Automation in Construction 15 (2006) 178 185 www.elsevier.

com/locate/autcon

IFC model viewer to support nD model application

Changfeng Fu *, Ghassan Aouad, Angela Lee, Amanda Mashall-Ponting, Song Wu
The School of Construction and Property Management, Salford University, Salford, M7 1NU, UK Accepted 1 April 2005

Abstract Today, building information modelling (BIM) plays a crucial role in the research and development fields of construction information integration and interoperability. This paper, from an information technology point of view, outlines the definition and aims of the 3D to nD Modelling project, a platform grant-funded project by UK_s British Engineering and Physics Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). It presents a scenario of widening BIM implementation into the overall aspects involved in the whole life cycle of a building project. Industry foundation classes (IFC) as a standard BIM specification has been adopted as a central information repository in order to deliver the integrated building information throughout the nD-driven assessments, evaluation and decision-making. This paper also focuses on the development of an IFC-viewer, which is defined as the holistic interface of the nD modelling tool. The techniques and methods including the auxiliary tools adopted in this development are detailed. This development presents a practical and economic way to reveal and retrieve the information of IFC models inclusively, structurally and visually. D 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Building information modelling (BIM); nD modelling; Industry foundation classes (IFC); VRML

1. Introduction Although CAD systems have been used in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry for decades, information fragmentation within CAD drawings has always been an obstacle to information sharing and exchange in construction among different design aspects and different design phases. [7,11,6]. Since it is introduced in the last few decades, the building information model (BIM) has been believed to be essential in AEC and the realestate industries to manage, share and exchange information among project stakeholders, such as architects, engineers, contractors, owners and facility managers [5]. BIM is a standard digital information repository of building design, which may also contain information about the building_s construction, management, operations and maintenance [9]. Generally, a BIM consists of two kinds of informationbuilding elements and their attributes repre-

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 161 2954212; fax: +44 161 2954587. E-mail address: c.fu@salford.ac.uk (C. Fu). 0926-5805/$ - see front matter D 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.autcon.2005.04.002

sented in building design terminology and the relationships between these building elements. In comparison to earlier CAD systems, BIM-based CAD systems are building object-oriented systems, in which the basic components of drawings are building elements like walls, doors, windows and so on, rather than geometric elements in earlier CAD systems, such as dots, lines and polygons. Today, although many CAD systems have already become the BIM-based CAD systems, they use different specifications developed by various CAD software vendors. This means that standard specifications and methods of the building information modelling are still rare. On the other hand, using BIM rather than CAD geometric models to represent and deliver the information and data throughout the lifecycle of a building project is increasingly becoming a consensus between the researchers and practitioners in the AEC industry. The processes of building information modelling are to classify and standardise design and planning information, which usually fragmentally exists in a variety of phases and aspects of a building project. Moreover, another reason to apply BIM is to standardise and format the building information to suit the requirement and

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format of interfaces, databases, file and data exchange in computer applications. As the core of building information integration, an ideal integrated BIM should include the following characters: i. The basic elements of an integrated BIM should be the physical components of a building, such as walls, doors and windows, which are consist of a set of CAD geometric elements and described and dimensioned by the phrases and methods of building design, construction and management instead of the CAD geometric elements, such as dots, lines and faces. ii. An integrated building information model should also include the information of construction and maintenance activities linked to the relevant building physical components. These activities should also be described by the phrases of building construction and management. iii. The relationships among the building components and activities are another crucial factor to an integrated BIM. All the elements in a BIM should somehow be linked to others. The relationship can be classified into two typical structuresinheritance (a tree shape) and polymorphism (a net shape). Currently, two types of building information model specificationsSTEP and IFC (industry foundation classes)are widely adopted in the researches and developments of IT applications of building design, construction and facility management. STEP is an ISO standard (ISO 10303). It is a set of specifications represented in EXPRESS language, which enables users to model information of various industries, including the automotive industry, aerospace industry, construction industry and so on. These specifications can be used to describe integrated information of a product including geometry, topology, tolerances, relationships, attributes, assemblies, configuration and others of a product_s whole lifecycle. IFC is developed by the International Alliance for Interoperability. It is also represented in the EXPRESS language as well. However, IFC is a kind of modelling specification particularly focused on the product and process modelling of the AEC/FM industry. Therefore, it may present building information more effectively and efficiently. The IFC model defines an integrated schema to depict the main physical and logical building objects, their characteristics and their inter-relationships in the form of a class hierarchy. The IFC hierarchy covers the core project information such as building elements, the geometric and material properties of building product, project costs, schedules and organizations. Moreover, IFCs enable interoperability among AEC/FM software applications and this means the end-users in the AEC/FM area can effectively share the model data through IFC files. Today, most of the major CAD systems support the export of drawings into IFC model files. So far, IAI has officially published several

different versions of IFC files including version 1.5.1, 2.0, 2.X [10]. At present, although there are several IFC viewers developed by some institutes around the world, such as CSIRO in Australia and TNO [14] in the Netherlands, these viewers are developed for either pilot studies or specifically for certain IFC-based software tools and no API or SDK is provided to enable other users to implement these tools in their own development. Meanwhile, although there are also some IFC-based developing systems like ActiveX components, or libraries, such as the IFC Model Server developed Eurostep [8], most of them are commercial software applications and are costly. Nevertheless, an interface and environment that enable end-users to browse the IFC model file must always be a fundamental and inevitable section of any IFCs-based software systems. It seems that there are not many convenient and cheaper development tools, which can be directly adopted to develop an IFC viewer or other IFC implementations. Therefore, for many developers, especially those who are just embarking on IFC development or do not have the immediate capabilities to conduct large and complicated software developments, the IFC viewer development described in this paper may provide users with an optional approach to develop their own IFC viewer quickly and cheaply. This paper presents the details of the development of an IFC viewer, which is designed to be an integrated interface for nD modelling applications. This development is a fundamental part of nD modelling prototype tool development. It aims to provide users with an integrated and interactive environment to visually retrieve the information of an IFC model file. It also shows that the methods and techniques adopted in this development form as a practical and economical way to develop this kind of IFC viewer. All of the auxiliary tools applied in this development were free. Before detailing this IFC viewer development, nD modelling is introduced as a backdrop to the IFC viewer development.

2. Notions of 3D to nD Modelling 3D to nD Modelling is a research project funded by a platform-grant by British Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC). It aims to develop a multidimensional computer model that will portray and visually project the entire design and construction process, enabling users to Fsee_ and simulate the whole life of the project [12]. This will help people to reduce the uncertainties in the decision-making process and to realise true Fwhat-if_ analysis. The nD model is an extension of the building information model, which incorporates multi-issues of design information generated and required throughout a building project lifecycle, such as accessibility, sustainability, energy saving, costing, crime-prevention, acoustic, thermal, etc. The 3D here indicates that nD models should initially derive from design outcomes produced in 3D BIM-

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based CAD systems and also be visually represented in 3D virtual world. 3D virtual reality visualisation technology as realistic, interactive and web-deliverable computer-graphic technology possesses great potential to represent nD building information models in a legible form to all stakeholders involved in a building project. The outcomes and processes of nD modelling should be also represented in a legible format, such as 3D virtual-reality models. Moreover, the nD modelling tool will technically adopt IFC model files as standard BIMs to conduct multi-criteria assessments and decision support of design and exchange information throughout different phases of a building project.

3. The structure and functionality of nD modelling tool The nD modelling system will be designed as a computer system, which will focus on BIMs, specifically an IFC model to conduct multi-criteria assessments and decision support for building design. IFC models will be technically adopted as the core design information repository, from which all of the initial design information generated from various CAD systems used in different design aspects and phases can be retrieved by the nD modelling system. The diagram in Fig. 1 shows the system architecture of nD modelling toolkit. According to this diagram, the scenario of a nD modelling system can be portrayed as follows: & Starting from the top of the diagram, multidisciplinary design information is generated by the various design

teams using a number of BIM-based CAD systems. Thus, the CAD drawings should consist of building-component-oriented elements associated with 3D geometric information and relationships between these elements. As described earlier, these are the basic constituents of a BIM. An IFC model as a standard BIM actually inherits these kinds of information from the BIM-based CAD drawings. Therefore, in order to ensure IFC model files, the CAD drawings should be generated in BIM-based CAD. & The next step is to convert the CAD drawings into IFC model files. Today, the major BIM-based architecture design CAD systems, such as Architecture Desktop produced by AutoDesk, Microstation produced by Bentley and ArchiCAD developed by Graphisoft, all support the export of multiple versions of IFC files, especially the IFC 2.X version. Some CAD systems can even allow users to select different levels of detailed design information in CAD drawings to be exported to IFC files, such as the details of doors and windows. Different levels of the detailed information will affect the file-sizes of IFC models. & An IFC model viewer is developed as a holistic interface for the nD modelling prototype to provide users with an interactive environment to browse an IFC model file and conduct nD activities on the IFC model file. Some of the processes or results of nD-driven assessments will have to be visualised and simulated through this interface. Therefore, the development of the IFC model viewer will be an important part of the prototype development of the

Architecture Design

Structure Design

HVAC Design

BIM-Based CAD systems

IFC Building Model

Database

Holistic IFC Model Viewer with 3D Visualisation

Specific Assessing Knowledge & Function 1 (Accessibility)

Specific Assessing Knowledge & Function 2 (Sustainability

Specific Assessing Knowledge & Function 3 (Security)

Specific Assessing Knowledge & Function n ()

nD Driven Decision Support System

Fig. 1. The architecture of nD modelling tool.

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nD modelling tool. This viewer consists of three major functions. The first is that it allows users to view all of the building elements of an IFC file and some simplified and inherited links between these elements. FTree-view_ is the best form to present these elements in an inherited structure. The second is to visually reveal an IFC model file. Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML) is used to represent an IFC model in 3D virtual reality world. The advantages of the VRML technique can be addressed such that it can allow users to interactively navigate the 3D models and conduct some actions on any objects in a 3D VRML model. The third is to properly list out all the properties of a building element selected from either the tree-view or the 3D VRML window. In addition, the nD model tool will also use the relational database to permanently or temporally save information or retrieve the information beyond an IFC model file, such as assessing criteria. & On top of the IFC compliant viewer, a number of assessing functions, which focus on various aspects and phases of building design, construction and facility management, will be developed separately based on this IFC model viewer. In other words, each sub-tool can only concentrate on assessing and analysing the data and information from an IFC model file and revealing the result of assessment and analysis. & The decision support system is a high-level intelligent, knowledge-based system, which is proposed as the second phase of nD modelling toolkit. It should be able to synthesise the outcomes from the multi-aspects assessments, identify and structure the problems and conflicts among the assessed results, and finally produce a range of suggestions and options to the decision-makers.

4. The development of IFC model viewer As described earlier, although the specification and format of the IFC model file have been published for many years and the inspiration of interoperable building information model has already been widely admitted by the researchers and practitioners of AEC industry, the mature and cheaper auxiliary tools for IFC implementation are still rare. In addition, due to the gaps of the specifications and file formats between each different version of IFC file, most IFC auxiliary tools and applications only support the particular versions of IFC file. Today, there are two popular methods of IFC applications determined by the different formats of IFC modelsExpress Data Manager (EDM) databases of IFC models and IFC files.

EDM developed by EPM Technology is a commercial database system specifically designed to manage and assess the data that complies with the international standard of ISO 10303 in EXPRESS language. By using the EDM-databasebased method, an IFC model has to be entirely imported into an EDM database system. The Application Programming Interface (API) of EDM system, which can support various programming languages, enables any IFC-model-focused application to retrieve design data from the database. Some large IFC implementation projects, like the Singapore e-Plan Checking project which aims to speed up the planning and approving process of building design [13], adopted this method. By using the IFC-file-based method, all the applications and functions of the IFC-model-compliant tools will focus on an IFC file directly, although some relational databases may also be used in this kind of application. Today there are several commercial or freeware tools that can support users to apply this method. For instance, the Eurostep IFC Toolbox is a commercial IFC file-based auxiliary tool, which can provide users with an easy way to read, modify, add and represent the data in an IFC model file. Two kinds of toolboxes can support users programming in different languages. The IFC Classic Toolbox is the original C++ class library toolbox; and IFC Active ToolboX is an ActiveX component with a generic function wrapper layer based on COM technology. Some other practical cases and application tools based on this method can be found around the world as well, such as the IFCs application in the EUfunded DIVERCITY project in CSTB [3] and the CRC-CI IFC Development Projects in CSIRO [4]. This project adopted an IFC-file-based ActiveX component called IFCsvr, which was developed by VTT in Finland and is downloaded free. IFCsvr has IFCs data input/output functions for STEP Part21 file or XML file, and provides additional operations, such as IFC object searching, changing, and creating [1,2]. This component provides developers with a set of functions of programming with Microsoft Visual Basic, Visual Basic for Application, etc. Although the IFCsvr component supports server-based model sharing, the development of this IFC model viewer only focuses on file-based data exchange at the first stage of the nD modelling tool development. In this case, IFC version 2.0 is adopted as the targeted IFC model files. The diagram in Fig. 2 shows the hierarchical structure of objects of the IFC model. This hierarchical IFCsvr object structure is fully compliant with the hierarchical architecture of the IFC model. The searching processes of IFC model objects have to follow the hierarchical structure. All objects in an IFC

IFCsvr.R200

Design

Entities Entity

Attributes Attribute

Fig. 2. The inherited relations of IFC objects.

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model are sorted in the different classes at different levels, which are Design, Entities, Entity, Attributes, and Attribute. A series of functions can be loaded by programmers to deal with any objects and their attributes in each different object class. Fig. 3 shows the interface of the IFC viewer, which mainly consists of four sub-windows: a tree-view of IFC model objects on up-left; a 3D virtual reality model browser with some interactive functions on up-right; a table listing all the attributes of a selected object on down-left; a list box showing the assessing results on down-right. All the information revealed on this interface derives from a single IFC model file. All objects in either the tree-view window or VR window are selectable. Each object selected in either the tree-view or the VR window will be reflected (highlighted) in another window. Meanwhile, the attributes of the selected building component will also be listed in the table underneath the tree-view. For instance, the IfcDoor(#1679) is initially selected in the VR window. Then it will be found and highlighted in the tree-view and the attributes of the IfcDoor(#1679) will also be listed in the attributes table. Thus, this will give users an overall view of an IFC model. In the next sections, the detail of the methods and techniques adopted in this development will be depicted. 4.1. Adding IFC object nodes on the tree-view Firstly, the IFC object tree-view in this viewer actually is a simplified hierarchical view of an IFC model, which only maps out the physical building elements, such as walls, windows, doors, slabs, columns, beams and so on. It also

shows a simplified relationship among these elements, such as a window locating on a certain wall, etc. In fact, almost all of the physical relationships among the physical building elements in real life, such as Fa window must be located on a certain wall_, are not linked directly in an IFC model. Whereas the connection between any two physical elements is established through a number of IFC intermediate objects (entities). For instance, the IfcWindow(#201) entity (shown in Fig. 4) in an IFC model contains rather complicated structure and sub-objects within the IFC hierarchical structure but does not link to any walls directly. This was to simplify the relationship structure on the interface to help users who may not be familiar with the data structure of IFC model files, to easily understand the relationships among the physical elements within an IFC model. When an IFC file is loaded in the viewer, the first thing to do is to find out the Design object and place it on the root node of the tree-view. The below program fragment shows how to open an IFC file and map the Design object on the root node in Visual Basic. Dim objIFCsvr As New IFCsvr.R200 Set objDesign = objIFCsvr.OpenDesign(sIfcFile) Set objNode = frmMain.TreeView1.Nodes.Add(, , "Design", objDesign.Name, "Design") Next, it will find the objects, which should be mapped on the first level of the tree-view. Most physical building objects (components), such as walls, slabs, ceilings, columns, beams and even spaces, etc., should belong to the nodes in this level. The programs to pick up these

Fig. 3. The IFC viewer Interface.

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Fig. 4. The objects tree-view of a IFC model.

objects from an IFC file by using the IFCsvr ActiveX Component are as simple as the program section below: For Each ObjEntity In objDesign.FindObjects("IfcWall") procAddEntityNode objNode, ObjEntity Next Then, procAddEntityNode is the function, which can add a captured object (Entity) onto the tree node. 4.2. Re-mapping the relations As described earlier, the physical connections of building elements are not represented in the IFC hierarchical structure directly. Thus, the need to re-map the relationships among the IFC objects to present directly physical relationships of these building elements on this user interface is required. As shown in Fig. 5, once an IfcDoor entity is picked up in the last step, we need to trace the sub-entities and properties of the IfcDoor entity to find out the IfcOpeningElement related to this IfcDoor. Then we have to search the whole IFC model again to find the IfcOpeningElement with the same Global ID and trace the sub-entities and properties of the IfcOpeningElement to find out the IfcWall, which hosts the IfcOpeningElement. During the processes of these IfcObject searching and tracing, a

Global ID is always associated with each Ifc object to ensure every Ifc object to be identified uniquely. 4.3. Getting the attributes To retrieve the attributes of a selected IFC entity is very crucial for users to conduct nD activities through the interface. The IFCsvr ActiveX Component provides users a set of functions to handily trace the attributes of each IFC entity. Some examples are given below to show how these functions work, including retrieving the Global ID, P21 ID and type of an Ifc entity and the area, volume and material information of an IfcWall. sProjectId = ObjEntity.Guid sP21Id = ObjEntity.P21ID sEntityType = ObjEntity.Type and wall-area Set ObjEntAtt = ObjEntity.Attributes("calcWallArea") IfcObjArea = ObjEntAtt.Value Wall-volume Set ObjEntAtt = ObjEntity.Attributes("calcWallVolume") IfcObjVolm = ObjEntAtt.Value Wall-Material

IfcDoor (IfcWindow) IfcLocalPlacement IfcOpeningElement IfcOpeningElement IfcLocalPlacement IfcWall

Fig. 5. The diagram of retrieving the physical relationship between an IfcDoor or IfcWindow and an IfcWall.

Set ObjEntAtt = ObjEntity.Attributes("HasMaterial") IfcObjMtrl = ObjEntAtt.Value For geometric dimensions and coordinates of a selected IFC entity, there are two different ways to represent the geometric information of a physical building object in an IFC file. One is to describe an IFC entity as a bounding box. The location and size of a bounding box entityIfcBoundingBox

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can be retrieved from an IFC model. The IfcBoundingBox can easily and precisely represent the IFC entities with regular shapes. A small example of the program to fetch the attributes of IfcBoundingBox is as follow: SetobjRepresent = objPtr.Attributes("ShapeRepresentations").Value.Item(1) SetobjBondingBox = objRepresent.Attributes("Items"). Value.Item(1) vDim = objBondingBox.Attributes(2).Value DimX = objBondingBox.Attributes("XDim").Value DimY = objBondingBox.Attributes("YDim").Value DimZ = objBondingBox.Attributes("ZDim").Value IFCs can also represent the object as a various 2D outline such as IfcRectangleProfileDef, IfcArbitraryClosedProfileDef or IfcCircleProfileDef associated with an expanding height called Depth in an IFC model. This method can portray more complicated shapes of IFC objects. The coordinators of any IFC objects geometrically described in this way are the relational coordinators. But they can be easily calculated into the absolute coordinator. 4.4. Linking to virtual reality model In this IFC viewer, another auxiliary tool called IFCVRML converter developed by KLine Systems in Japan is used to convert an IFC file (.ifc) into a 3D VRML file (.wrl). The beta version of this tool was free to download when we carried out this development. Due to only the executive file available but not API or SDK of this software, this tool has to be run separately in the IFC viewer to generate a VRML file with a same file name. In the tool, users can set some visual attributes to each type of physical building elements, such as the level of the geometric detail, colours, transparency and lighting attributes. In addition, users can also select the certain types of building elements to be converted into a VRML file. Therefore, this tool can control the exact contents and details of the final converted VRML models. In an IFC-converted VRML model, each object is Fanchored_ to the unique IFC Global ID and some information of IFC entity attributes, which ensure that each 3D VR object can

also be retrieved back to the IFC model. In the VRML program segment below, it shows the Anchor with the description information of IFC object. #Wall: No.2 ( CF.O.%#BEIulmD~T2p2u ) #From "IfcAttributeDriven" To "Extrusion" Transform { translation 18000 0-6000 children Transform { rotation 0 0 1 1.5708 children [ Anchor { description "Wall : No.2 (CF.O.%# BEIulmD~T2p2u) Standard IfcAttDrivenExtrudedSolid IfcAttDriven ExtrudedSegment 18000.000000 IfcRectangleProfileDef 2700.000000, -240.000000" The unique global ID of each IFC entity can be used to trace an IFC entity exactly. So, the global IDs are also used in this IFC viewer to establish connections between the treeview and VRML view. This ensures that one entity selected in either the tree-view or the VRML view will be reflected on the right one in another view. The process is also illustrated in the diagram (Fig. 6). The VRML technique is not the only technique to represent an IFC model file in 3D world. Some developers of the IFC-based software also use OpenGL and DirectX to realise the 3D virtual-reality visualisation of IFC models in their IFC-based systems. The main problem in comparison to simply using a converting tool is that the approach of adopting OpenGL or DirectX may involve more programming works. However, this approach may get better visual effect and easily embrace visualisation function into the interfaces of their systems.

5. Conclusions This paper reviews the impact of building information models on the contemporary ICT implementation in AEC

Match the GUID Click on an object Pick up the GUID

IFC Tree-view

VRML Model

Pick up the GUID

Click on an object

Match the GUID

Fig. 6. The structure of the IFC viewer.

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industry. Based on the BIM theory and techniques, the 3D to nD Modelling research, as a new concept, portrays a scenario of widening the BIM implementation to multiple aspects across the whole life cycle of a building project. IFC as a building information model specification and fileformat has been creatively implemented in this research project. The holistic architecture of nD modelling tools based on IFC clearly shows the overall structure of the software tool, the information flows inside this nD modelling tool and the main functions of the tool. This paper focuses on the detail of the development of the IFC viewer, which will be a holistic and central interface of nD modelling tool. The developed IFC viewer can provide users with an integrated and interactive environment to precisely retrieve the information from an IFC model file. Some auxiliary tools adopted in this development, such as IFCsvr and IFC-VRML converter, are also introduced. Moreover, virtual-reality technologies are also identified as useful techniques visualising IFC model files. In conclusion, although this development is a small case of IFC implementation, the overall methods and techniques used for this development could be referred by other developers as a set of simpler and cheaper approaches to develop similar IFC viewing tools, which are essential to any IFC applications. At present, the nD modelling project is still ongoing. Based on the design information retrieved through the IFC-based interface, a number of scientific assessing and evaluating actions regarding the built environment will be conducted to provide decision-makers with accurate information to achieve better performance of a building and a building project.

[3] P. Christiansson, L. Dalto, J. Skjaerbaek, S. Soubra, M. Marache, Virtual environments for the AEC sectorThe Divercity experience, The International Conference of ECPPM 2002eWork and eBusiness in Architecture, Engineering and Construction, Sept. 9 11, Portoroz, Slovenia, 2002. [4] R. Drogemuller, CSIRO and CRC-CI IFC Development Projects, ITM Meeting, Tokyo, 2002. [5] C. Eastman, Building Product Models: Computer Environments Support Design and Construction, CRC Press LLC, Florida, 1999. [6] J. Egan, Rethinking Construction. Report from the Construction Task Force, Department of the Environment, Transport and Regions, UK, 1998. [7] H. Emmerson, Studies of Problems Before the Construction Industries, HMSO, London, 1962. [8] Eurostep, Eurostep Model Sever for IFC, http://www.eurostep.com/, 2003. [9] Graphisoft, The Graphisoft Virtual Building: Bridging the Building Information Model from Concept into Reality, Graphisoft Whitepaper, 2003. [10] IAI, The International Alliance for Interoperability International Web site, http://www.iai-international.org/iai_international/, reviewed in 2003. [11] M. Latham, Constructing the Team: Joint Review of Procurement and Contractual Arrangements in the UK Construction Industry, Department of the Environment, HMSO, 1994. [12] A. Lee, A. Marshall-Point, G. Aouad, et al., Developing a version of nD-enabled construction, Construction IT Report, Construct I.T. Centre, 2003. [13] L. Leibich, J. Wix, J. Forester, Z. Qi, Speeding-up the building plan approvalThe Singapore e-Plan checking project offers automatic plan checking based on IFC, The International Conference of ECPPM 2002eWork and eBusiness in Architecture, Engineering and Construction, Portoroz, Slovenia, Sept. 9 11, 2002. [14] TNO Building and Construction Research, IFC 3D Viewer, http://www.ifcbrowser.com/, 2004.

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