Support for BCF

Hi Speckle devs,
Do you have any plan to implement BCF support for SpeckleServer and SpeckleAdmin? If there is one, please share.
Thanks!

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Hello @htlcnn! Yes, it’s planned, though we might not call it BCF :slight_smile: (@teocomi hates it).

Server side, there’s an API for comments. It’s just never been exposed in a front end app such as speckle admin.

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Don’t hold your breath, but yeah, it’s something we’d love to implement at a certain point :slight_smile:

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Now that 3d comments is being implemented seems like the perfect time to revisit this project. Any updates?

@teocomi what do you have against the name? I hope it would feature clearly somewhere that the data structure is BCF - it’s hard to make people aware of such open standards if they are not consistently named. The bull**it Autodesk has done with ACC comments is a good example of how people don’t realize that things should - but are often not - connected. Everything we can do to raise peoples awareness of BCF as the obvious best (current) solution raises their expectation that their software plays nicely with other platforms.

There are a few other threads about this - feel free to redirect this conversation to one of them. I just don’t like making new thread on the same topic.

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The non-trivial comparison between the :speckle:3D Comments applied to Elements within a Commit on a Branch model Stream and the BCF schema needs some consideration. :thinking:

BCF has an overarching structure of Project > Topic > Viewpoint > Comment. Clearly, Projects could be compared to Streams, and Comments would be just that … except :boom:

What would constitute a Topic in this instance? Where Comments are made pinned to different elements but based on the same design/coordination issue - are these separate Topics or one? And how does the BCF Viewpoint paradigm fit with that? Currently, a Viewpoint IS stored per comment, and comment replies…

Without a BCF issue management server layer over the top of :speckle:Speckle server to address these points and others, simply funnelling it into the BCF API format would not be straightforward at all.

I hear your pleas, they are being given consideration, and they are similar datasets at play here, but to simply use BCF as a ‘brand name’ over the 3D Comments, would be more confusing than having them called something else.

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@jonathon ok, all complications hereby noted. Although I don’t understand the Topic definition issue you note. BCF also carries a list of connected objects which solves the ‘one issue - many objects’ problem. I may have misunderstood the problem, but find it hard to assume no other software has found a solution to the issue. I’m sure the people from KUBUS behind BIMcollab would be happy to help in the interest of them making a connection to speckle. In addition to @teocomi’s knowledge we also have a few people in #osarch with good knowledge of BCF implementation.

I think that if the speckle comments/issues are to be useful between BIM authoring platforms like ArchiCAD, Revit, DDS-CAS, CSiBridge, SketchUp etc (+BlenderBIM & FreeCAD eventually) then some connection via BCF is a must. This of course assumes that Speckle intends to support workflows that do not require all users to exclusively use the speckle 3d viewer for coordination.

Personally, as a BIM/ICT manager at my office I wouldn’t dream of using a comment system that can’t integrate with other BCF issue tracking systems (in BIMcollab, Revit & Solibri in my case). That would be like using the issue system in Autodesk ACC which only works properly Revit to Revit.

I’m happy to leave the discussion here for now, I just wanted to make sure I’ve expressed my opinion as fully as possible. Of course I always have the option to learn to code a solution myself :slight_smile:

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It is a pet passion of mine too. Don’t get me wrong you are right to consider it.

In this also, we agree.

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