In Best Practices, we mentioned the use of an industry foundation class (IFC)-compliant BIM and multiple IFC-compliant software applications to permit the same building model to be used by multiple analysis, cost-estimating, and simulation programs.

Who is the International Alliance for Interoperability (IAI) and what are the IFCs? The IAI is an alliance of organizations—software companies, building product manufacturers, information publishers, owners, designers, and builders—in AEC and other industries whose goal is to develop a universal standard for information sharing and interoperability of intelligent digital building models developed in object-based systems throughout all phases of the building life-cycle. Over the past 10 years, the IAI has developed and published a series of IFCs—specifications that define an object-based data model for the AEC industry.

What kinds of information can be exchanged between software applications via the IFCs? Newforma, Inc. has created an online listing (data dictionary) of all the information about a facility that can be described in the IFC data format. You can find this data dictionary at www.newforma.com/interoperability.htm . The listing shows the breadth and depth of information that can be created, updated, and exchanged by a building information model that is fully IFC-compliant.

For a summary of coverage of the IFCs, visit TAP’s Building Connections Web site, www.building-connections.info/. Click on Standards Activities and select IAI.

Additional information can be found at the IAI’s Web site, www.iai-na.org. See also “The IFC Building Model: a Look under the Hood,” authored by Lachmi Khemlani, in the March 2004 edition of AECbytes, www.aecbytes.com/feature/IFCmodel.htm .