A Framework Architecture Proposal Focused on Industry Foundation Classes in the Context of BIM Methodology: Towards an Open Source Platform

Abstract

The use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) methodology has expanded in recent years. This increase is due to the establishment of an open standard of interoperability, called “OPEN BIM”, by large, multinational software companies in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction industry. Open BIM uses the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) standard as the primary tool for information exchange. A Systematic Literature Review (SLR) has been conducted on BIM and IFC, in which a gap in the development of studies on open source applications that use IFC as their main data structure has been identified. Thus, a framework architecture for general purpose BIM systems has been proposed, based on the IFC standard developed by buildinSMART. It has been sought to identify the key features and the functionalities of the main commercial software programs that currently exist on the market, based on the SLR and the current state of the art. In addition, the functional and non-functional requirements, which underpinned a component diagram (UML) of a framework architecture that represents the computer systems to be implemented in the BIM platform, and that are strongly linked to IFC, towards an open source platform, have been defined. A prototype of an open source software “Windows x Unity”, which, after discussing with 114 professionals of engineering and architecture areas, has been considered a promising tool, has been developed.