IfcOpenShell Installation#
There are a couple of different ways of installing the IfcOpenShell python library.
Use the built-in version in Blender/BlenderBIM.#
The first one doesn’t require you to install anything additional at all! Both Python and IfcOpenShell come with BlenderBIM already and can be used directly from the Blender Python console and text editor.
This article explaines how to both use the the interactive Python console and how to write full scripts in Blender with BlenderBIM Add-on: https://wiki.osarch.org/index.php?title=BlenderBIM_Add-on/Using_the_Python_console_with_BlenderBIM_Add-on
The Blender text editor has basic line numbers, syntax highlighting, and line wrapping abilities. The output will be printed to the system console (not to be mistaken with Blender Python Console). On Mac and Windows, the console may not be visible.
To make it visible on Windows, go click on Window > Toggle System Console. This will open an external system console window where the outputs of the script will appear.
On Mac you need to start Blender from terminal with "/Applications/Blender.app/Contents/MacOS/Blender" -con (path can be different depending on your Blender installation). Simply copy and paste that command to your terminal and wait for Blender to start up. The outputs of the script will then be printed to that terminal window.
Stand-alone installation#
Writing and running scripts inside Blender is fine, but the text editor included with Blender is pretty basic. If you have to write longer scripts you might want the added functionalities that a dedicated code editor offers, like syntax highlighting, code hints, a debugger etc. To run scripts outside of Blender, you have to install Python, a code editor and any other libraries yourself.
You may want to write your file in an external code editor, but still run your script in Blender to have the visual connection to you model. To do that, follow this tutorial) on running an external script in Blender.
Install Python#
Install Python 3.10 or 3.11 from https://www.python.org/downloads/ (don’t install 3.12 as IfcOpenShell might not be available for this version yet). If you have an older OS, you might need to install an older version, which is also fine.
Install a code editor#
You can install a very simple code editor like Notepad++ (only available for Windows), or a more modern editor like Visual Studio Code.
Install IfcOpenShell#
Install ifcopenshell with one of the methods below.
Install with pip#
ifcopenshell is available through pip
So it can simply be installed by typing the following command in your command prompt or terminal:
pip install ifcopenshell
Follow this: https://blenderbim.org/docs-python/ifcopenshell-python/installation.html#pypi
Install with Conda#
If you have/are using (Ana)conda you can install ifcopenshell in your environment by running:
conda install \-c ifcopenshell \-c conda\-forge ifcopenshell
in your terminal or command prompt. See: IfcOpenShell/IfcOpenShell
Install manually through site-packages#
You can also install IfcOpenShell by manually placing the folder in Python’s site-packages folder.
Download the version that fits your operating system and Python version from https://blenderbim.org/docs-python/ifcopenshell-python/installation.html#pre-built-packages and follow further instructions from there.