Development of process for interoperability improvement of BIM data for free-form buildings design using the IFC standard

The introduction of BIM into complex buildings is essential and open BIM environment for communication between different kinds of work is an important element with the increasing demand for freeform buildings considering the value as being landmarks. IFC which is a standard integration model in the construction industry has been developed in buildingSMART International aiming for the interoperation of different information model tools. IFC is not only compatible for geometry information but also compatible for property information of the construction, and the standard protocol for data exchange in CAD tool representing BIM has been established for IFC. However, extensive time and costs have been spent since the geometry information is separately established and utilized in the certain software due to poor communication regarding precise geometry information in free-from projects of large scale. Information delivery has been insufficient because of not using BIM authoring tools but CAD-tools. The purpose of this study was to propose the process allowing the conversion of free-from shape into IFC file and the conversion with BIM software by coding the information regarding complex shape of free-from buildings. For this, the improvement in compatibility for geometry information and property information of free-form buildings is expected and improvement in communication and reduction in work duration and costs in different works in each area of the construction industry handling complex shape and property information are ultimately expected.