Search and Select is a tool created for all those who work with large IFC models and want to save time while working on the model. The plugin makes it easier to work with models by filtering and organizing objects according to your own criteria. The plugin allows you to create and manage groups of elements in the model, which can be easily marked, colored or visualized.
Adding groups can be done in several ways:
– Add group button – adding a manual or selector group
– Insert button (in the selected place) – adding a manual or selector group
– From selection option – adding a manual group
Groups can be of two types:
– manual 
, created using the Object list. This group can contain any number of user-selected elements, selected e.g. by marking on the model
– selector 
, created based on the logical conditions of the Custom selector. After creating a group and selecting the Custom selector, you should set the parent condition for the selector OR or AND, and then enter the logical conditions that the elements should meet.
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Group management
Created groups can be edited, so you can change their content, color assignment, or group name, for example. From the plugin level, you can also move the group (up or down) or remove it (Delete).
Assigning colors
Colors can be assigned both at the level of the entire group, as a uniform color for all objects, or individually, for individual elements in the case of a manual group (in the list of objects) or according to individual rules in the selector group (custom selector). If there are two conditions with different colors in the selector and the element matches both of them, then the color that will be displayed on this element is the last one in the list of conditions.
Once a group has a color assigned, it can be visualized on the model.
Colors can also be assigned after creating groups in the main plugin window.
Automatic preview
This option allows you to quickly highlight, isolate, and color group elements. The button’s behavior depends on its settings. The drop-down list allows you to change its behavior and preview elements according to different options.
Below is an example of selecting the Show objects and Color objects options.
Show and Select functions
The plugin introduces analogous functions for showing (Show/Hide) and selecting (Select/Deselect) for matching or non-matching objects. These functions work both at the level of groups and for individual elements belonging to them.
Group elements can also be displayed by assigned colors. To visualize the colors assigned to a group or individual elements, simply select them in the plugin list and then use the Color matching option.
By activating the Maintain coloring option, you can visualize the enabled colors on the model, adding them to those previously shown.
Reset
The Reset button cancels the display changes made by the Show, Select, Color plugin options. It also restores the standard visualization of elements after using the Auto preview option. If the user only wants to reset one of these ranges, they can use the drop-down list and indicate what they want to cancel.
Saving and reading
Saving the created groups can be done in two ways: by saving the plugin file with the “.selectors” extension (FILE->Save) or to a .bvf file together with the model from the BIMvision main menu (FILE->Save as).
Buy the Search and Select plugin in the BIMvision store