Find elements from a list of GUIDs

Goal: take a column of element GUIDs from an Excel sheet, select those elements in Navisworks, and see which GUIDs were not found.

Before you start

• Open a model in Navisworks and the CamelGraph editor.
• Have an .xlsx file with the GUIDs in one column, with a header in the first row, for example GUID. Write the cells as text. Search.ByGuid accepts a GUID such as 3f81e10a-25b0-49ff-9520-63f2a763150a or a 22-character IFC GlobalId.
• This graph replaces the current Navisworks selection.

Download the graph

Steps

1. Add Table.FromExcelFile (Table). Type the full path of your workbook into path, for example C:\Data\guids.xlsx. Leave sheet empty to read the first sheet and leave firstRowIsHeader ticked.
2. Add Table.Column (Table). Wire the table in and type the header of your GUID column, such as GUID, into column. It gives the cells top to bottom.
3. Add Search.ByGuid (Navisworks ▸ Search). Wire values into its guids.
4. Add Selection.SetCurrent (Navisworks ▸ Selection). Wire the items output of Search.ByGuid into its items.
5. Add a Watch List (Display) and wire the missing output of Search.ByGuid into it. Double-click its title to rename it GUIDs not found.
6. Press F5.

The find-by-GUID graph: Table.FromExcelFile, Table.Column, Search.ByGuid, Selection.SetCurrent and a Watch List for the missing GUIDs.

What you get

• The items whose GUID is in the sheet are selected in Navisworks. The order of items follows the order of the GUIDs.
• The Watch List holds every GUID that matched no item. An empty list means all were found.

Search.ByGuid makes one pass over the whole model for the whole list, so give it all the GUIDs at once. Do not run it once per GUID.

Which GUID does it match?

The node matches an item's instance GUID. If your sheet holds IFC GlobalIds from an IFC export, the 22-character form is accepted. To convert by hand, use IFC.GuidDecode and IFC.GuidEncode (or IFC.Normalize for a column that mixes both forms, and IFC.IsGlobalId to tell them apart), and ModelItem.IfcGuid to read the GlobalId of an item (IFC, BCF, Excel and CSV).

If it does not work

• Every GUID is in missing: the sheet and the model use different kinds of identity, or the cells are not plain text. Compare one GUID in the sheet with the guid output of ModelItem.Info and with ModelItem.IfcGuid of an item you picked in Navisworks.
• Table.Column is red: the column name does not match a header in the sheet. Check the spelling with a Watch Table on the table.
• The run is slow: the node walks every item once. See Speed up a slow graph.

Next

• Write spreadsheet data onto model items.
• Colour elements by a property to paint what you found, or save them as a set.
• Search nodes.