IFC Commenter

Generates comments containing the content of references making IFC files easier to manually review.

Example

#71= IFCDERIVEDUNIT((#68,#69,#70),.THERMALTRANSMITTANCEUNIT.,$);
#73= IFCDERIVEDUNITELEMENT(#43,3);

Becomes:

#71= IFCDERIVEDUNIT((#68,#69,#70),.THERMALTRANSMITTANCEUNIT.,$);
  /*#68= IFCDERIVEDUNITELEMENT(#59,1);*/
    /*#59= IFCSIUNIT(*,.MASSUNIT.,.KILO.,.GRAM.);*/
  /*#69= IFCDERIVEDUNITELEMENT(#66,-1);*/
    /*#66= IFCSIUNIT(*,.THERMODYNAMICTEMPERATUREUNIT.,$,.KELVIN.);*/
  /*#70= IFCDERIVEDUNITELEMENT(#64,-3);*/
    /*#64= IFCSIUNIT(*,.TIMEUNIT.,$,.SECOND.);*/
#73= IFCDERIVEDUNITELEMENT(#43,3);
  /*#43= IFCSIUNIT(*,.LENGTHUNIT.,$,.METRE.);*/

Installation

Requires node installed.

npm install --global ifc-commenter

ifc-commenter example.ifc

To export out a commented file:

ifc-commenter example.ifc --output example_commented_.ifc

The file name(s) should not have any spaces.

Creating a Windows shell script to right-click on .ifc to save as commented .ifc file

1. Create a Batch Script: First, create a batch script that will take a file as input, run your command, and output the result with the _commented suffix.

    @echo off
    setlocal
    
    rem Get the input file path
    set "inputFile=%~1"
    
    rem Get the directory and filename without extension
    set "directory=%~dp1"
    set "filename=%~n1"
    
    rem Set the output file path
    set "outputFile=%directory%%filename%_commented.ifc"
    
    rem Run the command
    ifc-commenter "%inputFile%" --output "%outputFile%"
    
    endlocal

2. Save the Batch Script: Save this script with a .bat extension, for example, ifc-commenter-script.bat.

3. Add the Script to the Context Menu: To add this script to the right-click context menu, you need to add an entry to the Windows Registry.

   • Open the Registry Editor (press Win + R, type regedit, and press Enter).

   • Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell.

   • Right-click on shell, select New -> Key, and name it something like IFC Commenter.

   • Right-click on the new key (IFC Commenter), select New -> Key, and name it command.

   • Set the value of the (Default) entry in the command key to the path of your batch script with %1 as an argument. For example:

     "C:\path\to\your\script\ifc-commenter-script.bat" "%1"

After these steps, when you right-click on an .ifc file, you should see an option called IFC Commenter in the context menu. Selecting this option will run the batch script, which in turn will run your command and generate the output file with the _commented suffix.