buildingSMART/IFC - The Future of Construction Interoperability

Data Design System supports, and has been closely involved in the buildingSMART organisation and development of the buildingSMART standards such as IDM (Information Delivery Manual) and Industry Foundation Classes (IFC), which is a vendor neutral data exchange format specifically for the construction industry. (OpenBIM)

"buildingSMART is the dynamic and seamless exchange of accurate, useful information on the built environment among all members of the building community throughout the lifecycle of a facility. buildingSMART is simply a smarter process for managing the project lifecycle."

The IFC format is being developed by buildingSMART (former IAI), which is draws its membership from the construction industry, software vendors, government bodies and computermodelling specialists.

The vision of buildingSMART resonates around the sharing of information between project team members and across the software applications that they commonly use for design, construction, procurement, maintenance and operations. Data interoperability is a key enabler to achieving the goal of buildingSMART processes. That is why buildingSMART has funded technical research to develop the semantic description of a single building model (Industry Foundation Classes) and to establish a common basis for data sharing. The quality and contribution of this work is reflected in its adoption as an ISO standard.

Reduce Costs and Improve Design Quality

IFC is fast becoming the de-facto standard for rich data exchange between construction design disciplines, and improved flow of information through to facilities managementoperations. With DDS-CAD MEP you are able to participate in model based design, collaborating with other disciplines using IFC file based teamworking, or by using an advanced IFC model server environment. IFC based collaborative design is the smart way to design buildings, and is being used on many projects worldwideto improve interoperability, reduce costs and improve design quality.
Free IFC Viewer
We have developed an IFC file viewer which allows you to open IFC files and view BIM models created by applications such as DDS-CAD MEP. This tool is availablefor download here, and its is free!

Which Applications Support IFC?

Most modern BIM Authering tools support import and/or export of IFC model data. buildingSMART issues official certification to applications that comply with the standard. If your project partners are using any of these applications, you should be able to collaborate more intelligently with them using DDS-CAD MEP

.