Our last post discussed the background of Open Standards and IFC in the transportation infrastructure industry and how the common and the most current use of IFC, while showing much potential, has quite a bit of challenges to overcome. This quarter’s article will dive a little deeper on how far IFC has come since its inception, some of more recent advances in Open Standards policy in the US, and BuildingSmart’s more recent advances in education and outreach.

IFC for Transportation 

As stated in the previous article, IFC in its current form, began around 1996-1997, primarily developed for the vertical building industry originally from the International Alliance for Interoperability (which became BuildingSmart in 2005). Since then, over 100 software vendors are certified to use IFC with many more supporting various versions of IFC for published deliverable use.

In 2013, IFC 2×3 found in many of our products, was ratified as an ISO standard, but not fully approved. While 2×3 was not officially approved, the IFC schema became an official ISO standard in 2017. Since IFC has traditionally been buildings-centric, around this same time, infrastructure-related extensions were developed. These advancements included semantics, geometry, relationship definitions to other objects, and additional attributes or properties like materials or pay items. While IFC for roads specifically is in its early stages of development, IFC for bridges and structures are much further ahead and should be ready for testing in the near future. As such, Bentley is actively engaged in multiple IFC initiatives, as we have been for many years, from official releases to the release of candidate support in many of our products.

Open Standards Policy Advancements

In 2016, the IFC Bridge Design to Construction Exchange was developed with an aim at automating the information exchange found in bridge design plans as they go out for bid. Shortly thereafter, the BIM for Bridges and Structures Pooled Fund began which directly led to focused efforts around bringing OpenStandards, like IFC, to the forefront of the transportation industry. In 2019, AASHTO adopted the IFC schema as a standard data schema for the Exchange of Electronic Data. In the same year, the Joint Subcommittee on Data Standardization (J-STAN) was formed. It aimed at championing and coordinating the implementation of open data standards and schema development.

Additionally, in 2021, the BIM for Infrastructure Pooled Fund was authorized with the objective to coordinate with existing efforts focused on BIM technologies and processes to advance the short and medium-term goals of the BIM National Strategic Work Plan.

Most recently, the Committee on Bridges and Structures voted unanimously to pass the adoption of IFC’s Information Delivery Manual (IDM) as an AASHTO Guide Specification. This is the first U.S. standard for bridge 3D model data and sets a clear direction for software developers like us. The IDM defines and documents the business processes and data requirements that are needed to execute a specific task within the BIM process. This also sets the stage for future IDMs paving the way for other disciplines such as roadway, drainage, and construction.

All this to say that there have been significant efforts towards the advancement of BIM on a national level in the last eight years. There is an amazing amount of promise to focus on the value of data as it progresses through the lifecycle of any infrastructure asset.

BuildingSmart

I’ve mentioned BuildingSmart a number of times, but never really described what they are. BuildingSmart is an open, neutral, and international not-for-profit organization aimed at driving open, international standards and solutions for infrastructure and buildings. They have global chapters and certifications available to learn more about the BIM process and the importance of BIM standards. As I had been involved with implementing BIM execution plans in a previous life, I was quite familiar with many of the topics, and I was certified earlier this year. If you’re interested, the review the certification process. Less than 30 of us are certified in the US. Compare that to a chapter like Germany’s which has thousands of certified individuals.

BuildingSmart also supports multiple conferences around the year such as openBIM’s annual Open Standards Conference that was held in Anaheim, California in mid-June. Their own International Summit is in Montreal, Canada later this fall, from October 18 to 21.

Lastly, AECMagazine include a detailed special report on IFC in their May/June 2022 publication. 

Bentley’s Role

Bentley has been involved with BuildingSmart and IFC development for the better part of a decade. Realizing the importance of open data standards, both in IFC and the iTwin framework, Bentley has incorporated various forms of IFC support in their OpenBuildings (former AecoSIM) suite of products and as required, various support for IFC through their OpenRoads products. Most recently, iTwin has incorporated an IFC export.

In the past, IFC export from OpenRoads Designer was limited to alignments and corridors on an unclassified mesh with minimal information. When we’re thinking about exporting data from one form to another, a entire mapping aspect would need to occur. With IFC not having every infrastructure-related item defined yet, OpenRoads Designer continued with exporting to unclassified meshes.

With the latest few releases of OpenRoads designer, a mapper for classifications (formerly called Semantics) was released as a tech preview to attempt to map certain portions of a roadway corridor to an IFC schema. As IFC is further developed for road, so too, would we expect to see advances in the IFC support in our products.