IfcOpenShell

Natural language names
deOffene Hüllle
enOpen Shell
Semantic definitions at the entity
Entity definition

NOTE  Definition according to ISO/CD 10303-42:1992
An open shell is a shell of the dimensionality 2. Its domain, if present, is a finite, connected, oriented, 2-manifold with boundary, but is not a closed surface. It can be thought of as a closed shell with one or more holes punched in it. The domain of an open shell satisfies 0 < Ξ < 1. An open shell is functionally more general than a face because its domain can have handles.

The shell is defined by a collection of faces, which may be oriented faces. The sense of each face, after taking account of the orientation, shall agree with the shell normal as defined below. The orientation can be supplied directly as a BOOLEAN attribute of an oriented face, or be defaulted to TRUE if the shell member is a face without the orientation attribute.

The following combinatorial restrictions on open shells and geometrical restrictions on their domains are designed, together with the informal propositions, to ensure that any domain associated with an open shell is an orientable manifold.
  • Each face reference shall be unique.
  • An open shell shall have at least one face.
  • A given face may exist in more than one open shell.

The boundary of an open shell consists of the edges that are referenced only once by the face - bounds (loops) of its faces, together with all of their vertices. The domain of an open shell, if present, contains all edges and vertices of its faces.

NOTE  Note that this is slightly different from the definition of a face domain, which includes none of its bounds. For example, a face domain may exclude an isolated point or line segment. An open shell domain may not. (See the algorithm for computing below.)
NOTE  Entity adapted from open_shell defined in ISO 10303-42.
HISTORY  New entity in IFC2x.

Informal Propositions:

  1. Every edge shall be referenced exactly twice by the face bounds of the face.
  2. Each oriented edge shall be unique.
  3. No edge shall be referenced by more than two faces.
  4. Distinct faces of the shell do not intersect, but may share edges or vertices.
  5. Distinct edges do not intersect but may share vertices.
  6. Each face reference shall be unique.
  7. The loops of the shell shall not be a mixture of poly loop and other loop types. Note: this is given, since only poly loop is defined as face bound definition.
  8. The closed shell shall be an oriented arcwise connected 2-manifold.
  9. The Euler equation shall be satisfied.
Inherited definitions from supertypes
Entity inheritance IfcConnectedFaceSet IfcTopologicalRepresentationItem IfcRepresentationItem
Attribute inheritance
#AttributeTypeCardinalityDescriptionC
IfcRepresentationItem
LayerAssignmentIfcPresentationLayerAssignment
@AssignedItems
S[0:1]Assignment of the representation item to a single or multiple layer(s). The LayerAssignments can override a LayerAssignments of the IfcRepresentation it is used within the list of Items. X
StyledByItemIfcStyledItem
@Item
S[0:1]Reference to the IfcStyledItem that provides presentation information to the representation, e.g. a curve style, including colour and thickness to a geometric curve. X
IfcTopologicalRepresentationItem
IfcConnectedFaceSet
1CfsFacesIfcFaceS[1:?] The set of faces arcwise connected along common edges or vertices.X
IfcOpenShell
Formal representations
XSD Specification
 <xs:element name="IfcOpenShell" type="ifc:IfcOpenShell" substitutionGroup="ifc:IfcConnectedFaceSet" nillable="true"/>
 <xs:complexType name="IfcOpenShell">
  <xs:complexContent>
   <xs:extension base="ifc:IfcConnectedFaceSet"/>
  </xs:complexContent>
 </xs:complexType>
EXPRESS Specification
ENTITY IfcOpenShell
 SUBTYPE OF (IfcConnectedFaceSet);
END_ENTITY;

Link to EXPRESS-G diagram EXPRESS-G diagram

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