BIM SHOW LIVE 14 - IFC: the developers perspective

BIM Show Live 2014

@digital_node @autodesk

IFC -‐ The Developer and User Perspective

Angel Velez Autodesk Senior Principal Engineer @autodesk www.autodesk.com

Rebecca De Cicco Digital Node Architectural Designer & BIM Specialist @digital_node @becdecicco www.digital-‐node.com

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Why?

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LRUG

Background RDC

Career…

Community….

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Background AV

•  Senior Principal Engineer, Autodesk Revit

•  B.S. Computer Science, B.S. Mathematics, MIT, 1992

•  M.S. Computer Science, Stanford, 1994

•  Charles River Software: 1999 –  Later renamed to Revit Technology Corporation

•  Acquired by Autodesk, 1 April 2002

•  Started on IFC in Sep 2004

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Why is IFC Important….

IFC forms part of the government drive toward Level 3 BIM Requiring: •  Industry Foundation Class (IFC) •  International Framework for

Dictionaries Library (IFD Library) •  Information Delivery Manual/

Model View Definition (IDM/MVD)

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IFC = Industry Foundation Classes •  Maintained by buildingSMART

International, http://www.buildingsmart.org/

•  Exchange of intelligent data

between Arch/Struct/MEP and downstream applications

•  Current active version: IFC 2x3

•  Newest version: IFC 4

What is IFC….

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•  Revit ships with high-‐quality IFC implementation •  Autodesk supports IFC interoperability

–  Full time team assigned to improvements and bug fixes –  Support for new elements –  Support for new workflows

Autodesk : Commitment to IFC

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§  1 top level IfcProject contains all of the data

§  1 optional IfcSite (corresponding to the main site in Revit)

§  1 top level IfcBuilding, contained in the IfcSite

§  1 or more IfcBuildingStoreys (corresponding to Revit Levels with plan views marked as building stories)

IFC General File Format

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•  CY 2005: IFC added to Revit Building 8

•  CY 2007: Revit Architecture fully certified: –  Revit Building 9: Full Code Checking View –  RAC 2008: Full Extended Coordination View (in June Web Update)

•  CY 2011: Revit IFC export becomes open source with 2012 UR2

•  CY 2013: RAC, RST, RME receive CV 2.0 export certification –  Currently finishing Revit LT 2014 CV2.0 certification –  Certification good for 2 years (Revit 2015 is automatically certified)

•  CY 2013: Basic IFC4 support; more as standards are created

•  CY 2014: Revit IFC import becomes open source with 2015 RTM –  Not complete, primarily supporting Link IFC –  More to come!

History of IFC and Revit

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•  Initial emphasis on export •  Before Revit 2013

–  IFC Import: Poor Quality –  IFC Export: Passing Quality

•  Revit 2013-‐2014 –  IFC Import: Slightly better, still below average quality –  IFC Export: Good Quality and getting better

•  Revit 2015 –  IFC Import: For Link for Reference: Excellent quality and speed, basic IFC4 –  IFC Import: For Open for Parametric Editing: Average quality and speed –  IFC Export: Very Good Quality with basic IFC4 support

•  Quality to keep improving with time •  How do we measure quality objectively?

Quality of IFC in Revit

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•  Customer flexibility –  Add new properties, property sets and data –  Tweak output for improved interoperability with other systems

•  Countrification –  GSA –  Korean requirements –  Other developing requirements

•  Updates are decoupled from Revit’s release cycle –  Certification updates –  IFC4 –  Other IFC standards extensions as they are introduced

•  Allow others outside the Revit core team to make contributions –  Autodesk Research group: Export connectors –  Outside consultant: FM Handover view for Bavarian Government

Why Open Source? Developer View

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•  Share and translate data •  Collaboration with consultants and design teams through varying stages •  To allow for subcontractor and supply chain data embedding in model process •  Data Extraction at varying stages via COBie Data drops

Why Open Source? Architect View

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•  BuildingSMART acts a 3rd party independent certifier of IFC software

•  Certification is based on a particular

MVD

–  MVD = “Model View Definition” –  An MVD represents the subset of

IFC used to support a particular workflow

What is Certification?

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•  Most common (current) MVD: Coordination View (1.0 and 2.0)

–  Workflow supported: the exchange of

data between software packages for the purpose of coordinating work

–  Updated to CV 2.0 for latest

certification round •  De-‐emphasize annotation support for better geometric and parametric support

–  Will be split into “Reference View” and

”Design Handover View” for IFC4

Certification Workflow

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•  Old certifications (2007 and before) had two stages –  1st stage certification: simple test parts –  2nd stage: real user parts, 6 (or so) months later –  Testing was informal and cursory –  For Extended Coordination View (2006):

•  1st stage certification: June 29-‐30, 2006, Budapest. •  2nd stage certification: March, 2007, Waltham. •  Attending: Revit, Allplan, ArchiCAD, Bentley, Tekla and others

•  New certification (2012-‐) has two steps: export and import –  Test cases precisely defined –  Automated testing before rigorous manual testing –  Export completed before import started

Certification Testing Process

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Certification Testing Process

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•  Instructions given via PDF

•  Modelled in vendor’s

software

•  Exported to IFC

•  Results shared

Certification Step by Step

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•  Export (2013-‐4) –  2013: Revit Architecture, Structure, MEP certified –  2014 Revit LT: all test cases done, waiting on

buildingSMART for testing •  Confident in quality, only minor issues

•  Import –  Intend to get import certified –  Will start after Revit LT is certified (i.e., export

certification complete) –  Intend to certify new code

Process

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•  First released on September 13, 2011, with R2012 UR2 –  ~335KB of .NET code –  Limited IFC entity creation functionality –  Much of the code still handled natively –  Can be entirely replaced by custom exporter –  Latest version: 1.0.4

•  R2013 version released on March 28, 2012, with R2013 FCS –  ~2MB of .NET code –  Ability to create any IFC entity defined in an EXPRESS file schema –  Some code still handled natively, primarily legacy support –  Alternate UI available (also released March 28) –  Can be entirely replaced by custom exporter –  Latest version: 2.17.0 (Exporter), 1.17 (UI), released 20 Feb 2014

History of IFC Support in Revit

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•  R2014 version released on April 12, 2013, before R2014 FCS –  More code moved to .NET; many IFC-‐specific API calls obsoleted –  Basic IFC4 support with R2014 UR1 –  Latest version: 3.10 (Exporter), 2.9 (UI), released 10 Apr 2014

•  R2015 version released on 3 Apr 2014 –  First version to include import and export code –  First version to bundle export UI with main code

History of IFC Support in Revit

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•  R2012 changes: –  Support for exporting rooms (spaces) in IFC2x3 in the same manner as

IFC 2x2 to comply with some South Korean governmental requirements.

–  Fix for some objects not exporting in IFC2x3 mode but succeeding in IFC2x2 export.

–  Current View only export now correctly ignores filtered elements, and elements outside of scope boxes.

•  All changes occurred after Update Release 2

•  Changes relatively minor but greatly helped some customers.

Open Source Updates, R2012 Changes

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•  17 major and 3 minor releases since R2013 RTM –  16 releases since R2013 UR2

•  Hundreds of major and minor issues resolved, including: –  Performance improvements (v2.5 50% faster than v2.1) –  New functionality (support for grids, systems, new property sets) –  New UI added to allow extra customization (ignore UI freeze!)

•  Intend to have updates on a 4-‐8 week timeframe.


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•  SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/ifcexporter) –  Only public location containing source code –  Contains R2012-‐R2015, R2013-‐R2014UI installs –  Top 5 countries: Netherlands, Norway, US, UK, China (~55% of total)

•  Revit App Store (http://apps.exchange.autodesk.com/RVT/Home/Index) –  Contains R2013-‐R2014 and R2013-‐R2014UI, not R2012


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Open Source Total Downloads

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•  Need Subversion (SVN) to download and modify source code –  TortoiseSVN at http://sourceforge.net/projects/tortoisesvn/files/ –  All local modifications allowed, uploading is restricted

•  Contributions controlled by BIM Open Source Steering committee (representatives from Autodesk, DPR, GSA, HOK, and Dark Architects)

•  Contributors can be “promoted” from Users to Developers to Committers, who have direct write access to the code.

•  All contributions are welcome! –  As of version 2.1: ZIP file included for those without some version of

SVN

IFC Open Source: How to Modify

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•  Ability to have rapid response to customer issues –  Fix issues in the releases that customers

are working in •  Allow users to customize IFC for their own

needs –  Revit Dutch Standards work integrated

•  Work towards requirements asynchronous to Revit’s release schedule –  IFC2x3 re-‐certification –  IFC4 support

IFC Open Source Exporter Goals achieved

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•  COBie based on IFC FM (Facilities Management) Handover MVD

•  IFC = geometry + BIM data •  COBie = BIM data only

•  COBie file can be generated from IFC file, not vice versa

Autodesk : Commitment to IFC and COBie

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Two ways to get COBie data from Revit: •  Direct via COBie toolkit

–  http://www.autodesk.com/campaigns/interoperability •  Indirect via IFC export

–  IFC Exporter v3.9 and beyond includes support for COBie toolkit parameters

•  No “preferred” method

Autodesk : IFC and Revit

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IFC & COBie

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The Architect Perspective…

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From the User…

I don’t know how to code…? What does the export option do…? How do you translate the data…? What does it all mean…??

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Why do we as Architects need to use IFC?

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Benefits 1.  Better coordinated buildings

2.  Sharing 3D information and data across projects openly with consultants who do not share the same software platform

3.  Interrogation of design in other software

4.  Architect regaining role as lead consultant.

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Common workflows for IFC interrogation on projects

1.  Open IFC Directly

2.  Import IFC using other software

3.  Creation of container file for linking

4.  Link IFC R 2015

5.  Export Nwc.

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The user intends to use the IFC file as a reference only. This means:

•  Data is read-‐only •  Geometry: maximum fidelity •  Native Revit elements: minimal

(Levels, Grids, some annotations) •  All properties, including name and

original IFC entity type correctly set •  Proper mapping to Revit categories •  All materials properly set

–  Exception: materials assigned to material layers may get lost on import, as these material layers may not be independently processed.

•  Very good performance, both on import (time to import) and in Revit

Link IFC for Reference

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•  What’s wrong with import? –  Unreliable –  Slow –  No link –  Missing information –  Roundtrip bad

•  Why not just fix the native code? –  Import code based on state of Revit in 2005 –  Starting fresh allows having a different

foundation –  .NET implementation allows API-‐based open

source •  All the benefits of export open source

IFC Import R2015 Work

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•  Plan to completely rewrite import code in Open Source .NET –  Open source released with R2015

release; not expected to be complete (similar to R2012 export open source release).

–  IFC import to be based on generic API to build geometry, not IFC-‐specific

•  Current “Open IFC” to be replaced by 2

import options: –  Link IFC Reference Model =

“Reference View” –  Open IFC Editing Model = “Design

Handover View”

IFC Import R2015 Work

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The user intends to take ownership of the contents of the IFC file and continue modelling in Revit. This means: •  Geometry: High fidelity. Fine details, such

as complex wall joins, may not be properly preserved.

•  Native Revit elements: Used as much possible.

•  All properties, including name and original IFC entity type correctly set

•  Proper mapping to Revit categories •  All materials properly set. •  Good performance, but not as fast as

referencing.

Open IFC -‐ Developer

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Opening IFC -‐ User

1.  Compress the IFC

2.  Open Settings must be defined.

3.  Class Mapping setup in Revit template.

4.  Template assigned for IFC Import.

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Exporting IFC 1.  IFC Options in Revit (default) or

Alternate UI (Autodesk Exchange).

2.  Setup company specific export settings.

3.  Ensure all elements are mapped correctly for export-‐ including massing elements.

4.  Setup a ‘best practice’ workflow for Revit elements that do not function as well.

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Exporting IFC

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Exporting IFC

Revit elements to watch on export: 1.  Parts.

2.  Complex Geometry / Parametric families with visibility parameters assigned.

3.  Walls and edited Wall profiles and attaching .

4.  In place massing must have a shared parameter of IfcExportAs assigned.

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Parts and IFC

Why use Parts? How to accurately represent façade patterning. Remember export options. Parts will be assigned to view visibility settings only.

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Complex Geometry & IFC

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Import (Ggym) vs Open IFC Revit 2014

Jon Mirtschin – Geometry Gym has created an import tool which allows for direct import of IFC Into project. Differing workflows for individual users depending on their scope of work and project type. This Import tool for complex geometry modelled in Rhino/ Grasshopper

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Categorisation in Complex Geometry

These tools allow for categorisation across design stages within Rhino and Grasshopper.

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IFC Revit and other design tools

Why? 1.  Architects utilise SketchUp

in early design stages – common process

2.  SketchUp vs Concept modelling and design options

3.  IFC will only work if Design Options are made ‘primary’.

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Challenges, Pitfalls and the Good Stuff

Revit vs Revit Lt 2014 and 2015 1.  You cannot link IFC in 2014 – only 2015

workflow. 2.  Revit 2013 no longer receiving IFC updates

as of April 2014. 3.  Improvements 2014/2015 . 4.  Links must be bound for exporting (or

exported individually). 5.  Current Industry Knowledge. 6.  Revit LT not currently certified.

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Other Architectural Software & IFC Import or Open Different software allow for differing mapping options as

per last year’s BIM Show live presentation by Evolve and Bond Bryan Architects: Note: 1.  Create a Revit Template to translate System family

types automatically ( Geometry Gym – in progress). 2.  Ensure all modelling elements are mapped to their

correct IFC mapping elements in other software. 3.  Validate and check the data upon import to Revit 4.  Ensure units translate correctly 5.  Shared coordinates are inconsistent

Note: Software elements are not consistent. It is important to realise this before utilising the IFC workflow in Revit.

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Open directly or Imported – what are the differences

1.  Revit IFC Open tool translates most of the system families better than the Import tool.

2.  Import tool faster.

3.  Open IFC will be certified.

4.  Third party software currently not reliable.

5.  Some stairs, slabs, ceilings in both options by default still translate into generic objects.

6.  Generally walls, doors, windows work well.

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Understanding the text editor

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Top Tips and Resources

Online Resources: -‐  http://sourceforge.net/p/ifcexporter/discussion/

general/ -‐  http://www.autodesk.com/campaigns/

interoperability -‐  http://www.buildingsmart.org/organization -‐  http://www.revitforum.org/ -‐  http://sourceforge.net/p/ifcexporter/wiki/Notes

%20on%20support%20for%20FMHandOverView/

Building Smart Certification List: http://www.buildingsmart-‐tech.org/certification/ifc-‐certification-‐2.0/ifc2x3-‐cv-‐v2.0-‐certification/participants

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Social Media Resources

Twitter @bondbryanBIM – Archicad and IFC expert Rob Jackson @lukeyjohnson -‐ Revit BIM Expert @geometrygym – Revit, IFC, Grasshopper Expert. @IFC_standards -‐ IFC Twitter Handle, managed by Ryan Schultz. @mdradvies – BIM expert and IFC Fan. @vassaug – Revit Expert, IFC lover.

LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Industry-‐Foundation-‐Classes-‐IFC-‐3690870

People/ Blogs http://bimblog.bondbryan.com/ http://www.mdr-‐advies.nl/ http://geometrygym.blogspot.co.uk/

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Angel Velez Senior Principal Engineer Autodesk @autodesk www.autodesk.com

Rebecca De Cicco Architectural Designer & BIM Specialist Digital Node @digital_node @becdecicco www.digital-‐node.com

Thank You for listening. Questions?

Engineering

BIM SHOW LIVE 14 - IFC: the developers perspective