IFC improvements

marc jarnet · Post by **marc jarnet** » Tue Aug 25, 2015 2:36 pm

Hi I have been working on middle east projects, all the authorities require designs in BIM format

The original IFC had problems exporting drainage attributes.
The work around was to use the 12d to revit add-in.
This was a good substitute except for the geo spatial referencing within the Revit and subsequent problem in the BIM. i.e the model is located correctly but the x and y data has no values on pits etc.

However, Tony Ingold from extra dimensions said there are improvements to 12d IFC writer, can someone elaborate, this is important, because if we can prove direct and successful attributes transfer to BIM. 12d will be certified as a provider for Middle eastern projects in the future.

Post by **Lee Gregory** » Tue Aug 25, 2015 5:54 pm

The IFC Writer from 12d Model has been working since 2007 but did not put out drainage attributes.
Also Revit and Navisworks were not able to read in the IFC in at all although actual BIM server software like Solibri could.

We have since tried various ways of writing out IFC's until we found something that Navisworks was able to read in, and in C1g, it works for Navisworks.
nce we found the magic IFC combination, we then added in the writing out of the drainage attributes.

I presume that Revit, also being from Autodesk, would also read this IFC data and attributes in but I will have to let some of our users confirm that.

ben begaud · Post by **ben begaud** » Tue Sep 01, 2015 9:24 am

We have been using the IFC writer successfully with Navisworks/Revit for a while now, however since the upgrade to the next revit version and also the next 12d version, this no longer functions. There seems to be some debate about what IFC data is correct as some viewers have no trouble and some can never see the data, I know the 12d output of IFC is a factor in autodesk products no longer reading them because IFC files output using the older version of 12d have no issue, but all the outputs using C1f are unable to be read by most viewers or autodesk products.

I understand the standard go to response is to point to the XDS website for the Revit addon, but we don't see why need to buy additional software when 12d should really do it out of the box.

Either way we are keen to test C1g and see if it works with revit as this is a lot of manual work right now.

Post by **Lee Gregory** » Tue Sep 01, 2015 11:47 am

The problem is that Revit is a locked system and there is no freely available published interchange format.

As you have just noticed, Autodesk changes things without as far as I know, providing any documentation.

We are always trying to offer interfaces but this is difficult when other parties do not want to be open.

The EXDS product is written to run inside Revit and reads an 12d xml file. It is another attempt to get around the lack of a documented interface for Revit. So it might not be as susceptible to Revit changes.