Industry Foundation Classes (IFC)

IFC, maintained by buildingSMART, defines a standard vocabulary of objects, properties and relationships for the built environment — walls, beams, systems, spaces, and the data attached to them — so that a model authored in one tool can be read by another without a private translator. It is the backbone of openBIM practice and, increasingly, of client mandates: owners specify IFC deliverables precisely so their asset data does not arrive locked to a vendor. Exchange is scoped by defined subsets tailored to purposes — coordination, handover — since no consumer needs everything.

Not to be confused with the other IFC in this glossary — Issued for Construction, the drawing revision status. The two share three letters and a project, nothing else; correspondence that spells one of them out earns its keep.

IFC's honest limitation is that translation is lossy in practice: parametric intelligence flattens to geometry-plus-properties, tool-specific data drops or mangles, and an export made as an afterthought validates as IFC while disappointing everyone downstream. Exchange quality is specified, tested and checked — or discovered.