The Man Behind WikiIfc: Interview with a firm in stealth mode

Issue #1,134  |  Inside the Business of CAD  |  25 July 2022

WikiIfc displaying an IFC model

Executives of new firms from time to time quietly tell me about their projects that are in stealth mode. The most (in)famous perhaps was Visio’s stealth purchase and redevelopment of Project Phoenix (IntelliCAD). Sometimes, a new company declares itself to be in “stealth mode” for the marketing mystique. Sometimes, employees acccidently splash details on sites like Linked-In.

Today, we have the reverse: the product is public, but the ceo wishes to remain under wraps for now: “Products above personalities,” is how he put it. I know him, his company, and location, and can vouch for him; we have been exchanging emails since 2016. Last year he told me, “I am waiting for something to fructify — if that happens, it will make a good story.”

Then last month he updated me: “You can try to guess the product by googling (or binging) ‘free online IFC viewer’. After I tracked down WikiIfc.com, he explained, “We already have regular users, uploads of 10-15 real life IFC files per day. And no, I don’t intend it to remain a viewer.” (Files you upload are used to improve the viewer, and are not sent outside the company.)

“WikiIfc will focus on collaboration, analysis, and correction. Machine learning [ML] is going to be used heavily. The advantage of it being an online viewer is that the ML analysis program grows smarter with each upload. We have a wealth of AI [artificial intelligence] engineers here.”

 

Q&A

WikiIfc displaying a complex piping model

Grabowski: How did WikiIfc came about?

Anonymous: I have been developing CAD applications for different disciplines for a couple decades now. Of them, BIM interested me the most as it was an interesting problem to solve, with a limitless scope.

Then when covid hit, there was an existential crisis, “What can we do?” This time I wanted something large, something I could work on for, say, the next 20 years. This IFC project is open-ended.

In the area where I live, there was an RFQ [request for quotation] to write BIM-checking software. The idea was to upload IFC files, and then have software crunch the files to report parts that didn’t conform to the building code. We didn’t win it, but we got inspiration from it, given that the bids came in the range of $20 to $50 million.

That told me that there is a market, that there is a need. Some architectural councils specify 3,700 rules. So our idea is to check BIM models for conformity using automation, instead of humans.

Grabowski: How do you plan to differentiate yourself?

Anon: A typical conversation at an architectural office goes like this:

“Do you use BIM?”
“Yes.”

“What software do you use?”
“We use BIM.”

I realize that they mean Revit, and that they are talking about just the authoring part, the 20% of the entire lifecycle of a building. And everyone [BIM software vendors] is going after this one slice.

Well, we are going to look at a tiny part of authoring, such as correcting metadata. When designing, you have no time to make sure the right BIM information is getting in there. So, we want to do everything, except modeling.

Grabowski: What are some of your ideas for expanding your online IFC viewer?

Anon: What is my vision? Our product, WikiIFC, is not stealth, because I believe it should not be hidden. People should be using it, and we learn from what they are doing with it. I’m putting features out there to see which ones stick and which don’t, to see what people are doing, and then enhance the features.

WikiIfc is going to be model-oriented. (For other firms, the model is an afterthought, and so their products are document-oriented.) The types of things we want it to do are check that all the pieces are spatially in the correct place.

Another part is standards. You don’t reinvent the wheel; authorities want everything to follow standards, which makes it faster to build. So WikiIfc will attach standards. I plan to start with the low-hanging fruit with a 80/20 strategy of which rules are used the most. While there are other programs attempting to do it, they are very document-oriented.

You’ll be able to place views, sections, place notes, link views of the live model, such as ‘click on note 5’ to see a specific viewpoint, and then edit it collaboratively.

I want it to run on iPads to use it on-site. Click on views to quickly get to the area in question, which is faster than viewing the entire model.

I’d like it to split the model to disciplines, called ‘federated views’.

It needs change management, which supports maintenance after the building is completed. Upload a file, we calculate the delta, and update the main model.

Grabowski: Who funds you?

Anon: We are self-funded. I am open to  innovative funding ideas.

Grabowski: Are you solo or do you have a programming team?

Anon: I have a team. WikiIFC was conceived in August, 2020, and went online January, 2021.

Grabowski: Where did the name come from?

Anon: Wiki is Hawaiian for “quick” but due to Wikipedia, wiki has come to mean “information.” I want WikiIFC to be quick (it now loads large models in 90 seconds) but also to provide information.

To make it quick, we compile C++ to the browser, which is super fast and hides the code, unlike JavaScript. We run it on a multi-core CPU.

https://wikiifc.com

 

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And in Other News

Canadian portable 3D measurement firm Creaform, now a business unit of Ametek, celebrated its 20th anniversary in June. 20.creaform3d.com/milestones

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MachineWorks offers source code to show how to transfer 3MF files with Polygonica to and from STL and PGS formats, which avoids the need to employ API [application programming interface] calls.

MachineWorks provides software for CNC [computer numerical control] simulation and verification, with its Polygonica software handling polygon mesh modeling. www.polygonica.com

- - -

progeSoft releases the M1-compatible version of iCADMac 202, an AutoCAD-workalike that’s able to handle 5K monitors. New functions include constraints, sheetsets, and improved PDF printing.

Permanent licenses ensure this software can’t ever be locked out remotely. See the full what’s-new list at icadmac.com/product.

- - -

Members of VDMA (German Association for Mechanical and Plant Engineering) are demo’ing use-cases in storing these kinds of CAD-related data in blockchains:

• Forgery-proof exchange of 3D printing and process data

• Unequivocal identification of printed components

• Storing history of CAD model creation by multiple users in the blockchain

• Full proof of the authorship of data (useful in court cases)

Just a little bit more information at prostep.us/category/vdma.

- - -

President Bob Mayer of IMSI/Design retired at the end of June after nearly 40 years in the PC CAD business, most notably selling TurboCAD.

- - -

Dave Edwards ends his PragArchDesignTech newsletter, in which he explained and critiqued architectural design software. Here is his final issue: pragarchdesigntech.substack.com/p/im-done.

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COO Paolo Guglielmini will be replacing Ola Rollen as president and ceo of Hexagon AB at the end of 2022. Mr Rollen continues as chairman of the board.

- - -

Siemens Digital Industries (the latest name for UGS) adds electronic design collaboration from Mentor Graphics to the new release of NX, which no longer suffers the indignity of being assigned a number at its release. Also added are codeless feature templates, algorithmic modeling, and a new topology optimizer.

Or, as the German headline to the press release put it, “NX von Siemens ermöglicht eine bessere disziplinübergreifende Zusammenarbeit und Wissenserfassung.” To celebrate, the company posted a launch video to YouTube:

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Here are some of the posts that appeared recently on my WorldCAD Access blog:

• Review: I don’t like Bluetooth earbuds, but this Soundcore model I do like

• Tutorial: How to decode Android’s WiFi-password QR codes

• Update: Solving Eudora’s June 2022 problem with GMail

You can subscribe to the WorldCAD Access blog’s RSS feed through Feed Burner at feeds.feedburner.com/WorldcadAccess.

 

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Letters to the Editor

Here’s my take on why a lot of BIM applications will fail: engineering support.

Engineers want to be able to take the architect’s BIM and create their drawings and be able to run their calculations. It’s this last part that throws a lot of applications under the bus. Do walls show up as walls? Do rooms and windows allow for HVAC calculations? Are materials transferred for structural calculations?

All very important to their work, and some don’t want to recreate the BIM in their preferred application.
            - Dave Edwards

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Re: Retirement

I’ve been somewhat out of the CAD world for the last year and only popped in every so often since then, but I was surprised to read today that you are retiring. I’ve been a reader since sometime in the ’90s, maybe around about ’96 when we first got Internet in the office!

I just wanted to wish you a happy retirement and to thank you for the incredible work you have done over the years.
            - M. J. Smyth

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We met years ago at a Solidworks press shindig.

Three years ago, after about 35 years gainful self-employment writing about factory automation tech and management strategies for trade journals and corporate clients, including several years of semi-retirement (not that I told my clients that), I too decided to end the ‘every 30 days’ deadline and retire.
     - Lary Gould

 

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Notable Quotable

“How to connect with an ethernet cable:

1. Connect cable to device and then to a switch or router.

2. Enjoy.

How to connect with WiFi:

1. Find wireless access point or router.

2. Make sure signal is strong enough.

3. Walk to access point and push WPS button.

4. Walk back to device.

5. Enter password anyway, because the WPS button didn't work for some reason.

6. Re-enter password because your fat fingers messed up.

7. Enjoy.

WiFi has a useful purpose, but replacing ethernet ain't one of them.
     - Wade Burchette

 

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Thank You, Readers

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