When discussing BIM (Building Information Modeling), it’s important to recognize that various software and platforms support effective communication and collaboration among project teams. However, beyond just using BIM platforms, team members need to adopt BIM thinking to fully harness BIM’s potential. This makes having a unified naming convention and data exchange standard crucial, which brings us to the IFC standard.
The International Alliance for Interoperability (IAI) organizes various standards and articles that frequently highlight BIM, reflecting the professional community’s endorsement of BIM and its close relationship with IFC. In many BIM discussions, IFC is repeatedly identified as an appropriate standard. Fortunately, awareness and acceptance of both BIM and IFC continue to grow worldwide.
IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) is an international standard tailored for the construction industry. It not only establishes a common language for the sector but also serves as the standard for 3D building information exchange in the BIM era. Although IFC and BIM were introduced about five years apart, IFC was essentially developed to support BIM. Their relationship is reciprocal—IFC standards have significantly contributed to the advancement of BIM technology.
For example, Autodesk Revit can export models in the IFC format, enabling smooth communication with other BIM software. Unlike traditional 3D models, which only provide basic geometric data like volume and boundaries, BIM models offer detailed descriptions of components. In a BIM model, you can identify elements such as beams, columns, floors, and walls. This is achieved by defining geometric properties during modeling and assigning precise category descriptions.
IFC facilitates this interoperability by clearly defining the components and attributes used in BIM models. Viewed through the lens of knowledge ontology, IFC can be regarded as a comprehensive collection of concepts that standardize BIM data structures.
The close relationship between BIM technology and IFC highlights the critical role of data standardization in integrating BIM technologies. The growing adoption of IFC-compliant software from IAI underscores the importance of this standard. BIM standards have since been recognized by ISO, and many industrialized countries are developing their own IFC standards. Notably, China’s “Digital Definition of Building Objects” standard, completed and implemented in 2007, is also based on IFC.
Source: Ma Yu (Chang’an University)
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