Crate openbim_bcf 

openbim-bcf — BIM Collaboration Format (BCF-XML).

What this is

BCF is the open issue-exchange format of openBIM: a ZIP archive holding one directory per topic, each with a markup document and optionally viewpoints (camera plus component visibility) and snapshot images. It is how findings from a model audit leave one toolchain and land in any BCF-aware reviewer.

let archive = openbim_bcf::read_path("issues.bcfzip")?;
for topic in archive.topics() {
    // Status is whatever the file says — see the tolerance section below.
    println!("{} [{}]", topic.title(), topic.status().unwrap_or("<unset>"));
}

BCF is two standards

BCF-XML (buildingSMART S1005) is the file container this crate targets. BCF-API (S1006) is a separate REST/JSON service specification for the same domain. They share a data model and nothing else; conflating them is why this crate is not simply named for the file extension. BCF-API is out of scope here and, if implemented, gets its own crate.

🚨 The reader is tolerant, and that is evidence-based

Measured with scripts/measure-corpus.py over 44 real third-party archives (Schependomlaan plus four German audit projects) and the 33 official buildingSMART BCF-XML v3.0 test archives:

The spec says	The corpus says
bcf.version declares the version	21 of 44 third-party archives have none
project.bcfp describes the project	0 of 44 third-party archives have one
TopicStatus comes from an agreed set	free text: Open, OPEN, Offen, Active, ReOpened, In Progress
TopicType comes from an agreed set	free text: Error, ERROR, formale Prüfung, Sichprüfung, Clash

A spec-strict reader rejects nearly every file in that corpus — files every other BIM tool opens without complaint. So this crate rejects only what cannot be interpreted at all, and keeps status/type strings verbatim rather than mapping them onto an enum. "Offen" is not a parse failure; it is what the file says, and normalising it would corrupt a round-trip.

Everything the reader had to tolerate is reported as a Tolerance diagnostic rather than being swallowed, so a caller that wants strictness can enforce it with BcfArchive::diagnostics.

Version detection

BcfVersion is resolved through openbim_core::Detected, so a caller can always tell a declared version from an inferred one, and a file whose bcf.version disagrees with its actual shape yields Detected::Conflict instead of a silent pick. This matters: 2.0 and 2.1 differ in where TopicStatus lives and whether comments nest a back-reference Topic element, and guessing wrong yields a different document rather than an error.

Writing is strict

The write module is the reader’s opposite: it refuses every value the official schemas reject, and produces byte-identical archives for identical input. It targets BCF 2.1 and 3.0. See its module documentation for what is written and what is refused.

Status

Reading, implemented: archive scanning, version detection, tolerant markup reading (topics, comments, viewpoint references, header files, labels), and each viewpoint’s component selection. Not implemented: viewpoint camera, visibility, colouring, and clipping geometry, snapshots as decoded images, and project extensions.

Writing, implemented for 2.1 and 3.0: topics, comments, viewpoints with a component selection and camera, and 3.0 extensions.xml; validated against the official XSDs by scripts/validate-written.py. Not implemented: header files, snapshots, visibility, colouring, document references, project.bcfp, and writing 2.0.

Read and write support are tracked separately and must never be inferred from one another.

Re-exports

pub use diagnostic::Diagnostic;

pub use diagnostic::Tolerance;

Modules

diagnostic

Non-fatal deviations the reader had to tolerate.

write

Writing BCF-XML: strict, deterministic .bcfzip output for 2.1 and 3.0.

Structs

BcfArchive

A BCF archive that has been read.

Comment

One comment on a topic.

Component

One model element referenced by a viewpoint.

HeaderFile

A file referenced by a topic header — the model the issue is about.

Limits

Bounds applied while reading an archive.

Markup

A parsed BCF markup document: one topic with its comments and viewpoints.

Topic

One BCF topic — a single issue.

ViewPointRef

A viewpoint attached to a topic: the camera and visibility state, plus its snapshot.

Visualization

The parts of a .bcfv viewpoint document this crate reads.

Enums

BcfError

A failure that prevents reading a BCF archive.

BcfVersion

A BCF-XML container version.

Functions

read_path

Read a BCF archive from a path, with default Limits.

read_path_with

Read a BCF archive from a path with explicit limits.

read_reader

Read a BCF archive from any seekable reader, with default Limits.

read_reader_with

Read a BCF archive from any seekable reader with explicit limits.

read_slice

Read a BCF archive from bytes already in memory.

read_slice_with

Read a BCF archive from bytes already in memory, with explicit limits.