Knowledge / AEC-native data
IFC and BIM models
The federated 3D information model and its IFC exchange format: objects, properties, classifications, relationships and geometry.
An IFC file describes a building as objects rather than pages, and an IFC AI has to read it that way. Each wall, door and duct carries properties (a fire rating, a classification code, the level it sits on), relationships to the objects it contains or belongs to, and its geometry. The federated model is assembled from each consultant's authoring software and exported to IFC at the agreed exchange points. Property sets are unevenly filled, naming differs by discipline, and the drawings cut from the model are annotated afterwards, so the two records of one building drift apart. Structured knowledge makes the model something the digital lead can question object by object, against the drawings and the requirements, with every answer traceable to a model issue and an object.
What teams need to ask of it
Which objects lack a property the exchange information requirements say they must carry at this stage?
Which fire-rated elements in the model disagree with the rating shown on the fire strategy drawings?
What changed between the last two model issues: objects added, removed, moved or re-typed?
Which elements are classified to Uniclass, which to something else, and which carry no classification at all?
Which model objects have no corresponding element on the drawings cut from that model, or the reverse?
Is the maintainable equipment carrying what the COBie deliverable needs, and which items are missing a space or a system?
Which discipline model owns this object, and which issue introduced it?
Why generic AI gets it wrong
A model is not a document, and an IFC file is not text. It is a set of objects, each with a type, properties and relationships, and a property means nothing outside its property set and its object. A text reader handed an IFC file sees attribute soup: identifiers, names, values and references, with nothing to say that this wall is a compartment wall because of a property on its type, or that this door is hosted by that wall. It will tell you how many walls there are and get the number wrong because it counted the types.
The model is also one of two records of the building. The drawings are cut from it, then annotated and revised by hand, so a rating written on a section may never have existed in the model, and a property in the model may have been overtaken by a drawing revision. A generic tool reads one or the other. It cannot connect a wall object in the level 2 model to the wall type tag on drawing 2102, so it answers from whichever it was given and presents that as the state of the building. On a higher-risk building, where the golden thread is meant to be one record kept current, a fluent answer from half of it is worse than none, because it will be believed.
One question, answered
QUESTION
ANSWER
SOURCES
We onboard a focused slice of your project data, configure the ingestion paths, extract a structured context graph, and build a workflow against the resulting structured knowledge layer.
Related to
The model is the source for much of the construction drawings and for the drawing schedules exported from it, and at handover it becomes the basis of the as-built drawings and handover packs, including the COBie deliverable. Drawing coordination review reads model objects alongside the sheets, and handover pack structuring depends on the model's properties and classifications being fit to hand over.
Which model formats does it read?
Is this clash detection?
Can we see it on one of our own models?
Related pages
Construction drawings
The 2D graphical record of design intent: plans, sections, elevations, details, schedules and title blocks, issued as sheets with revisions.
Drawing schedules (doors, windows, finishes, equipment)
Tabular schedules on drawings or in the model listing elements, their references, properties and locations, and the links between them and the plans.
As-built drawings and handover packs
The record set describing the building as constructed, together with the health and safety file and the information required for the golden thread.
Drawing coordination review
Checking architectural, structural and MEP sheets against each other for conflicts, missing references and inconsistent schedules before issue.
Handover pack structuring
Turning the handover deliverables into a structured asset and information register, with every record linked to its source document and drawing.