hermes-bim-studio

Hermes BIM Studio

IFC model inspection, transparent quantity reporting, optional user-priced cost arithmetic, and a self-contained interactive 3D viewer — as Hermes Agent tools.

Built by stupidburgers for the Hermes Agent Plugin Hackathon (Nous Research, November 2026).

Interactive IFC viewer with a selected wall and IFC type/ID

Why this plugin

IFC models contain structured geometry and quantities that are not directly usable as reliable measurements from natural-language prompting alone. This plugin provides a local parser, a transparent report, and an interactive viewer for a bounded set of IFC data.

Hermes BIM Studio gives Hermes a bounded IFC inspection and quantity-reporting workflow:

| Tool | What it does |
|------|--------------|
| bim_inspect | Parses an IFC model and reports project metadata, storeys/spaces, and selected element counts. It flags limited data-quality issues (missing spatial containment, unnamed walls/slabs); it does not certify building-code compliance. |
| bim_takeoff | Reports IFC BaseQuantities.NetSideArea for walls and BaseQuantities.NetVolume for slabs, converted to SI using each quantity's IFC unit. Reports per-element coverage and missing data. Doors/windows are entity counts. Optional caller-supplied USD rates produce a total for these four categories only; this is not a whole-project estimate. |
| bim_render_view | Generates a self-contained interactive Three.js viewer (orbit/zoom and click element identity) with vendored scripts, and returns a ::preview{file="..."} directive for Hermes Desktop. |

Beyond a prompt or a skill

Traceable source quantities. Reported wall/slab quantities come from named IFC BaseQuantities with unit conversion and per-element coverage; IFC exporter errors remain possible and are surfaced as a data-quality limitation.
Scoped pricing only. Unit rates are caller supplied; a total is explicitly limited to the four supported categories and withheld without complete quantities and rates.
Interactive local viewer. A bundled self-contained Three.js page lets users orbit a model and inspect element IDs/types inside Hermes Desktop preview.
No runtime service. IFC files are processed locally; the viewer does not fetch JavaScript from a CDN or require API credentials.

Install

hermes plugins install hermes-bim-studio        # once listed in the catalog
# or directly from the repo:
hermes plugins install stupidburgers/hermes-bim-studio

Dependencies (ifcopenshell, openpyxl) install automatically via the manifest.

Usage

Inspect a building model at `C:/models/office.ifc` and tell me what the IFC contains.

Report supported IFC quantities for `C:/models/office.ifc` and optionally apply user-supplied USD rates (e.g. `masonry_wall_m2: 70`, `concrete_slab_m3: 480`, `door_unit: 250`, `window_unit: 320`). Any resulting total covers only walls, slabs, doors, and windows—not the whole project—and appears only when each listed item has complete quantities and a supplied rate.

Show me the building at C:/models/office.ifc in 3D.

The 3D viewer HTML is fully self-contained (inline geometry, inlined Three.js runtime) — share it with anyone, no server needed.

How it works

Semantic parse — IFC entities and selected project/spatial metadata are read with ifcopenshell.
Quantity extraction — wall NetSideArea and slab NetVolume are read from BaseQuantities; each quantity's explicit or project unit is converted to SI. Missing, malformed, or ambiguous values are reported with element coverage, not estimated.
Optional pricing — caller-supplied USD rates are multiplied by complete quantities or element counts. The resulting total is for the four listed categories only, never the whole project.
Viewer generation — selected IFC element meshes are embedded in a self-contained HTML page with vendored Three.js and orbit/click inspection.

Development

env -u PYTHONPATH python -m pytest tests/ -q
hermes plugins validate ./plugin --install-deps
hermes plugins doctor ./plugin

Multi-platform CI (Ubuntu + Windows, Python 3.11/3.12) runs both unittest modules on every commit: workflow. The Hermes CLI validator is a separate local/catalog check.

Disclosure

Reads the IFC path supplied to a tool and the viewer scripts bundled with the plugin.
Writes a workbook (bim_takeoff_5d.xlsx) and/or viewer (bim_viewer_3d.html) beside the IFC by default; caller-supplied output paths override these locations. Existing output files at those paths are overwritten.
Generated files can contain project metadata, the IFC path and SHA-256, quantities, element IDs, and (in the viewer) selected model geometry. Treat them as potentially sensitive project data.
No network calls, shell commands, background processes, stored credentials, or telemetry.

License

This plugin is MIT licensed — see repository root. The bundled Three.js r128 viewer assets are also MIT licensed; see vendor/THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md for attribution and the upstream notice.

README from the reviewed commit 1eef602; it updates when the author re-pins.

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