BIM OOTB — Browser Viewer User Guide¶

See also: Feature Comparison · Clash Detection · 4D/5D Analysis

One browser, zero install: open a building, navigate in 3D/2D, run clash detection, track 4D progress.

Quick Start — your first building¶

Zero install. Everything runs client-side in any browser; download a building once and it is cached in IndexedDB, so the second visit is instant. Works on desktop and mobile.

You enter through the Matrix front door (index.html) — not viewer/viewer.html directly (that bare URL opens an unrelated warehouse view). On the front door choose the Buildings / IFC door and the BUILDINGS & IFC hub opens:

→ Front door (index.html) → choose Buildings / IFC

The BUILDINGS & IFC hub — drop a file in the centre zone, or open a ready-made City / Landmark building

Three ways in — pick one:

Open a ready-made building. Tap a card under City Buildings or Landmark Buildings (SampleHouse, Duplex, Clinic, Terminal, Hospital, …). It downloads that building's DB (0.5–177 MB), flies to it, and streams the geometry in the 3D viewer.
Drop your own IFC. Drag an .ifc / .obj / .dae / .glb file onto the centre "Drop IFC / 3D files here" zone (or tap it to browse). The file is parsed in-browser and opens in the viewer.
Add to an existing project. When you drop a file that matches a building already loaded, a prompt offers Merge (combine disciplines — Enter) or New (a fresh building — Escape); two versions of the same building can be opened side-by-side with Compare Versions.

Disclaimer

Your IFC never leaves your device. Parsing, viewing and merging all run in your browser. I guarantee that privacy by keeping all source code open on GitHub — audit exactly what runs. ✈ Works offline once loaded — open a model with your network off and it still runs: proof nothing is sent (import an IFC once, then drop another in airplane mode). No AI API runs in the software — it is completely deterministic. AI was used only as a pair-programming aid during development, under strict guardrails. I'm hardening this further with a Content-Security-Policy that blocks every outbound connection, as I am studying deeper on browser security.

The dropped file becomes an extracted SQLite that lives only in your browser. Save As downloads it to your own machine (a _meta.db + _geo.db pair for big models, or Export IFC back to a .ifc); Open loads that file straight back, byte-identical. It's your copy — keep it, move it, delete it. Clear it any time with Clear Cache on the front door.

Once the viewer opens:

Watch the progress bar and element flicker as geometry streams in.
Click any element → the Info panel shows its IFC class, name, GUID, storey, discipline, material.
Filter by storey or discipline (bottom-left panels) to isolate part of the model.
Alt+Z for X-Ray, ☆ for white background, ✈ to fly around, 📷 for a screenshot.
Open another building → the first pauses; tap back to resume.

Full navigation, panels, and the keyboard cheat-sheet are below.

Run it on your own machine¶

Local setup (3 steps):

# 1. Go to deploy folder
cd deploy

# 2. Start local server
python3 -m http.server 8080

# 3. Open the front door in your browser, then choose Buildings / IFC
# http://localhost:8080/index.html

Per-building DBs must be in deploy/buildings/: - {Name}_extracted.db — metadata + transforms - {Name}_library.db — geometry BLOBs (vertices + faces)

Then open http://localhost:8080/index.html, choose Buildings / IFC, and use the same three ways in as above.

DB sizes:

Building	Elements	Download (ext+lib)
SampleHouse	65	0.5 MB
Duplex	1,169	2.8 MB
Clinic	16,480	31 MB
Terminal	48,428	59 MB
Hospital	63,917	88 MB
LTU AHouse	125,698	177 MB

Input	Action
Drag	Orbit camera
Shift + Drag	Pan camera
Right-click drag	Pan camera
Scroll / Pinch	Zoom
Click element	Identify — shows IFC class, name, GUID, storey, material
Alt+Z	X-Ray toggle (15% opacity)
F11	Fullscreen toggle

Toolbar buttons (top-right panel):

Button	Action
Clear	Remove all streamed meshes
X-Ray	Toggle 15% transparency on all elements
📷	Screenshot (saves PNG to Downloads/)
⛶	Fullscreen
☆ / ☾	Light/dark theme
✈	Fly around rendered buildings

Panels:

Panel	Position	Shows
BIM OOTB	Top-left	Buildings, streaming progress, element flicker
Tools	Top-right	Filter, buttons, building list
Info	Bottom-right	Clicked element metadata (class, GUID, storey, disc, material)
Storeys	Bottom-left	Floor filter — click to isolate one storey
Disciplines	Bottom-left	Discipline toggle — show/hide ARC, STR, MEP etc.
Status	Bottom-centre	Current streaming state

All panels collapse with −/+.

Viewer Features¶

All browsers (desktop + mobile):

3D orbit, pan, zoom (mouse or touch)
Click any element → IFC class, GUID, storey, discipline, material
Fly-tour — auto-orbits rendered buildings, click to stop
Indoor walk-through — follows IfcSpace/door graph through the building
X-Ray mode (Alt+Z) — transparent view, see structure through walls
Measure tool — tap two points, get distance in metres
Section cut — horizontal clip plane, slider to cut through floors
Storey filter — isolate a single floor
Discipline toggle — show/hide ARC, STR, MEP, ELEC, etc.
Screenshot — saves current view as PNG
Deep-link URL — camera + building state encoded in hash, shareable
IndexedDB cache — download once, instant on revisit
City mode — 786 building bboxes, click to download + stream on demand

Mobile-only (touch-optimised):

Site Camera — phone camera with GPS + compass + timestamp overlay
BIM picture-in-picture — 3D snapshot composited into the photo
Markup tools — arrow, circle, freehand draw, text annotations
Share → WhatsApp (with BIM context baked into image)
GPS Walk Mode — blue dot tracks position in the model
Wall X-Ray — tap a wall in Walk Mode to see MEP behind it
Issue log — capture site issues with photo + GPS + classification, export to Excel

Keyboard & Mouse Cheat-Sheet¶

Key / Gesture	Action
Drag	Orbit camera
Shift + Drag / Right-click drag	Pan camera
Scroll / Pinch	Zoom
Click element	Identify — IFC class, name, GUID, storey, material
Alt+Z	X-Ray toggle (15% opacity)
F11	Fullscreen toggle
📷	Screenshot (PNG to Downloads/)
✈	Fly-tour around rendered buildings

Authoring geometry & 2D plans — grid editing, the 2D grid, GRID_MOVE, undo/redo over the signed op-log — lives in the DAGeVu Modeller, a separate surface from this read-only viewer.

Where the buildings come from¶

This viewer renders buildings; it does not compile them. Buildings are produced by the Java BOM compiler (a BUILDING / GRID / STOREY DSL turned into a verified 3D SQLite) or extracted from an IFC you drop. Those toolchains are documented separately:

Doc	What
BOM-Based Compilation	The DSL, BOM resolution, profiles & building codes
BIM COBOL — 77 Verbs	The geometry verb reference
IFC Onboarding Runbook	Bring your own IFC through the pipeline
Source Code Guide	Pipeline internals & build commands

Doc	What
DAGeVu Modeller Guide	Author geometry & the 2D grid over a signed op-log
Kernel-ERP User Guide	iDempiere browser ERP — login → install → POS → reporting
Clash Detection	Clash detection engine
4D/5D Analysis	nD analytics (4D–8D)
IFC Onboarding	Onboard your own IFC file