PlaIO

PlaIO is a .NET library and command line tool that reads the container structure of Archicad project files (.pla, .pln) and the cover image of BIMx files (.bimx) directly from disk, without Archicad.

• Detects the file kind from the first bytes of a file.
• Reads the header of the FDB container that .pla and .pln files share, and builds an index of its blocks.
• Decodes block payloads stored raw (mode 0) or zero-masked (mode 1). Mode 2 (LZ) payloads are recognised but not decoded, and a small share of mode 1 blocks in real files does not decode to its declared size.
• Searches raw blocks for object directories and returns their records as stored (class number, position, count, GUID).
• Reads the PNG cover image of a .bimx file.

PlaIO reports the structure of a file; it does not read Archicad elements, class names or object contents, and it does not write files. The library targets .NET 8 and .NET 10, uses managed code only, has no package dependencies and supports Windows, Linux and macOS.

Where to go next

• Getting started: install the tool or the package and read a first file.
• Public API: the supported surface of the library.
• Command line and exit codes: the plaio commands, their output and the exit codes.
• API reference: every public type, generated from the XML documentation.
• Source on GitHub and DeepWiki for an automatically generated overview of the repository.

PlaIO is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Graphisoft. Graphisoft, Archicad and BIMx are trademarks of Graphisoft SE.