software from all over the world gather at the event for hundreds of lectures and devrooms.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"FOSDEM 2022: Hacking through BIM models"},{"content":"Hey everyone, in the live chat some of us discussed having a regular meeting, say once a month, where expert users can share their knowledge and learn from others as well. The meeting is by no means exclusive to self proclaimed guru\u0026rsquo;s ?, so that means everyone\u0026rsquo;s welcome!\nRead more here: https://community.osarch.org/discussion/837/blenderbim-expert-knowledge-exchange\nMeeting link: https://meet.jit.si/moderated/36ecc7f9e236d903358281dc137f7dedfe61e43cf657da8c7bc64e7ed63e7c1e\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/blenderbim-add-on-technical-knowledge-exchange/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eHey everyone, in the live chat some of us discussed having a regular meeting, say once a month, where expert users can share their knowledge and learn from others as well. The meeting is by no means exclusive to self proclaimed guru\u0026rsquo;s ?, so that means everyone\u0026rsquo;s welcome!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"BlenderBIM Add-on - Technical Knowledge Exchange"},{"content":"Open source developer Dion Moult will be teaching the fourth module of the online university course for Parametric Design with Visual Programming in BIM by the Zigurat Global Institute for Technology.\nThis program has been designed for engineers, BIM managers, architects virtually anyone within the AECO sector who is interested in automating workflows to increase their proficiency in visual and textual programming resources applied to BIM (Building Information Modeling).\nModule 4 - Programming OpenBIM with Python\nIn this module, the student will learn about object-oriented data modeling and use Python language to analyze and edit files in the IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) standard, in addition to knowing the benefits and fundamentals of OpenBIM.\nPython is an easy-to-learn language and follows the philosophy of Programming for all. It is one of the most widely used programming languages in the world. In the “Programming OpenBIM with Python” module, the student will have the opportunity to use BIM file visualization tools in the IFC standard, Jupyter notebook and the ifcopenshell package to analyze and generate reports on the models.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/e-zigurat-programming-openbim-with-python/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eOpen source developer Dion Moult will be teaching the fourth module of the online university course for Parametric Design with Visual Programming in BIM by the Zigurat Global Institute for Technology.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis program has been designed for engineers, BIM managers, architects virtually anyone within the AECO sector who is interested in automating workflows to increase their proficiency in visual and textual programming resources applied to BIM (Building Information Modeling).\u003c/p\u003e","title":"E-Zigurat: Programming OpenBIM with Python"},{"content":"The Boao Forum for Asia (博鳌亚洲论坛), by 28 Asian countries and Australia, is a non-profit organisation that hosts high-level forums for leaders from government, business and academia in Asia and other continents to share their vision on the most pressing issues in this dynamic region and the world at large. BFA is modelled on the World Economic Forum held annually in Davos, Switzerland.\nDion Moult will be presenting on the second conference of the International Science, Technology and Innovation Forum (ISTIF) of the Boao Forum for Asia, in Zhuhai, China, on the topic of Impetus for Innovation, Digital Building, future City.\nThe advent of the digital era has greatly changed every aspect of human life. The digital economy is a significant engine for the recovery of the post-epidemic economy, bringing opportunities for digital transformation in various industries, thus giving rise to the digital building. Open source has become the general trend of global digital sci-tech innovation. Seizing the new opportunity of open-source development, focusing on the new situation and building an independent and perfect open source ecology are the security guarantee for the solid development of digital building in the future. Developing Chinese style IFC open standards and building a BIM platform with Chinese characteristics will help to solve the waste caused by data integrity and data exchange, so as to drive digital buildings and smart cities. ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/boao-forum-for-asia-istif-impetus-for-innovation-digital-building-future-city/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThe Boao Forum for Asia (博鳌亚洲论坛), by 28 Asian countries and Australia, is a non-profit organisation that hosts high-level forums for leaders from government, business and academia in Asia and other continents to share their vision on the most pressing issues in this dynamic region and the world at large. BFA is modelled on the World Economic Forum held annually in Davos, Switzerland.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Boao Forum for Asia - ISTIF: Impetus for Innovation, Digital Building, future City"},{"content":"Welcome to the first installment of Speckle Webinars!\nWhether you\u0026rsquo;ve only just heard of Speckle or you\u0026rsquo;re a hardcore user looking to dive even deeper, we\u0026rsquo;ll have something in the schedule for you. We want to empower new users, computational designers, hackers, and devs to get the most out of Speckle Systems!\nWhat is Speckle? Did you just land here with no idea what we\u0026rsquo;re talking about? Well, Speckle is the open source data infrastructure for the architecture, engineering, and construction industries.\nCheck it out and learn more @ speckle.systems ?\nPart I This first series includes one for beginner users and one for the devs:\nCreate Revit models from Rhino or Grasshopper with Speckle\nFriday Dec 3 @ 4pm GMT\nJoin us for a beginner level webinar to learn how to use Speckle to enable Rhino→Revit and Grasshopper→Revit workflows in your projects.\nWe\u0026rsquo;ll teach you how send simple Rhino models into Revit as native Revit elements, such as walls and slabs, and do a deep dive into our Grasshopper connector, including creating complex elements such as Adaptive Components, updating Revit parameters using values generated in Grasshopper and more!\nMinimum requirements:\nRhino 6 or 7 Revit 2019-2022 Speckle Manager + Rhino/Grasshopper/Revit connectors installed Deploying Speckle server with 1-click \u0026amp; docker compose Friday Dec 3 @ 2pm GMT\nThis is an intermediate level webinar where you\u0026rsquo;ll learn how to deploy a Speckle Server that fits your needs.\nIn this live presentation webinar we\u0026rsquo;ll walk through at least 2 ways of deploying a Speckle sever on your own infrastructure.\nOne will be a very quick getting started deployment with a 1-click Digital Ocean app, the other is a more robust configuration utilizing Docker and docker-compose.\nTo follow along, for the fist part, we require you to have a Digital Ocean account. For the second part any server with a static public IP would work, as long as it has Docker and docker-compose installed. The easiest to get there is also a DO 1click app.\nLooking for more? If you have any requests for future webinars, please drop them in this thread on our community forum:\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/speckle-webinars-part-i/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWelcome to the first installment of Speckle Webinars!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhether you\u0026rsquo;ve only just heard of Speckle or you\u0026rsquo;re a hardcore user looking to dive even deeper, we\u0026rsquo;ll have something in the schedule for you. We want to empower new users, computational designers, hackers, and devs to get the most out of Speckle Systems!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Speckle Webinars Part I"},{"content":"Join us mid December - we are proud to be a part of this upcoming event where Speckle Systems and IFC.JS discuss open source and agile design. ​What is there in common between Speckle.js and IFC.js apart they all end with .js (meaning they all written in javascript). They are open-source with a strong community behind them They have the potential to revolutionize the design process in AEC They fluidify collaboration and enable agility within the design and construction team ​We are happy to receive, for the last agile BIM meetup of the year, the co-founders of these projects. ​They will present to you:\nWhy open-source is important and game changing to develop such tools What is the pain-point and solution that they bring How they contribute to streamline collaboration and empower agility ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/speckle-js-ifc-js-open-source-tools-agilize-desigh/","summary":"\u003cblockquote\u003eJoin us mid December - we are proud to be a part of this upcoming event where Speckle Systems and IFC.JS discuss open source and agile design.\u003c/blockquote\u003e\n​What is there in common between Speckle.js and IFC.js apart they all end with .js (meaning they all written in javascript).\n\u003cul\u003e\n \t\u003cli\u003eThey are open-source with a strong community behind them\u003c/li\u003e\n \t\u003cli\u003eThey have the potential to revolutionize the design process in AEC\u003c/li\u003e\n \t\u003cli\u003eThey fluidify collaboration and enable agility within the design and construction team\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n​We are happy to receive, for the last agile BIM meetup of the year, the co-founders of these projects.\n\u003cp\u003e​They will present to you:\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Speckle.js + IFC.js\u20282 open source tools to agilize design"},{"content":"Topologic Workshop Date: Friday 19 November at 16:00 GMT Zoom Registration Link: https://cardiff.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_qLwlMDRZRsaOkNFGn2dFFA\nDescription: I will be conducting an introductory 2-hour Topologic Workshop. This will introduce you to the basics of Topologic and then we will try to build together a more sophisticated workflow.\nRequirements:\nMac, Windows or Linux Computer Blender 2.93 or newer (https://www.blender.org/) BlenderBIM (https://github.com/IfcOpenShell/IfcOpenShell/releases) TopologicSverchok (http://github.com/wassimj/topologicsverchok/releases) ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/topologic-workshop/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eTopologic Workshop\nDate: Friday 19 November at 16:00 GMT\nZoom Registration Link: \u003ca href=\"https://cardiff.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_qLwlMDRZRsaOkNFGn2dFFA\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://cardiff.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_qLwlMDRZRsaOkNFGn2dFFA\"\u003ehttps://cardiff.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_qLwlMDRZRsaOkNFGn2dFFA\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDescription: I will be conducting an introductory 2-hour Topologic Workshop. This will introduce you to the basics of Topologic and then we will try to build together a more sophisticated workflow.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Topologic Workshop"},{"content":"At Speckle we host monthly meetings with our community members to get to know them better, share what we\u0026rsquo;re working on and hear feedback.\nSave the date as soon we’re having our next one!\nWhen: November 10, 4:00 PM (UK time) Where: meet.google.com/ofn-wwzd-kvf\nPS. FREE stickers will be given!\nSee you there!\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/speckle-monthly-community-standup/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eAt Speckle we host monthly meetings with our community members to get to know them better, share what we\u0026rsquo;re working on and hear feedback.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSave the date as soon we’re having our next one!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen: November 10, 4:00 PM (UK time)\nWhere: \u003ca href=\"https://meet.google.com/ofn-wwzd-kvf\"\u003emeet.google.com/ofn-wwzd-kvf\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Speckle Monthly Community Standup"},{"content":"Tuesday, Nov. 9 at 9am Pacific time (5pm GMT)\nZoom registration link: https://uoregon.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwtf-igqjojHtZFJ5oLa-UWWdhwQxsBrBV9?_x_zm_rtaid=xjV5WCDfSOGMJI5P-NoCTQ.1635976693186.d3256f2e0e8abc43688644e05f8a5cbc\u0026amp;amp;_x_zm_rhtaid=973\nHow can software better support how architects design buildings? Current building information modelling (BIM) generates and manages functional building elements such as walls, slabs, and roofs. However, buildings are often first conceptualized as a hierarchy of related spaces, and only after defining this spatial arrangement does the focus shift to physical building components. Dr. Wassim Jabi will discuss his new open-source free software, Topologic (http://topologic.app/) developed with Dr. Robert Aish, that supports thinking about building design first as a logical, hierarchical spatial configuration and secondly as an assembly of components. Because the language of topology matches data input requirements for applications such as energy simulation, Topologic models can also be easily connected to building performance simulation engines to predict the building’s performance. This will ultimately lead to more efficient buildings that have a lower environmental impact.\nDr Wassim Jabi is the course director of the MSc Computational Methods in Architecture program at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University in Wales, the United Kingdom. He earned his B.Arch. from the American University of Beirut, his M.Arch. and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan and taught at various universities in the U.S. before moving to the UK in 2008. Dr. Jabi has published widely on topics ranging from parametric and generative design to the role of light in architecture and building performance simulation, including the book \u0026ldquo;Parametric Design for Architecture\u0026rdquo; (Laurence King Publishing, London). His current research is at the intersection parametric design, the representation of space, building performance simulation, machine learning, and robotic fabrication in architecture. He recently concluded a £300,000 ($420,000 USD) grant from the Leverhulme Trust as Primary Investigator to study spatial topology in building information modelling (BIM). This resulted in a software library called Topologic which is the topic of this talk.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/free-online-lecture-about-topologic-enhancing-spatial-representation-in-bim-by-wassim-jabi-cardiff-university/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eTuesday, Nov. 9 at 9am Pacific time (5pm GMT)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eZoom registration link: \u003ca href=\"https://uoregon.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwtf-igqjojHtZFJ5oLa-UWWdhwQxsBrBV9?_x_zm_rtaid=xjV5WCDfSOGMJI5P-NoCTQ.1635976693186.d3256f2e0e8abc43688644e05f8a5cbc\u0026amp;_x_zm_rhtaid=973\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://uoregon.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwtf-igqjojHtZFJ5oLa-UWWdhwQxsBrBV9?_x_zm_rtaid=xjV5WCDfSOGMJI5P-NoCTQ.1635976693186.d3256f2e0e8abc43688644e05f8a5cbc\u0026amp;amp;_x_zm_rhtaid=973\"\u003ehttps://uoregon.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwtf-igqjojHtZFJ5oLa-UWWdhwQxsBrBV9?_x_zm_rtaid=xjV5WCDfSOGMJI5P-NoCTQ.1635976693186.d3256f2e0e8abc43688644e05f8a5cbc\u0026amp;amp;_x_zm_rhtaid=973\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHow can software better support how architects design buildings? Current building information modelling (BIM) generates and manages functional building elements such as walls, slabs, and roofs. However, buildings are often first conceptualized as a hierarchy of related spaces, and only after defining this spatial arrangement does the focus shift to physical building components. Dr. Wassim Jabi will discuss his new open-source free software, Topologic (\u003ca href=\"http://topologic.app/\"\u003ehttp://topologic.app/\u003c/a\u003e) developed with Dr. Robert Aish, that supports thinking about building design first as a logical, hierarchical spatial configuration and secondly as an assembly of components. Because the language of topology matches data input requirements for applications such as energy simulation, Topologic models can also be easily connected to building performance simulation engines to predict the building’s performance. This will ultimately lead to more efficient buildings that have a lower environmental impact.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Free online lecture about Topologic: Enhancing spatial representation in BIM by Wassim Jabi, Cardiff University"},{"content":"Topologic has a new milestone release! One of the biggest hurdles for testing and adopting Topologic has been its relative difficult installation. This was due to the particular method we used to create python bindings for the C++ code. To ease the installation process, we had to completely re-write the python bindings using pybind11. This was a laborious process, and bugs may still exist. However, this new release of Topologic can be installed for Blender with Sverchok just as any other add-on: You download the ZIP file (and you do NOT unzip it), you launch Blender (with Sverchok pre-installed), you go to Preferences -\u0026gt; Add-ons and you install the ZIP file as usual. This release of Topologic is compatible with both Windows and Linux and with python 3.7, 3.8, and 3.9.\nThis installation contains optional visual nodes that require additional python modules to be installed and accessible from Blender. Topologic will install fine without them and if they are found, it will add the additional nodes automatically. So if you wish to explore extra functionality such as importing IFC files, conducting energy analysis, and working with blockchain technologies, you must install the following python modules and make sure you can access them (import them) from within Blender. The instructions to do so are usually available online and you need to be comfortable with installing python modules:\nThe newest developer version of BlenderBIM add-on will give you access to importing IFC files through ifcopenshell The openstudio python module will give you access to energy analysis nodes ipfshttpclient and web3 python modules will give you access to blockchain related nodes Please note that this is still beta software. Please test and report any bugs to the issues tracker on Github.\nYou can download from two possible locations:\nDownload from the official Topologic website (head to software then download) Download from Github (click on Releases then Assets) This has been a long road and we still have a long way to go. I look forward to seeing what you will do with Topologic. Please post and tag @topologicBIM!\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2021/11/01/topologic-is-now-a-one-click-install-for-blender-sverchok/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eTopologic has a new milestone release! One of the biggest hurdles for testing and adopting Topologic has been its relative difficult installation. This was due to the particular method we used to create python bindings for the C++ code. To ease the installation process, we had to completely re-write the python bindings using pybind11. This was a laborious process, and bugs may still exist. However, this new release of Topologic can be installed for Blender with Sverchok just as any other add-on: You download the ZIP file (and you do NOT unzip it), you launch Blender (with Sverchok pre-installed), you go to Preferences -\u0026gt; Add-ons and you install the ZIP file as usual. This release of Topologic is compatible with both Windows and Linux and with python 3.7, 3.8, and 3.9.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Topologic is now a one-click install for Blender/Sverchok"},{"content":"In this monthly meetup we focus on structural analysis and design with Richard Brice who will talk about BridgeLink, an open-source bridge engineer software published by the Washington State Department of Transportation. The flagship application, PGSuper for design, analysis, and load rating of precast, prestressed concrete girder bridges, will be highlighted including recent efforts to support bridge data exchanges with IFC 4x3.\nThe streaming will take place at https://meet.jit.si/openbim @ 20:00 UTC, Saturday the 23rd of October\nMore info in this discussion.\nThank you and see you then!\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/osarch-livestream-monthly-meetup-19-on-bridgelink-an-open-source-bridge-engineer-software-with-richard-brice/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIn this monthly meetup we focus on structural analysis and design with Richard Brice who will talk about BridgeLink, an open-source bridge engineer software published by the Washington State Department of Transportation. The flagship application, PGSuper for design, analysis, and load rating of precast, prestressed concrete girder bridges, will be highlighted including recent efforts to support bridge data exchanges with IFC 4x3.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"OSArch LiveStream: Monthly Meetup #19 on BridgeLink, an open-source bridge engineer software, with Richard Brice"},{"content":"Connect! is Speckle\u0026rsquo;s conference for engineers, designers, BIM managers, hackers, and anyone interested in modern solutions, open-source, and data-driven processes for the AEC industry.\nOver three online days, leading startups, experts, and vendors in the space will provide insights on how to bring your workflows to the 21st century and run hands-on workshops.\nOpen source focused sessions include:\nSpeckle: No BS Digital Transformation For Your Company: A no-BS session on how you can start using Speckle today as the base for a digital transformation within your organization. Clima: open source climate analysis for the AEC industry: The CBE Clima Tool is an open source tool for climate analysis. Interoperability via open source developments: This presentation tells the story of the first connector developed outside of the Speckle community. Panel - Open Source in AEC: Writing OSS code is just \u0026ldquo;80%\u0026rdquo; of the effort - getting it adopted by large enterprises, building a community around it and maintaining it is the other \u0026ldquo;20%\u0026rdquo;\u0026hellip;. Online IFC: the future of open BIM: The vast majority of BIM software on the market is desktop-based. However, IFC.js allows the creation of complete web-based applications compatible with any device capable of running a browser. Intro to COMPAS: The goal of the COMPAS framework is to provide a consistent \u0026amp; robust foundation that is independent of CAD software and can be used across platforms to facilitate collaborative research in AEC. Introducing the OSArch community: The Open-Source Architecture Community brings together like-minded users and developers who share a common goal: that the built environment can be designed, constructed, operated, and recycled with free/libre and open-source software, with increased transparency, and a more ethical approach. Open source robotic fabrication with COMPAS FAB: In this session, we will introduce participants to COMPAS FAB: the robotic fabrication package for the COMPAS framework, provide an overview of robotics fundamentals and focus on the design and planning of robotic fabrication processes using these tools in combination with ROS, the Robot Operating System. Full details: https://hopin.com/events/connect-50c0df4f-24ce-44b4-a9ad-4c980cba28e1\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/speckle-connect-open-source-for-aec/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eConnect! is Speckle\u0026rsquo;s conference for engineers, designers, BIM managers, hackers, and anyone interested in modern solutions, open-source, and data-driven processes for the AEC industry.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOver three online days, leading startups, experts, and vendors in the space will provide insights on how to bring your workflows to the 21st century and run hands-on workshops.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Speckle Connect! - open-source for AEC"},{"content":"Great to host Dimitar Pouchnikov from UHStudio in our upcoming August\u0026rsquo;s monthly meetup, this Saturday on the 7th of August, to present on the use of Blender for Architectural Concept Design.\nIn this meetup, @dimitar will talk about how he uses Blender in a professional capacity, as a highly useful program for exploring the early design stages of projects, and discuss what it can offer architects.\nThe streaming will take place at https://meet.jit.si/openbim\nPlease note that the meetup will start two hours before the usual time @ 18:00 UTC.\nMore info in this discussion.\nThank you and see you then!\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/osarch-livestream-monthly-meetup-17-on-blender-for-architectural-concept-design-with-dimitar-pouchnikov-aia/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eGreat to host \u003ca href=\"https://uhstudio.com/profile#dimitar\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003eDimitar Pouchnikov\u003c/a\u003e from \u003ca href=\"https://uhstudio.com/\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003eUHStudio\u003c/a\u003e in our upcoming August\u0026rsquo;s monthly meetup, this Saturday on the 7th of August, to present on the use of Blender for Architectural Concept Design.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this meetup, \u003ca href=\"https://community.osarch.org/profile/dimitar\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e@dimitar\u003c/a\u003e will talk about how he uses Blender in a professional capacity, as a highly useful program for exploring the early design stages of projects, and discuss what it can offer architects.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"OSArch LiveStream: Monthly Meetup #17 on Blender for Architectural Concept Design with Dimitar Pouchnikov, AIA"},{"content":"There is been a while since we last wrote about the launching of IFC.js. Since then, the project has gained traction and has become one of the most exciting Open Source BIM projects. Now, IFC.js is growing and it\u0026rsquo;s looking for contributions.\nIFC.js, as the name suggests, is a JavaScript library to read and write IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) files. Web development is highly based on JavaScript, which makes this library a powerful tool to turn any web browser into a BIM application. However, it\u0026rsquo;s parsing engine is based on WebAssembly and C++. This makes IFC.js to have a higher performance than other web-based IFC viewers.\nThe IFC file format was created by BuildingSmart to enable interoperability between different BIM applications and ease the collaboration between different professionals from the AEC industry. However, IFC has had a poor support from the main proprietary BIM applications, and that is where projects like IFC.js shines. It makes IFC accessible and easy to work with, enabling a new range of possibilities for developers to create truly Open BIM applications\nInteroperability is one of the main goals of Open Source developers. Above all, IFC.js is not only a great project, but it\u0026rsquo;s helping to build an Open BIM ecosystem. They are collaborating with other exciting projects like IfcOpenShell, Blender BIM Addon and Speckle.\nIf you engage with these ideas, you should consider collaborating with them. IFC.js have plans to scale their project and get more people involved. There are several ways you can contribute. Firstly, if you know C++, WebAssembly or the technical part of IFC you can work on their parsing engine. Secondly, Three.js coders are welcome to work on the geometry side of the library. Finally, you can also contribute by building an application on top of IFC.js.\nIt is also important to mention that, as in any Open Source project, non-coders are welcome as well. You can contribute in various ways. Join their Discord channel and have a chat with them.\nIFC.js in an OS project with potential to have great impact in the industry. Get to know them, spread their work and contribute!\nUseful links:\nRead more about IFC.js in their documentation. Watch this video of IFC.js participation in OSArch Monthly Meetups. Follow Antonio Viegas on Twitter to stay up to date with their news. Join their Discord chanell. ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2021/07/30/ifc-js-is-growing-and-its-looking-for-contributions/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThere is been a while since we last \u003ca href=\"https://osarch.org/2020/12/21/a-new-browser-ifc-viewer-is-released-in-ifc-js/\"\u003ewrote about\u003c/a\u003e the launching of IFC.js. Since then, the project has gained traction and has become one of the most exciting Open Source BIM projects. Now, IFC.js is growing and it\u0026rsquo;s looking for contributions.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"IFC.js is growing and it's looking for contributions"},{"content":"Dion Moult will be presenting an introduction on Native IFC and open source AEC applications, like the BlenderBIM Add-on and more at CAAD Futures 2021. This will be a technical workshop, going right into the technical details of how Native IFC works, how you can start coding, how to build your own OpenBIM tools, and a preview of some of the bleeding edge capabilities of open source software.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/caadfutures2021-intro-native-ifc-open-source-aec-dion-moult/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eDion Moult will be presenting an introduction on Native IFC and open source AEC applications, like the BlenderBIM Add-on and more at CAAD Futures 2021. This will be a technical workshop, going right into the technical details of how Native IFC works, how you can start coding, how to build your own OpenBIM tools, and a preview of some of the bleeding edge capabilities of open source software.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"CAADFutures2021: Intro to Native IFC and Open Source AEC"},{"content":"Great to host Lindsay Kay from xeolabs in our upcoming July\u0026rsquo;s monthly meetup! As the lead developer of xeokit, Lindsay will talk about this open-source web programming toolkit that has been developed for visualizing 3D BIM models in the browser and that is currently used by a number of leading BIM platforms in the AEC industry.\nThe streaming will take place at https://meet.jit.si/openbim\nMore info in this discussion.\nThank you and see you then!\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/osarch-livestream-monthly-meetup-16-on-xeokit-a-3d-web-programming-toolkit-for-aec-graphics/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eGreat to host Lindsay Kay from \u003ca href=\"https://xeolabs.com/index.html\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003exeolabs\u003c/a\u003e in our upcoming July\u0026rsquo;s monthly meetup!\nAs the lead developer of \u003ca href=\"https://xeokit.io/\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003exeokit\u003c/a\u003e, Lindsay will talk about this open-source web programming toolkit that has been developed for visualizing 3D BIM models in the browser and that is currently used by a number of leading BIM platforms in the AEC industry.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"OSArch LiveStream: Monthly Meetup #16 on xeokit, a 3D Web Programming Toolkit for AEC Graphics"},{"content":"Synopsis:\nWe’re seeing an accelerating trend of users (that’s you!) across many disciplines who are able to code, collaboratively writing a growing ecosystem of free software for our industry. This ecosystem is powered by international standards of data models and relationships. We’re going to go past the current superficial adoption of IFC, and see how you can shape what’s beyond.\nLearning Objectives:\nLearn what open data and open source implies for the future of our industry\nUnderstand what IFC is down to the guts of the specification\nLearn how to start coding with OpenBIM standards and open source libraries\nSee some alpha features of the BlenderBIM Add-on\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/bilt-virtual-2021-crash-course-native-ifc-open-source-blenderbim/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eSynopsis:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe’re seeing an accelerating trend of users (that’s you!) across many disciplines who are able to code, collaboratively writing a growing ecosystem of free software for our industry. This ecosystem is powered by international standards of data models and relationships. We’re going to go past the current superficial adoption of IFC, and see how you can shape what’s beyond.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"BILT Virtual 2021: A crash course on native IFC and the open-source BlenderBIM Add-on (40mins)"},{"content":"OpenCAx is a group of open source projects that applied to participate in Google Summer of Code 2021 (GSoC). Led by BRL-CAD, this group includes FreeCAD, IfcOpenShell and OpenSCAD. The application was successful, and this program will enable students to work in AEC open source projects.\nGSoC is a program that introduces students to the world of open source software development, by allowing them to work directly with an open source organization. The students use their summer break to work through 10 weeks on a project, that works as a complementary academic program. It has existed since 2005 and already contributed to a lot of open source projects. We are pleased to welcome the Google Summer of Code students announced for OpenCAx.\nAmanjot Singh was selected to work on the development of the Open Geometry Viewer (OGV), which is a web-based application that allows the user to upload models and comment on them. With the mentorship of Daniel Rossberg, this project will focus on bug fixes, some new features and user experience.\nShiv Charan Sharma is going to work in FreeCAD development, mentored by Amritpal Singh. The project aims to automate the reinforcement process of slabs and footings by using the Reinforcement Workbench in FreeCAD.\nArtur Tomczak is up to the task of adding IDS (Information Delivery Specification) validation with BCF output to IfcOpenShell. This project is led by Thomas Krijnen. BuildingSmart is about to publish the new IDS and this project\u0026rsquo;s main goal is to enable IfcOpenShell to validate models against an IDS and to produce Building Collaboration Format (BCF) output using BIMTester.\nAlso related to BIM, Singh Prabhat was chosen to work on upgrading the BCF libraries to work with the BCF XML 3.0 specification and to connect to BCF API 3.0 servers, with the supervision of Dion Moult and Yorik van Havre.\nAbhishek Rawat was selected to work alongside with the mentors Torsten Paul and Ryan Colyer. Their project sets the goal to create an offline documentation for OpenSCAD. Currently, documentation can be accessed at WikiBooks, but it is important to provide offline access to users. The idea is to use the Wiki API to automatically create an offline version of the documentation that can be accessed as HTML and PDF.\nThe last project counts on Vikram Atreyapurapu to work on the implementation of undo function into libged of BRL-CAD. Sean is in charge of this project, that also aims to implement the transaction based command system, that helps to deal with file corruption and interruptions.\nCongratulations to all students and mentors! We are excited to see how these projects develop, and we wish you all a great summer!\nRelated links:\nLearn more about GSoC. Read the details for each student project ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2021/06/09/google-summer-of-code-students-announced-for-opencax/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eOpenCAx is a group of open source projects that applied to participate in Google Summer of Code 2021 (GSoC). Led by BRL-CAD, this group includes FreeCAD, IfcOpenShell and OpenSCAD. The application was successful, and this program will enable students to work in AEC open source projects.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Google Summer of Code students announced for OpenCAx"},{"content":"In this monthly meetup the keynote presentation will be given by the developer of the Blender-OSM Add-on, Vladimir Elistratov, on its current state and ongoing development. The ultimate goal of the add-on is to generate an environment in Blender out of OpenStreetMap data as realistically as possible. A part of the talk will be dedicated to the textual description of the building style.\nLive stream link: https://jitsi.member.fsf.org/osarch\nMore info: https://community.osarch.org/discussion/609/monthly-meetup-15-12th-of-june-20-00-utc\nSee you there!\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/osarch-livestream-monthly-meetup-15-vladimir-elistratov-presents-blender-osm-add-on-current-state-and-ongoing-development/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIn this monthly meetup the keynote presentation will be given by the developer of the Blender-OSM Add-on, Vladimir Elistratov, on its current state and ongoing development. The ultimate goal of the add-on is to generate an environment in Blender out of OpenStreetMap data as realistically as possible. A part of the talk will be dedicated to the textual description of the building style.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"OSArch LiveStream: Monthly Meetup #15, Vladimir Elistratov presents \"Blender-OSM Add-on: Current state and ongoing development\""},{"content":"The Epic MegaGrants programme is a financial grant to support projects doing amazing things with the Unreal Engine or enhancing open-source capabilities for the 3D graphics community. We are incredibly honoured to present that the BlenderBIM Add-on has been awarded an Epic MegaGrant.\nThe BlenderBIM Add-on is an Epic MegaGrants recipient! Projects showcased here is from OpeningDesign\u0026rsquo;s CC-BY-SA 4.0 projects 223 Randolph St Atlanta and Heck Residence\nThe BlenderBIM Add-on brings advanced native OpenBIM authoring through the Blender interface, powered by the IfcOpenShell project. OpenBIM is a collection of international digital standards, technology, and processes to describe our built environment for the architecture, engineering, and construction industry. It allows us to create 3D models of buildings, 2D drawings, material information, structural information, cost data, and more without relying on imports and exports from closed and proprietary systems.\nFor users, the BlenderBIM Add-on is a 100% free and open source initiative to author and edit OpenBIM data, including IFC models, BCF issues, and more through the powerful 3D application Blender. For developers, the power comes in the engine of the BlenderBIM Add-on: the IfcOpenShell library, which allows BIM powerusers to rapidly develop, analyse, and write scripts that work with OpenBIM data.\nThe Epic MegaGrant offers funding for increased development on three fundamental aspects that we believe will change the industry and offer new options for architects, engineers, cost planners, programme schedulers, sustainability analysts, and more.\n1. Improved testing for geometry processing\nGeometry in IFC is procedural and complex, therefore error-prone. Geometry issues can lead to wrong quantities and distrust in models and project partners. Funding will go to a comprehensive test suite for IfcOpenShell and OpenCASCADE to ensure stable geometry processing for all dependent FOSS projects, now, and in the future.\nImproved geometry processing will result in more stable support across a wide number of free software applications - with the BlenderBIM Add-on only being one of them. There are over 15 free and commercial applications in the industry and university courses that are powered by the underlying free and open source IfcOpenShell engine, like FreeCAD, BIMServer, Tridify, Augin, and more - so investments in free software will see compounded improvements across the industry and in BIM education.\n!\n2. Generating 2D drawings from native IFC and OpenBIM\nThe AEC industry operates largely on drawings and symbology for execution and communication because the notation enables experts to quickly consume the information. Currently, though we have OpenBIM technologies for 3D-based data, this does not cover 2D very well, meaning that most 2D information, despite their legal importance, is lost in proprietary and unsemantic formats.\nIfcOpenShell has pioneered the fusion of 2D and 3D OpenBIM data, and Epic MegaGrant funding will go to formalising this into a productive workflow capable of generating drawings and diagrams for commercial output. The engines that power this will also be made independent of Blender, so that the entire industry, regardless of graphical frontend, can benefit.\n!\n3. Improved OpenBIM standards support across disciplines\nIn order for the BlenderBIM Add-on and IfcOpenShell engine to be useful as a tool not just by architects, but also for mechanical, electrical, fire, engineering, environmental analysis, and structural analysis, it needs to be able to consume the metadata required in the lesser known aspects of the IFC specification.\nFunding from the Epic MegaGrants will see accelerated feature development for capabilities on structural analysis, mechanical, electrical, fire, and hydraulic systems authoring and analysis, environmental analysis, quantity take-off and cost planning, programme scheduling and construction sequencing, land and infrastructure support, light engineering and visualisation, and more. This will be achieved by using native IFC authoring to allow seamless integration across disciplines without the need for exports, imports, and subsequent data loss. All these capabilities will be available to developers as well, to seed a future ecosystem of tailored free software applications all capable of native IFC and OpenBIM processing.\n!\nWatch this space\nThe Epic MegaGrants programme will enable development in some of the most fundamental and difficult aspects of OpenBIM. The prioritisation of issues and grant application was discussed in a transparent manner through the OSArch Community, ensuring that the identified priorities will have the largest impact possible to AEC professionals.\nKeep an eye out for upcoming releases, where we will see many new geometry capabilities and stability fixes (perhaps less advertised to users, but it\u0026rsquo;s there!), new drawing capabilities, and more features across disciplines. You can get involved via the OSArch Community forums, or the links below.\nRead more:\nLearn more about Epic MegaGrants Learn more about the BlenderBIM Add-on Learn more about IfcOpenShell Read through the OSArch discussion leading to the grant application Know how to code? Help us hack on the IfcOpenShell Github Repository Investing in free software benefits the entire industry. If you or your company wants to financially contribute, check out the OpenSourceBIM Collective Fund ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2021/05/25/epic-megagrants-funding-awarded-to-blenderbim-add-on/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThe Epic MegaGrants programme is a financial grant to support projects doing amazing things with the Unreal Engine or enhancing open-source capabilities for the 3D graphics community. We are incredibly honoured to present that the \u003cstrong\u003eBlenderBIM Add-on has been awarded an Epic MegaGrant\u003c/strong\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Epic MegaGrants funding awarded to BlenderBIM Add-on"},{"content":"Xeokit is an open source 3D graphics SDK for AEC and BIM development. It is provided by xeolabs which is a company specialized in providing graphics software for web-based BIM, Engineering and Medicine. They have recently released the new xeokit 1.8 version with a lot of rendering improvements.\nWith xeokit you have another option to display your models in any browser. It is production ready and used by a lot of companies. It also works in all major browsers. The BIM IFC viewer were developed in collaboration with Open Project team, and it is the viewer used by the Open Project BIM version. But you can also use it separately and load it in your own server, without the need of external cloud services and keeping your data safe.\nXeokit BIM viewer comes with a lot of interesting features. It has a variety of options for navigation, distance and angle measurement, annotation and BFC viewpoints for collaboration.\nOne of the highlights of this new release is that they implemented Percy for automated visual testing. This works by running tests every time someone sends a pull request to the project repository. That way, the PR will have a fast feedback and will reduce the time for PR reviews while maintaining the security.\nThe other highlights are rendering related. They use SAO (scalable ambient obscurance) that helps with the visualizations of edges and narrow openings. In this new version it shows improvement in performance, output quality and more control options. They also improved Edge Enhancement - the edges colors are now related to the mesh material - and the Backface Rendering now shows backfaces on non-solid triangles. In addition, they have added a plugin called FastNavPlugin, that automatically disables some rendering effects while moving the camera. This allows for a faster navigation while panning and orbiting.\nIn case you want to see how each of these rendering improvements affects visualization, there are a few examples on their release note pages. Also, the new xeokit 1.8 is already running in the xeokit BIM Viewer 2.1.0, which means you can test all these new features. Give it a try here.\nRelated links:\nFull release notes. xeokit official website. Visit the xeokit examples page to see how it works in practice. ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2021/05/05/xeolabs-releases-the-new-xeokit/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eXeokit is an open source 3D graphics SDK for AEC and BIM development. It is provided by xeolabs which is a company specialized in providing graphics software for web-based BIM, Engineering and Medicine. They have recently released the new xeokit 1.8 version with a lot of rendering improvements.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Xeolabs releases the new xeokit 1.8 3D graphics SDK."},{"content":"*This post was a contribution from the OSArch member Ayodele Arigbabu, aka @DADA_universe.\nGodot Engine, the open source game engine is slowly growing to become one of the favorite game engines out there, coming closely on the heels of Unreal Engine and Unity, and its popularity is not just with independent game developers, if a recent job posting by Tesla requiring skills in Godot is anything to go by.\nGodot\u0026rsquo;s rise may be attributed not just to it being free (as in free beer) and libre (as in free to modify the source code and do what you will with it), but also to it being built from the ground up with the indie developer community in mind. The Godot workflow is simple and largely uncluttered and the engine itself is modifiable and extensible in different ways, thanks to a succinct and fairly well documented API and a flexible UI system. Add to that an enthusiastic and community driven pool of plugin developers contributing extensions to the engine, decent options for scripting languages and cross-platform publishing, and a tiny file size for the engine. Part of Godot\u0026rsquo;s claim to fame is the fact that Godot is built with Godot. The game engine\u0026rsquo;s versatility has seen it being used for many non-game applications, ranging from Heavy Paint - a digital painting application to Godello - a Trello inspired project management tool / kanban board.\nThe Social VR space and the AEC (Architecture, Engineering \u0026amp; Construction) industry are two strategic (and potentially connected) spheres where Godot currently has limited traction. Yes Godot does have functional XR (Extended Reality, meaning Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality and other layers thereof) implementation and is clearly devoting some attention to extending this with the hiring of Bastiaan Olij - who had been independently creating XR tooling for the engine - to do it full time. Furthermore, there have been some attempts at using Godot for architectural visualization, hampered to a large extent by the current limits to the engine\u0026rsquo;s graphics rendering quality, Godot is not yet a major player in those spaces.\nThere are indicators however of Godot\u0026rsquo;s potential for authoring useful productivity tools in VR, and for the AEC industry.\nSimula - a VR window manager for Linux that runs on Godot and \u0026ldquo;takes less than 1 minute to install \u0026quot; and V-Sekai - described as: \u0026ldquo;the first fully-open source social VR platform running on the Godot Engine\u0026hellip; designed as a living virtual space where you can meet people and interact in a virtual space, while leveraging the fast-growing Godot game engine to let users create any content they want and have it be immediately accessible and shareable to a growing community. \u0026quot; Posts from the V-Sekai Twitter account illustrate how closely the platform is trying to track industry leader VRChat\u0026rsquo;s immense popularity for creating and sharing avatars and custom worlds built by its members.\nThese two open source projects illustrate Godot\u0026rsquo;s potential in the VR space eloquently for both productivity tools and Social VR. An exploratory thread on the OSArch community forum also examines the open source game engine\u0026rsquo;s potential for creating collaborative tools to aid the BIM (Building Information Modelling) workflow with early success being recorded in parsing IFC information through Godot, via the XBim Toolkit.\nThese dots that connect Godot\u0026rsquo;s viability in providing productivity tools to the AEC industry through the abilities it already demonstrates for XR support and for the creation of non game / \u0026ldquo;serious\u0026rdquo; applications; and the yet to be validated potential for handling IFC information and other BIM workflows are important. This is due to the urgent need to have fully open source, cutting edge alternatives that (perhaps in combination with the open source 3d authoring tool Blender) combine the powerful solutions in immersive architectural visualization and BIM workflow management, already being offered by proprietary tools like Enscape, Twin Motion and Tridify.\nThe aforementioned limitations to Godot\u0026rsquo;s graphic rendering output remains a significant hurdle to cross on the path to this holy grail, however, with never ending development, and the much anticipated Godot 4.0 release which has already teased a port to a Vulkan Renderer and SDFGI Global Illumination, all of which translate to better graphics; the wait for Godot, on the quest for truly open, free and interoperable content authoring and collaboration in the AEC industry, while truly never ending, is bound to be peppered with memorable pit stops.\nAyodele Arigbabu.\nUseful links:\nGodot official website. Godot 4.0 milestones. Want to contribute to our news? Check this link. ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2021/04/27/godot-engine-is-growing-potential-for-the-aec-industry/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e*This post was a contribution from the OSArch member Ayodele Arigbabu, aka @DADA_universe.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGodot Engine, the open source game engine is slowly growing to become one of the favorite game engines out there, coming closely on the heels of Unreal Engine and Unity, and its popularity is not just with independent game developers, if a recent job posting by Tesla requiring skills in Godot is anything to go by.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Godot Engine is growing potential for the AEC industry."},{"content":"For this monthly meetup we are glad to host Frédéric Beaupère, from ERNE Holzbau and one of the active members of OSArch, to present his work on developing and using two BlenderBIM Add-ons in Production.\nIfc_Void_Data: A void data aggregation tool that overlays IFC models of multiple disciplines and combines data of interest for \"ProvisionForVoids\". Rn2BB2Rvt: Connector to translate specific models from Rhino into IFC for Revit Live stream link: https://jitsi.member.fsf.org/osarch More info: https://community.osarch.org/discussion/540/monthly-meetup-14-8th-of-may-20-00-utc\nSee you there!\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/osarch-livestream-monthly-meetup-14-frederic-beaupere-presents-blender-bim-add-ons-in-production/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eFor this monthly meetup we are glad to host Frédéric Beaupère, from ERNE Holzbau and one of the active members of OSArch, to present his work on developing and using two BlenderBIM Add-ons in Production.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"OSArch LiveStream: Monthly Meetup #14, Frédéric Beaupère presents \"Blender-BIM Add-ons in Production\""},{"content":"For this Monthly Meetup\u0026rsquo;s keynote presentation we are excited to have Dimitrie Stefanescu and Matteo Cominetti present Speckle, a cloud based solution for the AEC industry that provides interoperability, version control, real time collaboration, data management and automation.\nLive stream link: https://jitsi.member.fsf.org/osarch\nMore info: https://community.osarch.org/discussion/511/monthly-meetup-13-10th-of-april-20-00-utc\nSee you there!\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/osarch-livestream-monthly-meetup-13-speckle/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eFor this Monthly Meetup\u0026rsquo;s keynote presentation we are excited to have Dimitrie Stefanescu and Matteo Cominetti present \u003ca href=\"https://speckle.systems/\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003eSpeckle\u003c/a\u003e, a cloud based solution for the AEC industry that provides interoperability, version control, real time collaboration, data management and automation.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"OSArch LiveStream: Monthly Meetup #13, Dimitrie Stefanescu and Matteo Cominetti present Speckle"},{"content":"One of the most expected releases is finally here. FreeCAD 0.19 has been released with a lot of improvements and new features in all workbenches. The list is long, so let\u0026rsquo;s go.\nFirst, some general highlights. There area a few UI improvements such as the inclusion of more dark themes, new icon themes and few retouches in the navigation cube. Furthermore, an option was added to display a checkbox for every item in the document tree, so it\u0026rsquo;s easier to use with a touchscreen.\nIn this release it was introduced the App Link Component, which is a system that allows objects to use data from another object. This is the core functionality to prepare FreeCAD to work with assemblies. Some of its functions were already being used by the Arch and BIM workbenches, but the new the App Link is merged to the master and can be used by all workbenches, which powers up its possibilities.\nThe Arch Workbench has also been improved and presents some new features. The Arch Site tool is now able to produce sun path diagrams for solar analysis. It also has the option to show a compass pointing towards the true north of the project, when working with coordinates. This can be combined with the new Shapefile importer, which allows you to work with a GIS base.\nThe Arch Section Plane tool has two major improvements. Now you can set the limits of the plane, working like a camera clipping view. That way you have more control over what is shown in your sections. Also, a new render mode was added to how the section is displayed in the TechDraw Workbench. It is a faster render but with less precision, which can be helpful in some use cases.\nTwo new important tools were added to the Arch Workbench. The Arch Truss Tool allow you to create trusses from a baseline and with a variety of options and configurations. The new Arch CurtainWall Tool does what it says, creating curtains wall from a base surface as dividing it in quadrangular shapes.\nBesides all that, there were also improvements in other workbenches that are related with AEC workflow. New features in Draft, Sketch and TechDraw workbenches are also worth checking out. Also, you might be interested in the Macro that creates automatic light-gauge steel frame and the new Arch Texture module that powers up your model visualization.\nMore reading:\nFreeCAD 0.19 has been released. Full release notes here. Download the new release. News about the BIM/Arch workbench for Freecad, see Yorik\u0026rsquo;s blog. ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2021/03/26/freecad-0-19-has-been-released/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eOne of the most expected releases is finally here. FreeCAD 0.19 has been released with a lot of improvements and new features in all workbenches. The list is long, so let\u0026rsquo;s go.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFirst, some general highlights. There area a few UI improvements such as the inclusion of more dark themes, new icon themes and few retouches in the navigation cube. Furthermore, an option was added to display a checkbox for every item in the document tree, so it\u0026rsquo;s easier to use with a touchscreen.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"FreeCAD 0.19 has been released"},{"content":"This is our quasi-regularly-recurring community meet-up around Speckle. What is Speckle? It\u0026rsquo;s an open source data platform for AEC featuring all sorts of things - like git-like versioning, object based api, schema \u0026ldquo;agnostic\u0026rdquo;, lossy interoperability and more.\nUsually our meetups are laid back - we just try and touch base with other specklers and share a drink over a video-call. For this time round, our agenda will be centered around the newly launched the 2.0 beta programme, some new integrations we started working on, etc. Feel free to join!\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/speckle-community-meetup/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThis is our quasi-regularly-recurring community meet-up around Speckle. What is Speckle? It\u0026rsquo;s an open source data platform for AEC featuring all sorts of things - like git-like versioning, object based api, schema \u0026ldquo;agnostic\u0026rdquo;, lossy interoperability and more.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Speckle Community Meetup"},{"content":"After many years of development, on January 2021, COMPAS 1.0: Affine __ Anchor finally saw the light of day.\nCOMPAS is an open source python framework for Architecture, Engineering, Fabrication, and Construction. Its goal is to simplify multidisciplinary collaboration in AEC research, encourage sharing and reuse of research results, and facilitate the transfer of state-of-the-art academic developments into practice.\nAt its core, the library provides CAD-agnostic geometry processing, fundamental data structures, robotics and numerical methods, as well as support for multiple file formats and an infrastructure for extensible json serialization.\n!\nThe geometry kernel can be embedded into any environment with a Python scripting engine. Additionally, the framework ships with dedicated packages for deeper integration into Rhino, Grasshopper, and Blender.\nOn top of the core library, a growing collection of extensions is being developed to simplify access to peer-reviewed research, state-of-the-art external libraries such as CGAL, libigl and triangle, and domain-specific tools such as Abaqus, ANSYS, SOFISTIK, ROS, Pybullet, etc.\nAs with any open source project, community feedback is greatly appreciated. You can help the development by downloading and testing the latest version and reporting any bugs you may find.\nMore information:\nCOMPAS official website \u0026amp; docs Github repo Install with conda (recommended) Install with pip ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2021/03/03/compas-an-open-source-python-framework-for-aec/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eAfter many years of development, on January 2021, COMPAS 1.0: Affine __ Anchor finally saw the light of day.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCOMPAS is an open source python framework for Architecture, Engineering, Fabrication, and Construction. Its goal is to simplify multidisciplinary collaboration in AEC research, encourage sharing and reuse of research results, and facilitate the transfer of state-of-the-art academic developments into practice.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"COMPAS, an open source python framework for AEC"},{"content":"For the third Monthly Meetup of the year we have the pleasure to host Gonzalo Casas who will present COMPAS, an open-source framework for research and collaboration in Architecture, Engineering, Fabrication, and Construction.\nMore information on the meetup can be found in this link: https://community.osarch.org/discussion/466/monthly-meetup-12-6th-march-20-00-utc\nSee you there!\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/osarch-livestream-monthly-meetup-12-gonzalo-casas-talks-about-compas/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eFor the third Monthly Meetup of the year we have the pleasure to host Gonzalo Casas who will present \u003ca href=\"https://compas.dev/index.html\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003eCOMPAS\u003c/a\u003e, an open-source framework for research and collaboration in Architecture, Engineering, Fabrication, and Construction.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMore information on the meetup can be found in this link: \u003ca href=\"https://community.osarch.org/discussion/466/monthly-meetup-12-6th-march-20-00-utc\"\u003ehttps://community.osarch.org/discussion/466/monthly-meetup-12-6th-march-20-00-utc\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"OSArch LiveStream: Monthly Meetup #12, Gonzalo Casas talks about COMPAS"},{"content":"In the last February 6th and 7th, took place the FOSDEM 2021, an event organized to promote the use of free and open source software. Usually based in Brussels, the event happened online this year due to the pandemic. FOSDEM features a wide range of subjects and one of the Devrooms was about Computer Aided Modeling and Design, which held some interesting talks that gave us the state of the art of FOSS development for the AEC industry.\nIf you missed the event, you can check out the videos of the conferences. Some videos might not be available yet, because they require some editing and review, but all of them will be uploaded in the next days, as stated by the organization.\nThe CAD Devroom hosted several interesting talks. One of the highlights was Dion Moult presentation about the growth of free software in BIM. Moult makes a great case for the importance of interoperability between different software in the AEC industry and the role of FOSS in enhancing the use of open data and open standards. Although this interoperability is vital, it is not fully provided by proprietary software which still dominate the industry. Moult shows that the OSArch community is the place to discuss and develop FOSS with that mindset, to change the industry towards a better integration, not only between software, but also between different players and disciplines.\nSome other presentation worth noting. Jean-Marie Verdun talks about a CADCloud platform for FreeCAD to allow version control, user collaboration, share models and display them via web browser. Another interesting FreeCAD presentations was made by Florin Curelariu and realthunder (Zheng Lei). They discuss the past and present features developed in LinkStage3 branch and also give a little taste of what\u0026rsquo;s to come in the near future. Finally, Alexander Malyshev talks about the status update on Open CASCADE technology, which is a geometry kernel used by many Open Source applications.\nOf course this is just a tiny piece of what FOSDEM 2021 presented. It was a huge event and there are a lot more you can check out in the links below:\nCheck out Dion\u0026rsquo;s presentation here. Full list of presentations in FOSDEM 2021 CAD Devroom. Watch the videos already available. Visit FOSDEM 2021 website for more information. ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2021/02/22/foss-development-for-the-aec-industry-highlights-from-the-fosdem-2021/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIn the last February 6th and 7th, took place the FOSDEM 2021, an event organized to promote the use of free and open source software. Usually based in Brussels, the event happened online this year due to the pandemic. FOSDEM features a wide range of subjects and one of the Devrooms was about Computer Aided Modeling and Design, which held some interesting talks that gave us the state of the art of FOSS development for the AEC industry.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"FOSS development for the AEC industry. Highlights from the FOSDEM 2021"},{"content":"Tridify is an IFC data streaming service to facilitate BIM models visualizations. With Tridify you can easily share and view IFC models in any web browser. Although it is a proprietary service, Tridify supports open source projects, according to Jukka Muhonen, Head of Production at Tridify:\nWe think that open BIM is the cornerstone of virtual construction and information sharing. Tridify has always been a contributor to several open source communities like ifcOpenshell, BabylonJS, IFC standard and others. The reason being is we see open source and open standards as assets for the whole industry. Our Tridify solution aims to solve specific use cases but also, by providing our expertise to the open source communities, we help them to be more innovate when solving the broader spectrum of use cases and issues for the whole industry.\nThe service works by publishing the IFC data directly to Unreal Engine. Using a standard format such IFC proved to be the best choice as Muhonen mentions: \u0026ldquo;To be able to reach as wide an audience as possible, we chose IFC since it’s a standard in the AEC sector and can be exported from any BIM/CAD authoring tool. We wanted to give our users the opportunity to choose which design tool they wanted, without any vendor locking or proprietary formats.\u0026rdquo;\nOne of the open source projects that is used to provide this service is IfcOpenShell, that helps with the conversion of the IFC geometry. Muhonen highlights the importance of this open source project to their business:\nWhen Tridify was started in 2012, 9 years ago, we were a project company undertaking visualizations for AEC sector. In order to scale the business, we researched how to best deliver an automated BIM cloud processing service that offered the maximum amount of flexibility and precision when converting BIM models to polygon models. That’s when we discovered ifcOpenShell. We started creating our cloud service with ifcOpenShell as part of our BIM processing pipeline. From there on, we have been part of the ifcOpenShell community and have also been contributing to the project. ifcOpenShell is by far the best IFC to polygon open source data conversion SDK out there.\nThanks for Jukka Muhonen and the Tridify team for kindly attending to our questions.\nMore reading:\nFortnite developer backs IFC data streaming service. Tridify official website. IfcOpenShell official website. ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2021/02/08/tridify-an-ifc-data-streaming-service-that-supports-open-source/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eTridify is an IFC data streaming service to facilitate BIM models visualizations. With Tridify you can easily share and view IFC models in any web browser. Although it is a proprietary service, Tridify supports open source projects, according to Jukka Muhonen, Head of Production at Tridify:\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Tridify, an IFC data streaming service that supports open source"},{"content":"Details on how to join this free talk: https://fosdem.org/2021/schedule/event/bim/\nThe architecture, engineering, and construction industry is a vast, diverse, but highly proprietary field. The primary means of data exchange between architects, structural, MEPF engineers, cost planners, surveyors, program schedulers, asset/facility management and more revolve around a concept known as Building Information Modeling (BIM) in addition to CAD. Many of these tools do not exist as free software, or are drastically better, or are dominated by a monopoly vendor market with lock-in business practices.\nFree software implementations of BIM have seen rapid growth in the past year, with new utilities available for OpenBIM building models, quality auditing, diffing, clash detection, issue management, facility management, environmental simulation, and more. This is supported by a newly formed community known as OSArch. Dion Moult, a main developer of the BlenderBIM Add-on, IfcOpenShell contributor, and one of the OSArch founders, will present a summary of these events, demonstrate how free software communities have collaborated and shared resources, and where this leads in the future. The BlenderBIM Add-on was recently awarded the buildingSMART 2020 Awards in Technology, the international standards body for BIM.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/fosdem21-talk-by-dion-moult-the-growth-of-free-software-in-building-information-modeling-for-architects-engineers-and-construction/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eDetails on how to join this free talk: \u003ca href=\"https://fosdem.org/2021/schedule/event/bim/\"\u003ehttps://fosdem.org/2021/schedule/event/bim/\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe architecture, engineering, and construction industry is a vast, diverse, but highly proprietary field. The primary means of data exchange between architects, structural, MEPF engineers, cost planners, surveyors, program schedulers, asset/facility management and more revolve around a concept known as Building Information Modeling (BIM) in addition to CAD. Many of these tools do not exist as free software, or are drastically better, or are dominated by a monopoly vendor market with lock-in business practices.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"FOSDEM21 Talk by Dion Moult: The growth of free software in Building Information Modeling for architects, engineers, and construction"},{"content":"For February\u0026rsquo;s Monthly Meetup, we have two keynote presentations, the first on a web-based BIM platform and the second on Building Energy Modelling (BEM) based on BIM.\nThomas Hächler will talk about:\nBIMaps.io: an open-source platform to manage BIM data including all aspects with a simple and powerful interface. Based on web technologies and for mobile usage, with built-in features such as flexible data, 3D viewer with dynamic styles, BCF, geometric and data checker Cyril Waechter will talk about: BIMxBEM: Processing IfcRelSpaceBoundary to generate local standards boundaries for energy analysis (Switzerland currently). Despite numerous scientific projects, studies and articles on how to use BIM for building energy modeling (BEM) this topic is not solved for various reasons. This project aims at the following workflow for BEM. Retrieve building data from IFC. Process it accordingly to local standards. Send processed data to energy analysis software. Get feedback through IFC and/or BCF ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/osarch-livestream-monthly-meetup-11-on-building-energy-modelling-bem/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eFor February\u0026rsquo;s Monthly Meetup, we have two keynote presentations, the first on a web-based BIM platform and the second on Building Energy Modelling (BEM) based on BIM.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThomas Hächler\u003c/em\u003e will talk about:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n \t\u003cli\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBIMaps.io\u003c/strong\u003e: an open-source platform to manage BIM data including all aspects with a simple and powerful interface. Based on web technologies and for mobile usage, with built-in features such as flexible data, 3D viewer with dynamic styles, BCF, geometric and data checker\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eCyr\u003c/em\u003e\u003cem\u003eil\u003c/em\u003e\u003cem\u003e Waechter\u003c/em\u003e will talk about:\n\u003cul\u003e\n \t\u003cli\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBIMxBEM\u003c/strong\u003e: Processing IfcRelSpaceBoundary to generate local standards boundaries for energy analysis (Switzerland currently). Despite numerous scientific projects, studies and articles on how to use BIM for building energy modeling (BEM) this topic is not solved for various reasons. This project aims at the following workflow for BEM. Retrieve building data from IFC. Process it accordingly to local standards. Send processed data to energy analysis software. Get feedback through IFC and/or BCF\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e","title":"OSArch LiveStream: Monthly Meetup #11 on a web-based BIM platform and on Building Energy Modelling (BEM) based on BIM"},{"content":"Another exciting news for the users of Open Source 2D CAD softwares! LibreCAD has a new release candidate for the version 2.2.0.\nLibreCAD is an open source 2D CAD application with a mature development that works in Linux, Windows and macOS. It has all the basic features you would expect from a 2D drafting tool, and it is suitable for development of architectural drawings such as plans, sections and elevations. If you are new to LibreCAD you can start by reading their documentation, which offers a good amount of information to understand the software and start working with it. You can also visit their forum to ask questions and search for answers.\nOne thing to keep in mind is that LibreCAD can open DWG files but cannot write them. The main file format used by the software is DXF, which has a better interoperability. For more information, you can check this previous post where we discussed 2D CAD file formats in the open source context.\nThis is the second release candidate for LibreCAD 2.2.0, and it comes after more than 280 commits since the first one. This release brings a series of bug fixes regarding the reading of DWG files. It is expected that it presents a better performance while opening DWG files, although a few issues are still expected until the final 2.2.0 is released.\nAs any open source project, LibreCAD benefits a lot from the community feedback. You can help the development by downloading and testing this version and reporting any bugs you may find. They are also looking for someone to help deploy an AppImage for Linux. There are several ways you can help LibreCAD besides coding. More information here.\nMore reading:\nRead the full release notes here. Visit the LibreCAD homepage. Join the LibreCAD forum for further discussions. ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2021/01/26/librecad-has-a-new-release-candidate-for-the-version-2-2-0/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eAnother exciting news for the users of Open Source 2D CAD softwares! LibreCAD has a new release candidate for the version 2.2.0.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLibreCAD is an open source 2D CAD application with a mature development that works in Linux, Windows and macOS. It has all the basic features you would expect from a 2D drafting tool, and it is suitable for development of architectural drawings such as plans, sections and elevations. If you are new to LibreCAD you can start by reading their \u003ca href=\"https://librecad.readthedocs.io/en/latest/\"\u003edocumentation\u003c/a\u003e, which offers a good amount of information to understand the software and start working with it. You can also visit their forum to ask questions and search for answers.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"LibreCAD has a new release candidate for the version 2.2.0"},{"content":"Antonio González Viegas will be presenting IFC.js, an open-source Javascript library to read and visualize IFC models on a browser. You can watch it live here: https://bigbluebutton.webhostingzone.org/b/dun-gxe-gyz-anq\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/osarch-livestream-presentation-on-ifc-js-with-developer-antonio-gonzalez-viegas/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eAntonio González Viegas will be presenting IFC.js, an open-source Javascript library to read and visualize IFC models on a browser. You can watch it live here: \u003ca href=\"https://bigbluebutton.webhostingzone.org/b/dun-gxe-gyz-anq\"\u003ehttps://bigbluebutton.webhostingzone.org/b/dun-gxe-gyz-anq\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"OSArch LiveStream: Presentation on IFC.js with developer Antonio González Viegas"},{"content":"For those who haven\u0026rsquo;t heard of Ladybug Tools before, it is an open source collection of free computer applications that support environmental design and education connecting 3D Computer-Aided Design (CAD) interfaces to a host of validated simulation engines. Although Ladybug Tools do ship platform agnostic libraries, it is currently primarily only usable with proprietary tools, but there is a project underway to make it available for Blender.\nFounder Mostapha Roudsari writes: Our team is growing! Come join us as a frontend, backend or a full stack developer.\nLadybug Tools is looking for new team members to join our team. We’re a technology company providing software and consulting services for environmental building design and simulation. We create and maintain software for building simulation, including the well-known Ladybug Tools. We are currently building our next big thing - Pollination - which you will be working on after joining the team! Pollination is a collaborative web platform for energy and environmental simulation. To learn more about Pollination, you can watch our presentation at the AEC Tech 2020 symposium.\nFor more information see the job posts on Ladybug Tools forum. A brief summary is provided below.\nThe frontend role is remote and will be dealing with the UI and design of the new Pollination Cloud system. The stack is composed of React, Ant Design, NextJs, Firebase, and Google Cloud. Proficiency with Javascript / Typescript, Github, React, and UI and UX design is desirable. In addition familiarity with visualisation libraries like d3.js and THREE.js is very desirable.\nThe backend role is remote and will be dealing with a wide range of tasks, from a user-facing Pollination API to managing a Kubernetes cluster. The backend is written entirely in Python and use microservices but other languages are possible too. Knowledge of REST API design, Docker, SQL, and cloud platforms is desirable. Knowledge of building environmental simulations is a bonus.\nMore reading:\nRead the forum post looking for a new frontend developer Read the forum post looking for a new backend developer Visit the project homepage Help contribute to the OSArch Wiki description of the project Help port the tools to be available on Blender ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2021/01/17/ladybug-tools-is-hiring-for-two-open-positions/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eFor those who haven\u0026rsquo;t heard of Ladybug Tools before, it is an open source collection of free computer applications that support environmental design and education connecting 3D Computer-Aided Design (CAD) interfaces to a host of validated simulation engines. Although Ladybug Tools do ship platform agnostic libraries, it is currently primarily only usable with proprietary tools, but there is a project underway to make it available for Blender.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Ladybug Tools is hiring for two open positions"},{"content":"For our 1st monthly meetup of 2021, Antonio González Viegas @agviegas will give the keynote presentation on IFC.js, a library that converts any browser into an IFC viewer, parsing IFC entities to WebGL geometry through THREE.js.\nWhere: https://meet.jit.si/openbim When: https://everytimezone.com/s/6e06b011 Registration: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19EzmthOp5hGYFTZCgOIm51n7hvcp_F8nB_XLYeTJ0zU/ ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/ifc-js-by-antonio-gonzalez-viegas-osarch-monthly-meetup/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eFor our 1st monthly meetup of 2021, Antonio González Viegas @agviegas will give the keynote presentation on IFC.js, a library that converts any browser into an IFC viewer, parsing IFC entities to WebGL geometry through THREE.js.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"IFC.JS by Antonio González Viegas - OSArch Monthly Meetup"},{"content":"LibreDWG 0.12 is released. LibreDWG is a free C library to handle DWG files, the native file format from AutoCAD.\nThis library aims to create an API to support softwares to work with DWG. It is currently in the beta stage, so it doesn\u0026rsquo;t have all the features implemented. However, it already handles reading, converting and writing files from scratch. It also features \u0026ldquo;SVG and Postscript conversion, converters from and to DXF and JSON, dwggrep to search for text, and dwglayer to print the list of layers.\u0026rdquo;\nThe 2D CAD file format is an important topic in the OSArch community, since it is mostly dominated by Autodesk. DWG format is very common and widely used. Although it is a proprietary format, it is important for many open source software users. In the AEC, for example, DWG is commonly specified as the default file format by the contractors. Even someone who works with open source software may need to be able to read and write DWG to meet these specifications. LibreDWG aims to fill this gap. However, it is also important to highlight the effort to make DXF the default file format, since it is more compatible with open source softwares.\nLibreDWG is already supported in FreeCAD, so you can use it to test it out. It is always important to remind that testing and reporting issues is a contribution that every open source project can benefit on.\nThis new release of LibreDWG features highlights are:\nNew add API to easily create new DWGs (or DXFs) from scratch, for CAD programs. New dwgadd helper. Removed deprecated old API functions. For more details you can check the full release notes.\nMore reading:\nVisit LibreDWG page. Join the OSArch discussion about DWG/DXF support in FOSS. Check out how you can use FreeCAD to test LibreDWG. ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2021/01/12/libredwg-0-12-is-released-a-free-c-library-to-read-dwg-file/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eLibreDWG 0.12 is released. LibreDWG is a free C library to handle DWG files, the native file format from AutoCAD.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis library aims to create an API to support softwares to work with DWG. It is currently in the beta stage, so it doesn\u0026rsquo;t have all the features implemented. However, it already handles reading, converting and writing files from scratch. It also features \u0026ldquo;SVG and Postscript conversion, converters from and to DXF and JSON, dwggrep to search for text, and dwglayer to print the list of layers.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e","title":"LibreDWG 0.12 is released. A free C library to read DWG file."},{"content":"OpenProject 11.1 has recently been released. OpenProject is an open source and free web application for BIM project management.\nIt includes most typical features you might expect from project management services, like task management, milestone planning, gantt charts, team collaboration, and issue management. There are also additional features relevant to AEC including cost reporting, time tracking, and a shared project wiki. OpenProject supports a variety of project management ideologies, like kanban, agile and scrum. It is unique compared to other open source offerings in that it also has a BIM module. The BIM module allows you to view your model, and integrates with technologies like BCF.\nAs OpenProject is open source, you can host OpenProject yourself. However, OpenProject also provides paid cloud hosting services. It is possible to sign up online for a 14 day trial, so it is easy to get started and play with its features. Note that there are two separate sign up forms: one is for the general project management offering, and the other includes the BIM module.\nThe 11.1 release adds many new general project management features and fixes. A brief summary of the biggest improvements are below:\nImproved WYSIWYG styles across the website You can now see a summary of important milestones by collapsing the project gantt chart Improved styling of mentioned users when editing text to make sure you tag the right user You can now group work packages by attributes like priority, status, and assignee, and collapse groups in the viewer Automatic signing of Data Processing Agreements (DPA) for easier GDPR compliance Improved authentication with OpenID Improved printing styles from the browser There are 26 further small improvements and fixes detailed in the full release notes.\nMore reading:\nCheck out OpenProject Read the official release announcement Read the release notes Start a 14-day trial of their BIM module Are you a developer? Check out their Github repository ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2021/01/04/bim-project-management-openproject-11-1-released/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eOpenProject 11.1 has recently been released. OpenProject is an open source and free web application for BIM project management.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt includes most typical features you might expect from project management services, like task management, milestone planning, gantt charts, team collaboration, and issue management. There are also additional features relevant to AEC including cost reporting, time tracking, and a shared project wiki. OpenProject supports a variety of project management ideologies, like kanban, agile and scrum. It is unique compared to other open source offerings in that it also has a BIM module. The BIM module allows you to view your model, and integrates with technologies like BCF.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"BIM Project Management software OpenProject 11.1 released"},{"content":"Full building 3D modeling workflow with BlenderBIM\n**Disclaimer: not yet ready for production use yet.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/bimvoice-live-with-dion-moult-full-building-3d-modeling-workflow-with-blenderbim/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"mx_MTextBody mx_EventTile_content\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"mx_EventTile_body\" dir=\"auto\"\u003eFull building 3D modeling workflow with BlenderBIM\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e**Disclaimer: \u003cspan class=\"mx_MTextBody mx_EventTile_content\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"mx_EventTile_body markdown-body\" dir=\"auto\"\u003enot yet ready for production use yet.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"BIMvoice live with Dion Moult: full building 3D modeling workflow with BlenderBIM"},{"content":"Join Dion Moult and Petru Conduraru as they live stream and explain OpenBIM concepts about IFC.\nThis week\u0026rsquo;s topic is about how IFC integrates with classification systems.\nhttps://meet.jit.si/bimvoice (only 50 seats available)\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/bimvoice-livestream-dion-moult-on-how-ifc-integrates-with-classification-systems/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eJoin Dion Moult and Petru Conduraru as they live stream and explain OpenBIM concepts about IFC.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis week\u0026rsquo;s topic is about how IFC integrates with classification systems.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://meet.jit.si/bimvoice\"\u003ehttps://meet.jit.si/bimvoice\u003c/a\u003e (only 50 seats available)\u003c/p\u003e","title":"BIMvoice Livestream: Dion Moult on how IFC integrates with classification systems"},{"content":"Join Dion Moult and Petru Conduraru as they live stream and explain OpenBIM concepts about IFC.\nThis week\u0026rsquo;s topic is about how to group sub objects in IFC.\nYou can watch it live here: https://www.twitch.tv/bimvoice/\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/bimvoice-livestream-dion-moult-on-how-to-group-sub-objects-in-ifc/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eJoin Dion Moult and Petru Conduraru as they live stream and explain OpenBIM concepts about IFC.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis week\u0026rsquo;s topic is about how to group sub objects in IFC.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYou can watch it live here: \u003ca href=\"https://www.twitch.tv/bimvoice/\"\u003ehttps://www.twitch.tv/bimvoice/\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"BIMvoice Livestream: Dion Moult on how to group sub objects in IFC"},{"content":"Join Dion Moult and Petru Conduraru as they live stream and explain OpenBIM concepts about IFC.\nThis week\u0026rsquo;s topic is about how materials are stored in IFC.\nhttps://meet.jit.si/bimvoice (only 50 seats available)\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/bimvoice-livestream-dion-moult-on-how-materials-are-stored-in-ifc/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eJoin Dion Moult and Petru Conduraru as they live stream and explain OpenBIM concepts about IFC.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis week\u0026rsquo;s topic is about how materials are stored in IFC.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://meet.jit.si/bimvoice\"\u003ehttps://meet.jit.si/bimvoice\u003c/a\u003e (only 50 seats available)\u003c/p\u003e","title":"BIMvoice Livestream: Dion Moult on how materials are stored in IFC"},{"content":"IFC.js is an open source project created by Antonio Gonzales Viegas. It is a new JavaScript library that turns any browser into an IFC viewer. It is a quick and easy way to visualize your IFC files. In addition, as it is browser based, you can also use this in mobile devices.\nThe library works as described in the project documentation:\nThis project reads IFC files, structures their data in memory and converts them to Three.js custom geometric entities for display in any browser. Even though there are many libraries capable of parsing IFC formats, almost all of them depend on communication with a server, with all the disadvantages that this entails. The development of the parser entirely in JavaScript makes it possible to decentralize parsing, so that each client is able to read an IFC file and display its geometry and parameters to the user on its own.\nThis approach means that it uses less bandwidth, making it a faster IFC viewer then most web-based applications. IFC.js is still in an early development stage. If you want to try it out, you should start with light files. The developer set up two examples that you can explore. There is a simple room with a little furniture and a more complex example in a two-story space, with railings and a stair\nIf you have any comments or suggestions, it is important to give the developer feedback to enhance the library. You can do this by reporting issues or opening discussions on the project\u0026rsquo;s GitHub page. For more general discussion you can always open a topic on the OS Arch community page.\nMore reading:\nVisit our wiki AEC Open Data directory for more IFC sample files. Read more about IFC.js in the docs page here. ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2020/12/21/a-new-browser-ifc-viewer-is-released-in-ifc-js/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIFC.js is an open source project created by Antonio Gonzales Viegas. It is a new JavaScript library that turns any browser into an IFC viewer. It is a quick and easy way to visualize your IFC files. In addition, as it is browser based, you can also use this in mobile devices.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"A new browser IFC viewer is released in IFC.js"},{"content":"The Krita team released the first beta of their new version 4.4.2. It comes with a lot of bug fixes but also with a few new interesting features. Krita is a software for digital painting, but its features make it a good alternative to work with architectural visualization.\nKrita has a layer system and blend modes that resembles GIMP and other proprietary software for image editing. One of its main advantages is that you can work with filter layers in a non-destructive way (which GIMP currently does not support). This makes Krita a nice tool to improve your renders with post-production.\nAlthough Krita is more suited to work with raster images, it also has some vector tools as well. You can quickly create shapes, change strokes and fills like Inkscape. For that, besides using Krita for architectural visualization, you can use it for architecture drawings, axonometric and diagrams. Having both raster and vector in the same software makes it very practical.\nYou can also use Krita for its greater strength, as a digital paint tool. You can use it to create artistic perspectives. Krita has a set of assistant tools that helps you with guides for axonometric or vanishing points. If you prefer hand-drawn images, you can combine Krita with a drawing table and have a nice experience.\nOne of the highlights of Krita version 4.4.2 is the Mesh Gradients tool. It works with vectors and gives you the power to create complex gradient fills. In addition, it is compatible with Inkscape. Another great feature that comes with this release is the Mesh Transform. This gives you the ability to apply transformations to a layer based on a shape. This can be very useful to place an object in perspective or apply round transformations. The complete list of features and bug fixes you can find here.\nMore reading:\nVisit Krita official website. Join this discussion about Krita for architecture. Take a look at this tutorial, by JQL, on using Krita to create seamless textures. ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2020/12/18/krita-is-releasing-the-first-beta-for-version-4-4-2/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThe Krita team released the first beta of their new version 4.4.2. It comes with a lot of bug fixes but also with a few new interesting features. Krita is a software for digital painting, but its features make it a good alternative to work with architectural visualization.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Krita is releasing the first beta for version 4.4.2."},{"content":"Join Dion Moult and Petru Conduraru as they live stream and explain OpenBIM concepts about IFC.\nThis week\u0026rsquo;s topic is about geolocation with the BlenderBIM Add-on.\nhttps://www.twitch.tv/bimvoice\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/bimvoice-livestream-dion-moult-on-geolocation-with-the-blenderbim-add-on/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eJoin Dion Moult and Petru Conduraru as they live stream and explain OpenBIM concepts about IFC.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis week\u0026rsquo;s topic is about geolocation with the BlenderBIM Add-on.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://www.twitch.tv/bimvoice\"\u003ehttps://www.twitch.tv/bimvoice\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"BIMvoice Livestream: Dion Moult on Geolocation with the BlenderBIM Add-on"},{"content":"El próximo miercoles 16 de diciembre a las 17:00 hrs (Argentina/Chile), se dictará un taller/demo del uso de BIMserver con FreeCAD, por Diego Ariel Capeletti. La presentación será en la plataforma jitsi, cuyo link será publicado aquí pronto.\nFreeCAD link: https://www.freecadweb.org/\nBIMserver link: https://github.com/opensourceBIM/BIMserver\nhttps://community.osarch.org/discussion/357/taller-freecad-bimserver-espanol\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/online-workshop-freecad-bimserver-spanish/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eEl próximo miercoles 16 de diciembre a las 17:00 hrs (Argentina/Chile), se dictará un taller/demo del uso de BIMserver con FreeCAD, por Diego Ariel Capeletti. La presentación será en la plataforma jitsi, cuyo link será publicado aquí pronto.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Online workshop FreeCAD + BIMserver [Spanish]"},{"content":"Join Dion Moult and Petru Conduraru as they live stream and explain OpenBIM concepts about IFC.\nThis week\u0026rsquo;s topic is about IFC spatial structures.\nhttps://www.twitch.tv/bimvoice\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/livestream-ifc-spatial-structures-with-dion-and-petru/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eJoin Dion Moult and Petru Conduraru as they live stream and explain OpenBIM concepts about IFC.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis week\u0026rsquo;s topic is about IFC spatial structures.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://www.twitch.tv/bimvoice\"\u003ehttps://www.twitch.tv/bimvoice\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Livestream: IFC spatial structures with Dion and Petru"},{"content":"Archipack has now a new release which is compatible with Blender 2.91! Archipack 2.3.3 brings a few bug fixes and enhancements. According to its developer, Stephen Leger, the highlights of this new version are:\n“Auto-synchro” feature now is a global parameter so you are able to disable once for all objects. Triangular top shape for windows through “top circle” and 2 segments. Archipack is an add-on that focus on creating archviz solutions to fasten architectural modeling inside Blender. With Archipack you have access to a set of parametric tools for modeling architectural elements. Instead of creating a plane, scale it and then extrude it to create a wall, you can simply use the wall tool from Archipack. It\u0026rsquo;s not only faster to create, but the most powerful feature is the editing capability. For that, you can type in the wall dimensions, create new segments and automatically join them. All of this in a non-destructive way. The same logic applies to other tools like slab, door, window, fence, stair, roof and so on.\nOne of the great things about the OS Arch community is that the developers are communicating to make different tools work together. Archipack is part of a group of add-ons for Blender focused on architecture, together with the Blender-BIM Addon, Measureit-Arch, CAD Transform, and many others. You can combine those add-ons to create a powerful workflow for architecture using only Blender.\nIf you want to check it out, Archipack offers you a free version. You can try it by installing it through the Blender\u0026rsquo;s Preferences tab. This will give you access to the version 1.2.84. For more information about the pro version, read this.\nMore reading:\nCheck out the release notes. Watch a demo of Archipack features. Visit Archipack official website. ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2020/12/10/new-archipack-add-on-release-for-blender-2-91-on-v2-3-3/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eArchipack has now a new release which is compatible with Blender 2.91! Archipack 2.3.3 brings a few bug fixes and enhancements. According to its developer, Stephen Leger, the highlights of this new version are:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e“Auto-synchro” feature now is a global parameter so you are able to disable once for all objects.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTriangular top shape for windows through “top circle” and 2 segments.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eArchipack is an add-on that focus on creating archviz solutions to fasten architectural modeling inside Blender. With Archipack you have access to a set of parametric tools for modeling architectural elements. Instead of creating a plane, scale it and then extrude it to create a wall, you can simply use the wall tool from Archipack. It\u0026rsquo;s not only faster to create, but the most powerful feature is the editing capability. For that, you can type in the wall dimensions, create new segments and automatically join them. All of this in a non-destructive way. The same logic applies to other tools like slab, door, window, fence, stair, roof and so on.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"New Archipack add-on release for Blender 2.91 on v2.3.3"},{"content":"There’s been a new BlenderBIM Add-on release! The BlenderBIM Add-on v0.0.201207 comes with 50 new features and fixes. The BlenderBIM Add-on is 100% free and open source software that lets you author and document BIM data fully to ISO standards. Highlights include drastically improved material, geometry, and context IFC round-tripping, and stabilisation of the new material system.\nImage credits go to the Opening Design Aalseth Residence team - available under CC BY-SA 4.0.\nIn this release, the focus has been on improving the ability to round-trip IFC data. Historically, many proprietary software have treated IFC as a transport format, usually for read-only view between applications. The native proprietary format remained as the primary source of truth. This mentality has led to the data quality in IFC being relatively poor.\nWith the improved ability to round-trip IFC data, this allows IFC to replace the native file format and be used as the primary source of truth. IFC can change from being seen as a transport method to a database where all BIM applications can connect to.\nThe improvements in round-tripping fall into three categories. The first is the ability to round-trip parametric geometry. IFC has the ability to store parametric geometry of all sorts of shapes. Building support for these shapes is complex, as often they do not directly map to parametric objects in existing authoring software. This results in loss of parametric geometry editing. This new BlenderBIM Add-on release now includes an experimental \u0026ldquo;native round-trip\u0026rdquo; mode which allows Blender to store a link to the original parametric IFC definition. Despite Blender being mesh-based, this allows Blender to modify IFC solids, CSGs, and parametric geometry without any loss in data. The user has the ability to bake parametric geometry to meshes if they wish, as Blender is exceptional in its ability to edit meshes, far surpassing proprietary applications in this regard.\nThe second is the ability to round-trip representation contexts. IFC allows an object to contain multiple representations. One representation might be the 3D geometry of its body, and another might be the 2D geometry of its annotation in a plan view, or section view. As you can see, this can be quite specific. This new release will preserve all representations upon import and export with no data loss, assuming the \u0026ldquo;native round-trip\u0026rdquo; mode is enabled.\nFinally is the ability to migrate across different IFC schemas. The BlenderBIM Add-on tries to encourage production of IFC4 data, but this can lead to complications if users wish to upgrade or downgrade IFC datasets. A new built-in migration utility allows the BlenderBIM Add-on to gracefully convert between schemas, whilst retaining IFC data as much as possible.\nThese three round-tripping capabilities are unique in the industry and are a great demonstration of where free and open-source software far surpasses proprietary solutions.\nSee more reading on this new BlenderBIM Add-on release:\nSee the full release notes. Learn more on the BlenderBIM Add-on Wiki page. Get the new BlenderBIM Add-on release today! ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2020/12/08/new-blenderbim-add-on-release-v0-0-201207/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThere’s been a new BlenderBIM Add-on release! The BlenderBIM Add-on \u003cstrong\u003ev0.0.201207\u003c/strong\u003e comes with 50 new features and fixes. The BlenderBIM Add-on is 100% free and open source software that lets you author and document BIM data fully to ISO standards. Highlights include drastically improved material, geometry, and context IFC round-tripping, and stabilisation of the new material system.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"New BlenderBIM Add-on release v0.0.201207"},{"content":"The Blender development team has a project called Everything Nodes, which consists in creating a node based workflow for each of Blender main functionalities. One of the most exciting, the Geometry Nodes, is currently under development. This week they announced that it will be available for Blender 2.92. The official release is scheduled for February 2021, but they already released its alpha version. You can check it here!\nThe current development focus on to the next Blender Open Movie called \u0026ldquo;Sprite Fight\u0026rdquo;. So, they are targeting use cases that can help the movie production. But the community have already explored the Geometry Nodes possibilities for architecture. It looks like a powerful tool to create parametric objects such stairs, windows, doors and furniture.\nWith Geometry Nodes you can combine different geometries and create a relationship between different parameters. The node based workflow allows you to connect outputs and inputs. That way, you can relate the scale of one geometry with the location of another, for example. So forth, you can combine multiple geometries to get the result you want. To create a table, for instance, you can start with a cube as a base model. Then, you can create copies, transform their location, scale or rotation and then join the geometry. Finally, the best part is that you can select some of those inputs and make them visible for the user in the modifiers panel. You can also name those parameters as you want. That way, when the object is finished, you have control over the parameters without the need to come back to the node editor.\nThis tool is in very early stages but already seem like a tool that could help many architects. Using it in combination with the Blender BIM add-on can be a very powerful BIM workflow. So, give it a try and explore its possibilities!\nMore reading:\nCheck the Blender developers blog. Watch this video tutorial on how to make a table with Geometry Nodes. Join the discussion with the developers. ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2020/12/05/geometry-nodes-is-coming-to-blender-2-92/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThe Blender development team has a project called \u003ca href=\"https://code.blender.org/2020/12/everything-nodes-and-the-scattered-stone/?utm_source=www-homepage\"\u003eEverything Nodes\u003c/a\u003e, which consists in creating a node based workflow for each of Blender main functionalities. One of the most exciting, the Geometry Nodes, is currently under development. This week they announced that it will be available for Blender 2.92. The official release is scheduled for February 2021, but they already released its alpha version. You can check it \u003ca href=\"https://builder.blender.org/download/\"\u003ehere\u003c/a\u003e!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Geometry Nodes is coming to Blender 2.92"},{"content":"Find out more at:\nhttps://revistaprojeto.com.br/noticias/44o-ensa-debate-arquitetura-e-urbanismo-nas-periferias-do-mundo/\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/freecad-by-yorik-van-havre-at-44o-ensa-debate-arquitetura-e-urbanismo-nas-periferias-do-mundo/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eFind out more at:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://revistaprojeto.com.br/noticias/44o-ensa-debate-arquitetura-e-urbanismo-nas-periferias-do-mundo/\"\u003ehttps://revistaprojeto.com.br/noticias/44o-ensa-debate-arquitetura-e-urbanismo-nas-periferias-do-mundo/\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"FreeCAD by Yorik van Havre at 44º ENSA debate Arquitetura e Urbanismo nas periferias do mundo"},{"content":"Petru and Dion will livestream and chat about IFC, including topics like projects, attributes, and properties\nWatch at: https://www.twitch.tv/bimvoice\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/livestream-ifc-projects-attributes-and-properties-with-dion-moult/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ePetru and Dion will livestream and chat about IFC, including topics like projects, attributes, and properties\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWatch at: \u003ca href=\"https://www.twitch.tv/bimvoice\"\u003ehttps://www.twitch.tv/bimvoice\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Livestream: IFC projects, attributes, and properties with Dion Moult"},{"content":"Alessandro Zomparelli just released a new version of his Tissue for Blender add-on. Tissue v.0.3.48 is now available for Blender 2.91 and features a new tool and a few fixes.\nTissue is an add-on for computational design in Blender developed by Co-de-iT. With this add-on, you can easily create tessellations based on a mesh and get creative. All you have to do is make a component object that will be repeated over the faces of a base object. It has a straight-forward workflow that allows you to explore several possibilities of complex shapes in a quick way.\nThis release brings the Convert to Curve tool that can detect the edges of a mesh and convert them to curves. It has three different Conversion Modes and supports three different types of curves: polyline, bezier and nurbs.\nLet\u0026rsquo;s look at an example to understand how Tissue can be used in an architecture workflow. For a facade design, you can create the overall shape of the building with a simple subdivided mesh. It will work as the base object. Then you model the panel to work as the component object. The Tessellate tool will create copies of the panel over every face of the subdivided mesh and adapt it to the shape of the face, composing your facade.\nIt is easy to edit your result by changing the base mesh and pressing the update button. In addition, there are also a few options that you can tweak and refresh to get better results. After that, you can create the curves from the mesh using the Convert to Curve and use them to model beams or mullions to add more detail to your facade design.\nRegarding computational design, Tissue is more accessible to those that doesn\u0026rsquo;t necessarily want to use code or node based workflow. You can combine the Tessellate and Convert to Curve tools to create useful solutions for architects in a variety of approaches.\nMore reading:\nTissue official website. A video tutorial by Dimitar on using Tissue for architecture. Check out their discussion group Support this add-on\u0026rsquo;s development! ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2020/12/02/new-tissue-for-blender-2-91-add-on-v0-3-48-released/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eAlessandro Zomparelli just released a new version of his Tissue for Blender add-on. Tissue v.0.3.48 is now available for Blender 2.91 and features a new tool and a few fixes.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTissue is an add-on for computational design in Blender developed by Co-de-iT. With this add-on, you can easily create tessellations based on a mesh and get creative. All you have to do is make a component object that will be repeated over the faces of a base object. It has a straight-forward workflow that allows you to explore several possibilities of complex shapes in a quick way.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"New Tissue for Blender 2.91 add-on v0.3.48 released"},{"content":"Organised by BIMVoice, there will be a live streaming session where Dion will talk about IFC classes. At the end we will have an Q\u0026amp;A Session.\nhttps://www.linkedin.com/events/ifcclasseswithdionmoult6737422330793922560/\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/ifc-classes-with-dion-moult/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eOrganised by BIMVoice, there will be a live streaming session where \u003cspan class=\"lt-line-clamp__line\"\u003eDion will talk about IFC classes. At the end we will have an Q\u0026amp;A Session.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/events/ifcclasseswithdionmoult6737422330793922560/\"\u003ehttps://www.linkedin.com/events/ifcclasseswithdionmoult6737422330793922560/\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"IFC classes with Dion Moult"},{"content":"FreeCAD session with Rafael Moya (@bitacovir). Learn how to document an architecture model using open source software FreeCAD. This is the 5th ArBIM Meetup and second FreeCAD session from ArBIM. If you need to catch up check out the recording for the first session, where Rafael shows how to model the Maison Dom-Ino in FreeCAD https://youtu.be/d2UZkO12qB8 (Spanish / Español)\nAbout ArBIM\nOn the first Thursday of each month ArBIM, a Spanish-speaking community, meets online to learn and discuss about Open Source Architecture Software and Open BIM. Learn more by visiting arbim.org and the Spanish / Español section of the OSArch forum https://community.osarch.org/categories/español-spanish\nWith members from Argentina, Spain, Paraguay and Chile, ArBIM\u0026rsquo;s mission is to spread the use and support the development of free and open source BIM systems.\nDate: December 3 Time: 6 pm (GMT-3) Cost: Free Website: arbim.org Organizer: @joselaks Venue: Online at http://meet.jit.si/QuintaReunionArbim ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/freecad-session-arbim-monthly-meetup-spanish-espanol/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eFreeCAD session with Rafael Moya (@bitacovir). Learn how to document an architecture model using open source software FreeCAD. This is the 5th ArBIM Meetup and second FreeCAD session from ArBIM. If you need to catch up check out the recording for the first session, where Rafael shows how to model the Maison Dom-Ino in FreeCAD \u003ca href=\"https://youtu.be/d2UZkO12qB8\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://youtu.be/d2UZkO12qB8\"\u003ehttps://youtu.be/d2UZkO12qB8\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/a\u003e (Spanish / Español)\u003c/p\u003e","title":"FreeCAD Session - ArBIM Monthly Meetup (Spanish / Español)"},{"content":"For our 9th monthly meetup, Andrew Peel @Andyrexic will give the keynote presentation on Home Builder, an open-source asset library for Blender that focuses on the process of creating interior architectural spaces with a wide variety of parametric assets and features to make designing interior spaces easy for beginners while also providing builders the engineering information they need to build the physical objects. Have a look also at this thread for comments and discussions of the community in the project.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/events/osarch-monthly-meetup/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eFor our 9th monthly meetup, Andrew Peel \u003ca href=\"https://community.osarch.org/profile/Andyrexic\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e@Andyrexic\u003c/a\u003e will give the keynote presentation on \u003ca href=\"https://creativedesigner3d.com/2020/11/12/home-builder-asset-library/\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003eHome Builder\u003c/a\u003e, an open-source asset library for Blender that focuses on the process of creating interior architectural spaces with a wide variety of parametric assets and features to make designing interior spaces easy for beginners while also providing builders the engineering information they need to build the physical objects. Have a look also at this \u003ca href=\"https://community.osarch.org/discussion/221/home-builder-for-blender/p1\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003ethread\u003c/a\u003e for comments and discussions of the community in the project.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Home Builder by Andyrexic - OSArch Monthly Meetup"},{"content":"OSArch is a community of those who believe in creating a built environment with free software , increased transparency , and a more ethical approach. For 10 months, we\u0026rsquo;ve been helping build free software, writing tutorials and documentation, provide discussion forums, and host a wiki of everything you need to know about free software for the architecture, engineering, and construction industry.\nToday, we\u0026rsquo;re starting a new initiative to provide a outlet for you to stay in touch with all the news and events around free software in the AEC industry.\nLet\u0026rsquo;s change the industry together. Join OSArch today!\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2020/11/27/hello-world/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eOSArch is a community of those who believe in creating a built environment with \u003cstrong\u003efree software\u003c/strong\u003e , increased \u003cstrong\u003etransparency\u003c/strong\u003e , and a more \u003cstrong\u003eethical approach\u003c/strong\u003e. For 10 months, we\u0026rsquo;ve been helping build free software, writing tutorials and documentation, provide discussion forums, and host a wiki of everything you need to know about free software for the \u003cstrong\u003earchitecture, engineering, and construction\u003c/strong\u003e industry.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"OSArch starts new initiative to provide news and events for free software in the AEC industry"},{"content":"Blender 2.91 has just been released!\nThe fourth major release in 2020 is here to further improve the user experience, adding powerful new booleans, better cloth sculpting with support for collisions, volume objects modifiers, improved animation tools and so much more.\nBlender is an incredibly powerful mesh based 3D content creation package. It supports modeling, texturing, rendering, animation, and more. Although all the new features would be very welcome to those working in architectural visualisation, some features would also be very welcome to architects.\nThe biggest change is the improvement to the boolean modifier. The boolean modifier gets a new \u0026ldquo;Exact\u0026rdquo; mode which is enabled by default. It is a little slower than the older version of the modifier, but is much better at handling co-planar mesh intersections. This is especially important as booleans are heavily used in BIM models, and sometimes they are modeled a co-planar or co-incident objects. This reduces the need to have overlapping or projecting voiding or projection elements. The old \u0026ldquo;Fast\u0026rdquo; mode is still available if you prioritise speed over accuracy.\nCustom curve bevels now allow you to easily model moldings, skirtings, and special profiled railings, window frames, and so on with ease.\nThe new \u0026ldquo;from drawings to 3D\u0026rdquo; feature lets you convert 2D drawings into greasepencil objects! It currently only detects black and white drawings, but that\u0026rsquo;s OK for most architectural work.\nMany usability improvements also make Blender a much nicer tool to introduce to new architects migrating to Blender. A new property search lets you quickly find options in the UI. In addition, a new \u0026ldquo;overlay\u0026rdquo; colour is shown which highlights the object you\u0026rsquo;re currently editing, which helps when you large and complex models. The command search now accepts typos and shows fuzzy search results.\nYou can also now tag collections with colours. This helps complex scenes stay organised. You can now also drag and drop modifiers in the outliner, which helps when performing bulk editing in highly parametric architectural models.\nBlender 2.91 also contains a ton of other features, especially around sculpting. Go check out the release notes, and watch the short video available on the release note page!\nThe new Blender 2.91 splash screen credits go to Red forest, wind blowing by Robin Tran – License CC-BY-SA 3.0\nMore reading:\nCheck out the release notes Check out the Blender OSArch Wiki article Start using Blender ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2020/11/25/new-blender-2-91-released-with-improved-booleans-drawings-and-bevels/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eBlender 2.91 has just been released!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe fourth major release in 2020 is here to further improve the user experience, adding powerful new booleans, better cloth sculpting with support for collisions, volume objects modifiers, improved animation tools and so much more.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"New Blender 2.91 released with improved booleans, drawings, and bevels"},{"content":"The FreeCAD BIM features have had another monthly summary of improvements by lead developer Yorik van Havre. For October 2020, we\u0026rsquo;re looking at new TechDraw patterns, new Draft styling controls, a new BIM image plane tool, a new awning window preset, and many new fixes and UI improvements.\nMost of the improvements center around 2D documentation and drafting tools. For combining 3D BIM models and 2D documentation with free software, FreeCAD is by far the most mature option out there.\nThe TechDraw workbench has new patterns, which currently only work in the 3D view as they are SVG based. Yorik is investigating ways to make it export out to DXF and DWG.\nThe draft styling controls, such as line weights, colours, arrow styles, and text styles are now condensed into a single interface accessed by a single button, instead of being spread around. Furthermore, these styles can be applied in bulk to many objects.\nTwo new TechDraw buttons lets you easily create pages and view them.\nThere have been improvements to the FreeCAD website translations, where previously the language settings would not be remembered correctly.\nBetter defaults are available when setting up the BIM tools in FreeCAD.\nThe new Image Plane tool lets you insert an image which you can then trace over in 3D.\nThe material management UI now has preview icons for rendered mode and section cut mode, with UI polish and bugfixes.\nThe window tool now has a new awning window preset.\nSection planes now show a text label, so it is easier to identify which section planes are which.\nMore reading:\nRead Yorik van Havre\u0026rsquo;s blog summary Check out the FreeCAD Wiki article Sponsor Yorik van Havre on Liberapay or Patreon! Download FreeCAD today ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2020/11/17/freecad-bim-development-news-update-for-october-2020/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThe FreeCAD BIM features have had another monthly summary of improvements by lead developer Yorik van Havre. For October 2020, we\u0026rsquo;re looking at new TechDraw patterns, new Draft styling controls, a new BIM image plane tool, a new awning window preset, and many new fixes and UI improvements.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"FreeCAD BIM development news update for October 2020"},{"content":"The VI-Suite user manual has been released and is now available on the documentation page on the website.\nThe VI-Suite is an open-source add-on to the 3D modelling and animation package Blender. It provides a set of tools for the analysis of environmental factors within and around buildings. It uses Blender’s node system to provide a user interface that allows quick and custom analyses to be created.\nAs of VI-Suite version 0.6 nodes exist for GIS height map import, sun path analysis, wind rose display, shadow and sky view factor studies, lighting metric prediction, energy performance with advanced airflow network creation and flow analysis with computational fluid dynamics (Linux only).\nThe lighting, energy and flow analyses are achieved with the three main VI-Suite components:\nLiVi, which acts as a pre/post-processor for the Radiance lighting simulation suite (version 5.3) EnVi, which does the same for the EnergyPlus thermal simulation engine (version 9.3) FloVi, which interfaces with the OpenFOAM CFD suite VI-Suite is currently the most mature interface for building physics available only using free software. It is available for Linux, Windows and OS X.\nThe new user manual is a 59 page PDF that starts from the basics of installation and goes through each node. For each node, there is an image of the node as well as a description of how it works, and documentation for each property.\nThe documentation is suitable for beginners to Blender, but assumes some domain knowledge about building physics and running simulations for lighting, energy, and CFD.\nVI-Suite v0.6 is by no means bug free, but bug reports are welcome and can be made at the Github page.\nThe author, Dr Ryan Southall, is working on video tutorials.\nMore reading:\nRead the new VI-Suite v0.6 user manual Report bugs at the Github site. Start using the VI-Suite today! ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2020/11/15/vi-suite-user-manual-released-for-environmental-analysis-with-blender/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThe VI-Suite user manual has been released and is now available on the documentation page on the website.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe VI-Suite is an open-source add-on to the 3D modelling and animation package Blender. It provides a set of tools for the analysis of environmental factors within and around buildings. It uses Blender’s node system to provide a user interface that allows quick and custom analyses to be created.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"VI-Suite user manual released for environmental analysis with Blender"},{"content":"There\u0026rsquo;s been a new BlenderBIM Add-on release! The BlenderBIM Add-on v0.0.201115 comes with 52 new features and fixes. The BlenderBIM Add-on is 100% free and open source software that lets you author and document BIM data fully to ISO standards. Highlights include improved material and presentation layer support, improved geolocation support, and many more vendor workarounds.\nWe\u0026rsquo;ll talk about our three favourite new features here!\nAn improved IFC material UI tops our list.\nIFC materials are complicated, and though the BlenderBIM Add-on has always supported IFC materials and styles, the ability for the user to set them was never exposed explicitly in the user interface. Instead, the user had to set Blender material slots and choose between dropdowns that were difficult to discover.\nNow, the new interface includes a dedicated IFC object materials panel! This panel shows whether the object has a single material, or a material set. Material sets are composite materials, that show layers, constituents, and profiles. This makes it really clear what materials are set on each IFC object.\nOur second favourite is the new support for IFC presentation layers.\nDid you know that IFC can store CAD layers? The new BlenderBIM Add-on release allows you to import and export these CAD layers, and see a list of layers. This allows you to integrate BIM data with existing CAD standards!\nOur third favourite is the new IFC inspector feature.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;ve ever needed to check whether or not your IFC data is correctly stored, tucked away in the IFC Debug panel in the scene properties is the new IFC inspector feature. This lets you inspect any IFC object and dig through its IFC attributes (both direct and inverse).\nJust like how the web inspector in a browser is vital for any web developer, this new feature in this BlenderBIM Add-on release is vital for any BIM developer, allowing them to debug and inspect IFC data without any processing.\nSee more reading on this new BlenderBIM Add-on release:\nSee the full release notes. Learn more on the BlenderBIM Add-on Wiki page. Get the new BlenderBIM Add-on release today! ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2020/11/15/new-blenderbim-add-on-release-v0-0-201115/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThere\u0026rsquo;s been a new BlenderBIM Add-on release! The BlenderBIM Add-on \u003cstrong\u003ev0.0.201115\u003c/strong\u003e comes with 52 new features and fixes. The BlenderBIM Add-on is 100% free and open source software that lets you author and document BIM data fully to ISO standards. Highlights include improved material and presentation layer support, improved geolocation support, and many more vendor workarounds.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"New BlenderBIM Add-on release v0.0.201115"},{"content":"Ladybug Tools has been working hard on creating a new cloud-based environmental simulation platform called Pollination. Pollination is unique compared to other cloud-based environmental simulation platforms in that it doesn\u0026rsquo;t operate as a black box, and instead operates as a high fidelity task runner for environmental analysis engines. The task descriptions are standardised as a set of nodes, each describing a single step in the analysis process. This is called a \u0026ldquo;recipe\u0026rdquo;. Together, these tasks allow environmental simulationists to scale their analysis easily whilst ensuring that the validity of their simulation is never sacrificed.\nThe concepts and real-world issues that brought about the development of Pollination are described in a new video recently presented by Ladybug Tools. The video is titled \u0026ldquo;Freedom and Flexibility to Model Real World Complexity \u0026ldquo;.\nThe creators, Mostapha Sadeghipour Roudsari and Chris Mackey talk about how simplified simulations that are increasingly popular with black box products may be misleading and lead to poorer designs. He also describes the complex, intertwining design process, and how long turnaround times for environmental analysis usually result in poorer design results.\nLadybug Tools presents Pollination as a solution to these issues. Recipes help combine the complexity of varied simulation steps and non-standardised data inputs and package it into simple, predefined cloud processes that can be versioned and then shared with the rest of the design team. The Pollination cloud simplifies access and data sharing for highly detailed and complex simulations, whilst the environmental designer retains full access to the raw processes that are being run.\nPollination works cross-platform, and can connect to existing proprietary interfaces for Ladybug Tools. Unfortunately, there is no connection yet to free software options such as Blender. However, there is an experimental release of Ladybug for Blender is a work in progress to providing support for the entire Ladybug suite.\nPollination itself is not yet known whether it is to be released as open source or as a closed product. However, under the hood, it relies completely on open source software. Ladybug Tools also ships with a with a task runner called Queen Bee, that is based on Luigi, the distributed task processing system built by Spotify. This allows you to develop a home-grown cloud-scalable solution if Pollination is not suitable.\nMore reading:\nWatch the video presentation on \u0026ldquo;Freedom and Flexibility to Model Real World Complexity \u0026quot; Check out the Pollination Cloud website Start using Ladybug Tools for Blender Visit the official Ladybug Tools homepage ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/2020/11/02/ladybug-tools-presents-their-vision-for-pollination/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eLadybug Tools has been working hard on creating a new cloud-based environmental simulation platform called Pollination. Pollination is unique compared to other cloud-based environmental simulation platforms in that it doesn\u0026rsquo;t operate as a black box, and instead operates as a high fidelity task runner for environmental analysis engines. The task descriptions are standardised as a set of nodes, each describing a single step in the analysis process. This is called a \u0026ldquo;recipe\u0026rdquo;. Together, these tasks allow environmental simulationists to scale their analysis easily whilst ensuring that the validity of their simulation is never sacrificed.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Ladybug Tools presents their vision for Pollination"},{"content":"You can join the OSArch live chat from Matrix or IRC. Both connect to the same community conversation.\nMatrix Matrix is the easiest option if you are new to live chat.\nJoin OSArch on Matrix\nGo to app.element.io.\nCreate an account or sign in.\nChoose “Explore rooms” or “Join room”.\nEnter this room address:\n#OSArch:matrix.org\nJoin the room and say hello.\nYou can also use any other Matrix app. The room address is always:\n#OSArch:matrix.org\nIRC IRC is an older chat system used by many open source communities.\nServer:\nirc.libera.chat\nChannel:\n#OSArch\nBeginner-friendly IRC options include:\nweb.libera.chat HexChat WeeChat irssi To join from the Libera web chat:\nOpen web.libera.chat. Pick a nickname. Enter #OSArch as the channel. Connect and say hello. ","permalink":"https://osarch.org/chat/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eYou can join the OSArch live chat from Matrix or IRC. Both connect to the same community conversation.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"matrix\"\u003eMatrix\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMatrix is the easiest option if you are new to live chat.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca class=\"button\" href=\"https://app.element.io/#/room/#OSArch:matrix.org\"\u003eJoin OSArch on Matrix\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Live Chat"},{"content":" OSArch News A monthly (at most) summary of news and events related to free software in OSArch to keep up to date. Alternatively, you can follow OSArch news with a feed reader. A feed reader is an app or website that checks for new posts and shows them in one place, without needing email newsletters or social media.\nOur news feed is:\nhttps://osarch.org/index.xml\nYou can also subscribe only to posts about a specific topic:\nArchipack (1) Architecture (40) BabylonJS (2) Blender (24) Bonsai (15) BRL-CAD (3) CAD Sketcher (1) Castle Game Engine (1) CGAL (1) COMPAS (1) Construction (21) Dotbim (1) EnergyPlus (1) FreeCAD (17) GIMP (1) Godot (2) Hippo3D (1) IFClite (2) IfcOpenShell (13) Inkscape (3) Krita (1) Ladybug Tools (2) LibreCAD (2) LibreDWG (1) LinesCAD (1) Open Source Ecology (1) OpenFOAM (1) OpenProject (2) OpenSCAD (1) Operations (7) Pystran (1) QCAD (1) Radiance (1) Services (28) Speckle (5) Structure (28) Sustainability (4) Sverchok (1) ThatOpenPlatform (8) Tissue (1) Topologic (1) VI-Suite (1) Xeokit (1) To subscribe:\nInstall or open a feed reader. Add the OSArch feed URL above. New OSArch posts will appear automatically when they are published. Open source feed readers you can use include:\nThunderbird FreshRSS NetNewsWire Liferea Akregator Feeder If you already use a feed reader, you can usually copy the feed link and paste it into “Add feed”, “Subscribe”, or “Follow website”.\n","permalink":"https://osarch.org/subscribe/","summary":"\u003cform method=\"post\" action=\"https://listmonk.thinkmoult.com/subscription/form\" class=\"listmonk-form\"\u003e\n  \u003cdiv\u003e\n    \u003cinput type=\"hidden\" name=\"nonce\"\u003e\n\n    \u003cp\u003e\u003cinput type=\"email\" name=\"email\" required placeholder=\"E-mail\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n    \u003cp\u003e\u003cinput type=\"text\" name=\"name\" placeholder=\"Name (optional)\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\n    \u003cp class=\"listmonk-list-choice\"\u003e\n      \u003cinput id=\"f9096\" type=\"checkbox\" name=\"l\" checked value=\"f9096421-644e-4447-ae63-86a1a289f2c9\"\u003e\n      \u003clabel for=\"f9096\"\u003eOSArch News\u003c/label\u003e\n      \u003cspan\u003eA monthly (at most) summary of news and events related to free software in OSArch to keep up to date.\u003c/span\u003e\n    \u003c/p\u003e\n\n    \u003cinput type=\"submit\" value=\"Subscribe\"\u003e\n  \u003c/div\u003e\n\u003c/form\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAlternatively, you can follow OSArch news with a feed reader. A feed reader is an app or website that checks for new posts and shows them in one place, without needing email newsletters or social media.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Subscribe"}]