Aligning IFC with the emerging ISO 10303 Modular Architecture. Can AEC community get advantages from IT?

Abstract

International Alliance for Interoperability (IAI) is a world wide consortium aiming to define the requirements for software interoperability in the AEC/FM industry. The deliverables of IAI are the specifications of Industry Foundation Classes (IFC), an object oriented software library for application development. IFC model is described in EXPRESS, and based in the general architecture of ISO10303 – STEP to describe its reference model. However, during the last few years, STEP has been reorganised adopting now a modular architecture, already with encouraging results. Should IFC be aligned with the emerging ISO10303 modular architecture, getting AEC community advantages from it? This paper discusses a modular architecture for IFC, aligned with the work developed for ISO10303, examining the benefits that such proposal can bring to AEC. The paper catches results from the research developed within CEN/ISSS and IMS projects close to ISO TC184/SC4, when developing one of the first modular STEP Application Protocols, and extends them to investigate the potentialities of this new architecture on IFC.