Model Conversion

Recipes for importing AEC model files into xeokit

Introduction

The xeokit SDK allows us to load large, full-precision AEC models over the Web in seconds and view them in the browser. To do that, we pre-convert our models to xeokit's fast-loading native XKT format.

Listed below are several pipelines we can use to convert AEC files to XKT. Each pipeline involves running the files through a chain of one or more CLI tools, in your local environment. The Community pipelines use exclusively open source tools, while the CxConverter pipelines use a proprietary tool for which a commercial license is required.

Periodically, we run our AEC test files through all the pipelines. That statically-generates the Model Conversion Tests page, where you can check if the latest pipelines are converting our test models correctly.

CxConverter IFC Conversion Pipeline

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A high-performance pipeline that converts large .ifc files into .xkt, with two CLI tools, using intermediate .glb and .json files.

Features
  • Converts huge .ifc files of many gigabytes
  • Two CLI tools, written in C++ and JavaScript (NodeJS)
  • Option to split output into multiple files for easy loading in browsers
  • Creates intermediate .glb and .json metadata files
  • View the .xkt or .glb in a xeokit Viewer with XKTLoaderPlugin or GLTFLoaderPlugin
Tools used
More info

Community IFC Conversion Pipeline

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A pipeline of open source CLI tools that converts medium-to-large .ifc files to .xkt.

Features
  • Converts medium-to-large .ifc files to .xkt
  • All tools open source under AGPL3 and MIT
  • Creates intermediate .glb and .json metadata files on disk
  • View the .xkt or .glb in a xeokit Viewer with XKTLoaderPlugin or GLTFLoaderPlugin
Tools used
More info

Community Multi-Format Conversion Pipeline

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Convert multiple source formats into .xkt in a single step.

Features
  • Converts .gltf, .glb, .las, .laz, CityJSON and small .ifc files to .xkt
  • Don't use with large .ifc files
  • Open source under AGPL3
  • Internally uses web-ifc when converting .ifc.
  • Creates no intermediate files
  • View the .xkt in a xeokit Viewer using an XKTLoaderPlugin
Tools used
More info