The AECOO industry benefits from the specialisation of its disciplines and the diversity of its tools, and yet the success of a project is dependent on the ability of all parties to collaborate effectively. As much as we may applaud the emergence of specialist disciplines and new technologies, so too must we ensure that the industry retains a common language of communication.jbf中国BIM门户 - ChinaBIM.com

In the realm of Building Information Modelling we see this paradigm come to a head. The industry is best served by the ability of software to perform increasingly complex tasks; processing compound geometry, assessing inputs from performance analysis data, and synchronising between multiple interfaces. jbf中国BIM门户 - ChinaBIM.com
Nevertheless, the ultimate value of this software is in its ability to disseminate this information to other project stake-holders.    jbf中国BIM门户 - ChinaBIM.com

Unfortunately we still find that collaborative platforms deployed on a project are often not capable of processing the wealth of BIM content generated in the original authoring software. In many cases we see BIM reduced to basic 3D geometry, devoid of valuable BIM content. In other cases one can still find a preference for 2D CAD output or even PDF documentation. This is certainly taking the ‘I’ out of BIM.                 jbf中国BIM门户 - ChinaBIM.com

The direction that the industry ought to be taking is to ensure that the software deployed on any given project has the ability to communicate in a common standardised language. This is the principle of OpenBIM, which promotes the use of IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) as an industry standard for interoperability.      jbf中国BIM门户 - ChinaBIM.com

jbf中国BIM门户 - ChinaBIM.com

Industry Foundation Classes jbf中国BIM门户 - ChinaBIM.com

IFC is an application-neutral object-oriented file format developed specifically for the AECOO industry. Model content is represented accurately in terms of geometry and system-based parametric data. The IFC data model is based on class definitions of elements that represent the parts of buildings, or elements of the process, and contain the relevant information about those parts. The data focuses on those classes that are needed to share information (rather than processing it in a particular proprietary software). Most of the leading BIM software have established interoperability (import/export functions) with the IFC format, and it is widely considered the industry standard for OpenBIM.jbf中国BIM门户 - ChinaBIM.com