|
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
.
| 
