Bond Bryan Architects are passionate about promoting and using open collaborative working methods. We are also members of buildingSMART UK.

This page includes useful links to sites that aid interoperability use and understanding for others. The page includes BCF and IFC which are all standard file exchange formats managed by buildingSMART.

General

• About buildingSMART International
• About OpenBIM (Graphisoft)
• Autodesk BIM Interoperability Standards (Autodesk)
• buildingSMART International Home
• buildingSMART UK and Ireland Home
• buildingSMART UK Membership
• GitHub buildingSMART (MSG)

Case Studies

• Project Arboleda: an OpenBIM project (Nemetschek Vectorworks)

Videos

• What OpenBIM Does For You (buildingSMART Norway) – April 5 2014 [4:26]

                                                                                    

BCF 

BCF stands for “BIM Collaboration Format”

• About BCF (buildingSMART)

Blogs

• BCF. BIM Collaboration Format Explained (OpenBIMer)

Tools

• BCF Exporter for Navisworks Manage (2014 and 2015) by CASE (free)
• BIMcollab by KUBUS (free) – Cloud based issue management
• BIM Collaboration Format (BCF) for Revit by Cad-Q (purchase required)
• KUBUS BCF Manager plugin for Graphisoft ARCHICAD (v16 and above), Autodesk REVIT (v2013 and above), Autodesk Navisworks (v2014 and above), Tekla Structures (v20.1 and above) and simplebim (v3 and above) (free and connected) – note: BCF is now integrated within Graphisoft ARCHICAD 18 and above but this offers an alternative to the out-of-the-box solution
• Matteo Cominetti BCFier for Autodesk REVIT (free)

Note: Solibri Model Checker also has a BCF connector available through their Solution Centre.

                                                                                                                                                

IFC

IFC stands for “Industry Foundation Classes”

• About IFC (Wikipedia)
• IFC Overview (buildingSMART)
• What is IFC and what do you need to know about it? (blog.areo.io)

Certification

• All applications claiming IFC support 
• Currently certified software products (IFC 2×3 Coordination View 2.0) includes PDF documentation detailing any outstanding issues
• Participants for certification (IFC 2×3 Coordination View 2.0)

Documents/Articles

• IFC-Based Data Exchange FAQ (produced by Graphisoft)
• IFC Reference Guide for ARCHICAD 16 (produced by Graphisoft)
• IFC Reference Guide for ARCHICAD 17 (produced by Graphisoft)
• IFC Reference Guide for ARCHICAD 18 (produced by Graphisoft)
• Tekla Revit BIM workflow example (produced by Tekla)

Model viewers

• BIM Surfer (open source WebGL viewer)
• Constructivity Model Viewer (PC only)
• DDS-CAD Open BIM Viewer (PC only)
• FZKViewer (PC only)
• Solibri Model Viewer (PC and Mac)
• Tekla BIMsight (PC, Windows tablets, iPad and iPhone)
• xBIM Xplorer (PC only)

Presentations

• Practical Delivery of Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) – BRE / buildingSMART UK event – June 26 2014

Technical

• buildingSMART Technical Home
• buildingSMART IFC2x3 Technical Corrigendum 1
• buildingSMART IFC4
• buildingSMART Model Support Group (MSG) GitHub
• Model View Definition (MVD) Overview
• Summary of IFC releases

Tools

• ARCHICAD plugin for Autodesk REVIT applications (Graphisoft)
• BIM Server – open source allowing a computer to be turned into a ‘BIMserver’
• Datacubist simplebim – provides ability to edit IFC files (free 30 day trial available)
• Geometry Gym – BIM plugins and tools development (Jon Mirtschin)
• IfcConvert – IFC file conversion to various file formats including Wavefront OBJ (.obj), Collada (.dae), STEP (.stp) and IGES (.igs) (IfcOpenShell)
• IFC File Analyzer (PC only)
• IfcMax – IFC importer for Autodesk 3DS Max (IfcOpenShell)
• Revit IFC Exporters (App Store) (Autodesk)
• Revit IFC Exporter (Sourceforge) (Autodesk) – The Sourceforge exporter is the most upto date exporter created by Autodesk.
• Solibri IFC Optimizer – reduces IFC files to provide quicker file transfer

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gbXML

gbXML stands for “Green Building XML”

Note: This standard is not authored or maintained by buildingSMART but is included as it promotes interoperability for models to be used in environmental design.

• About Green Building XML (gbXML)

Tools

• GreenspaceLive (subscription required)

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