Archicad → Renaldo: the IFC workflow that works on the first import.
Everything Renaldo reads maps to standard Archicad features: zones, element IDs, the wall position and one translator setting. No switch to Revit, no IFC properties by hand, no post-processing after export.
What Renaldo needs – and where Archicad puts it.
| Renaldo needs | Archicad feature | What to do |
|---|---|---|
Rooms (IfcSpace) with a meaningful name | Zone tool | One Zone per room. Zone Name becomes IfcSpace.LongName – that is the name Renaldo classifies (Bathroom, Kitchen, Bedroom, Bad, Küche …). |
| Apartments | Zone Number | Apartment code in the Zone Number: WE01-01, WE01-02, WE02-01 … The number becomes IfcSpace.Name; Renaldo reads WE01 from it and groups. Alternative: IFC Manager → Assignments → IfcZone per apartment. |
| Room quantities (area, perimeter, height, wall areas) | Translator: Export IFC Base Quantities | One checkbox (section "Translator"). Archicad then writes Qto_SpaceBaseQuantities from the zone geometry. |
| Façade (exterior wall areas) | Wall settings → Position: Exterior | Archicad maps this to Pset_WallCommon.IsExternal automatically. Set it for every façade wall, gable walls included; leave partitions on Interior. |
| Windows and doors with size | Window/Door tools | Nothing to do – Archicad exports OverallWidth/OverallHeight from the element size. |
| Entrance door (costed differently from interior doors) | Door ID | A door's IFC name is its element ID. Give the entrance door an ID containing -AT- or the word Entrance, e.g. D-AT-01 or Entrance-Door-01. |
| Roof surfaces, eaves, ridge, verge | Roof tool | One single-plane Roof per pitch (two for a gable, four for a hip). Why: section "Roof". |
| Balconies | Slab ID | Slab ID containing Balcony, e.g. Balcony-01. |
| Storeys | Stories | Name them normally – Basement, Ground Floor, 1st Floor, Attic. Elevation is set by default. |
That is the whole list. Everything else (walls, slabs, geometry) exports correctly with default settings.
Modelling from a point cloud – in five steps.
Stories first
Set story levels from the scan before drawing anything; every element and every zone inherits its storey from them.
Walls, slabs, roof
Trace walls as Wall elements (not as slabs or morphs). Set Position: Exterior on façade walls as you draw them – retrofitting it later is where mistakes happen.
Windows and doors
Insert into the walls. Give the entrance door its -AT- ID immediately.
Zones last
One Zone per room with the Inner Edge method so the polygon follows the wall faces. Zone height = room height. Name = room-type word, Number = apartment code.
Check before the building is finished
Export two storeys and import them in Renaldo. Ten minutes with the control image save a week on the full project.
The two things most often skipped when tracing a point cloud are exactly the two Renaldo needs most: zones (without them there are no rooms) and the wall position (without it there is no façade).
Set once per machine.
File → Interoperability → IFC → IFC Translators. Duplicate the built-in General Translator (IFC 2x3 Coordination View 2.0; IFC4 Reference View works as well) as "Renaldo":
- Model filter: all element types, including Zones – they must be exported as
IfcSpace. - Property Mapping → Export IFC Base Quantities: on. The one setting that is off in some default translators and silently removes all room areas.
- Geometry conversion: defaults (extrusions where possible). Do not force BREP.
- Units: millimetres or metres, both fine – just do not change the unit between exports of the same project.
Export with File → Save As → IFC, translator "Renaldo", Entire project.
One Roof element per pitch.
Archicad's multi-plane roof exports as one IfcRoof with several slabs. Renaldo derives the roof form from the number of IfcRoof elements – one means mono-pitch. Surfaces, eaves, ridge and verge are still measured correctly from geometry, but the form would default wrongly, and the form drives roof, insulation and attic quantities.
Each pitch as a single-plane Roof
Two for a gable, four for a hip – the form is detected automatically.
Or: keep the multi-plane roof
And pick the roof form in the import preview – the selector is always shown there.
Either way: one clean covering surface per pitch, not a stack of layers, so eaves and ridge are read from the outer surface. Dormers and roof-window openings are fine.
Read the control image before you hand over the file.
Import the file in Renaldo (Building data → Import → IFC). The preview shows the model as Renaldo read it: rooms green (recognised), red (name not understood), grey (not imported); windows blue, doors brown, the entrance door orange. If no door is orange, the -AT- ID is missing. The legend counts rooms, windows and entrance doors; storey chips cut the model, roof and façade can be hidden.
If something is red or missing, fix it in Archicad and export again – re-imports keep what was already recognised. You are welcome to send us a first export of a part of the building; we check it and reply with what came through.
What still comes as a short list: building perimeter, number of stairwells, basement perimeter and height, apartment entrance doors, roof windows, dormers, balcony railing lengths.
Import your first Archicad model.
Start free, upload the IFC, read the control image – and see immediately what Renaldo read from the model.