BIM Programming

Abstract

This chapter describes different possibilities for programming BIM applications with particular emphasis on processing data in the vendor-neutral Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) exchange format. It describes how to access data in STEP clear text encoding and discusses the differences between early and late binding. Given the increasingly important role of ifcXML in the exchange of IFC data, the chapter also examines different access variants such as SAX (Simple API for XML) and DOM (Document Object Model), and discusses the different geometry representations of IFC and their interpretation. Furthermore, the chapter gives a brief overview of the development of add-ins as a means of allowing existing software to be adapted to user-specific needs. The chapter ends with a brief overview of cloudbased platforms and a short introduction to visual programming.

Quantifying Geometric Changes in Bim-Gis Conversion

“…Starting from version IFC4, NURBS surfaces are also supported for describing surfaces in BRep. Interpretating the geometric information embedded in IFC correctly is an essential but complex process for a software tool, as it needs to support all representation methods defined by IFC (Amann et al, 2018).…”