Ifc-compliant Design Information Modeling and Sharing

This paper presents a method for IFC-compliant design information modelling and sharing by use of the IFC technology and IFC property set (Pset) extension mechanism. The method comprises defining the nonstandard and project-specific design information in extensible and interoperable Psets, instantiating these Pset definitions with CAD object information and generating IFC-compliant product models, and managing and sharing product model data across AEC computer applications. A software implementation of the method has been developed as an add-on toolkit to the Architectural Desktop CAD package and incorporated into a Webenabled information service prototype system. The prototype supports the generation of extended IFC product models from architectural design, manages the consistency and sharability of the IFC and XML objects in the system repository, and facilitates the design information exchange and sharing among different software systems. Three use scenarios of the prototype are discussed in the paper for CAD information modelling with Pset extensions, IFC and XML objects query and browsing over the Internet, and XML-based information exchange and sharing from architectural design to quantity survey and to structural analysis applications.