Bim standardization and interoperability

BIM STANDARDIZATION AND INTEROPERABILITY Standardization is a rational step in the advancement and usage of new technologies and procedures as it can and should permit a next level of performance and usage to sector. Standardization for BIM realistically adopted the route used for standardization of Product Information Models in STEP. The following initiated in 1994, when a then recently established AEC team at Autodesk started advancement of a common library of building model components as the foundation for interoperability between AEC add-ons to AutoCAD. Achievement in the preliminary prototyping ultimately guided to the creation of the Industry Alliance for Interoperability (IAI), which incorporated 12 industry major companies, brought by Autodesk, that developed the original Industry Foundation Classes (IFC). IFC was launched as the “common vocabulary for interoperability in the building industry” at the 1995 AEC Systems seminar in Atlanta. All 12 companies exhibited prototype programs that interoperated on a shared building model. Finding the industry enthusiasm earned by the first launch of IFC, the IAI member companies made the conclusion to open its membership to all companies in the building sector. By the end of 1995, there were a number of international chapters and hundreds of member companies in the called International Alliance for Interoperability (IAI). Several “Domain Teams” were also established, to define the end user functions to be served by a first public release of IFC specifications for a standardized BIM. Design and development of IFC by this greater, more international alliance was very much inspired by STEP and actually, IFC makes use of numerous elements of the STEP standard, such as: the EXPRESS modeling language, the STEP physical file format, and schemas for geometry and topology.

Release 1.0 of the IFC Schema for BIM was released by IAI in January 1997, IFC Release 1.5 used in November 1997, and IFC Release 2.0 April of 1999. Up to now, there have been 7 releases of IFC, as described on the IAI . The current release is IFC 2x3. All of these, starting with 2.0, could be swapped between applications using the STEP physical file format (.IFC) or an XML data file format (.XML, .IFX).

Assistance for the suggested standard in software items lagged, just like any new standard, but started to accelerate rapidly when government and large building owner organizations initiated to require the IFC BIM submissions in the past few years.