IFC Road

IFC Infrastructure Deployments

Throughout 2018 and 2019, buildingSMART ran a suite of parallel projects to extend the scope of IFC for a variety of infrastructure domains. Following a series of workshops, the Railway Room and the Infrastructure Room established a strong collaboration to undertake harmonization between these projects and as a result, the "IFC Infrastructure Extensions" project was formed.

The IFC Infrastructure Extensions project is a harmonised approached to linear infrastructure assets incorporating Road, Rail, Bridge and Ports and Waterways. These individual projects are operating across different time frames with different milestones. They do however address common concepts with significant overlap. These domain projects address several concepts that are common. Further to these domain focused areas, a further project was established called "Common Schema" to track those separate domain projects and to identify and define common concepts (such as spatial structure, geotechnics and earthworks, utility networks, etc.).  and to ensure a level of harmonisation and consistency in the development of the separate domain extensions. Two of those projects (Road and Ports & Waterways), having completed a “requirements definition” stage, were developing conceptual models and draft schema of their proposed extensions during much of 2019. The Rail project prepared three major reports (Requirement Analysis, Conceptual Model and Data Requirements) as part of the Candidate Standard package delivered ahead of the Beijing Summit (28-31 October 2019). The Common Schema project delivered extension proposals for key areas including geotechnics, earthworks, spatial structure and kinematic envelopes. By the middle of 2019, it was recognised that there was an urgent need to harmonise the work across those domains, taking into consideration the work previously completed ahead of the IFC Bridge Candidate Standard.

There was unanimous agreement across all the infrastructure project domains that our collaborative goal would be to deliver a single harmonised IFC schema extension proposal that incorporated all the proposed extensions (road, rail, ports & waterways and common schema).

Harmonized Candidate Standards

The collective harmonized Candidate Standards aim to deliver major standards and solutions for various infrastructure domains. Each domain has a dedicated web page that outlines the project and provides an opportunity for new members to get involved. You can read the full list of UML reports below.

IFC Road

Phase 1 Objectives

IFC Road has been a significant project for buildingSMART since it began. It has gone through a variety of changes and has evolved significantly, aiming to find alignment, harmonization and cross-collaboration with other Rooms. The team has also aimed to deliver the final standard in-line with the IFC infrastructure Deployment project, extending the schema to be fit for purpose for road infrastructure. The team has listed out their main objectives and scope for the project.

Objective 1:

Capture the requirements for IFC Road extension. This was based on the existing specifications and developments of work and was agreed in coordination with the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC).

Objective 2:

Participate and contribute to IFC Common Schema development, in order to find those concepts common to all proposed and future IFC schema extensions.

Objective 3:

Build on international consensus for the proposed scope for the IFC schema extension in the current IFC Road project.

Objective 4:

Build awareness and interest for additional participation and funding for Phase 2 to ensure testing and implementation is a success.

Scope:

  • Semantic description of the wide-spread road type
  • Semantic breakdown description
  • Geometry
  • Materials
  • Classification

Phase 1 Deliverables

In 2020, this project reached Candidate Standard and has entered the next phase of the project. Alongside the Infrastructure Deployments project, the team has delivered a variety of materials and deliverables that are widely available. You can see a list of Phase 1 deliverables below. There are also a wide range of Expert Panel webinars that can be viewed as part of the overall project.

Project Proposal

Capture the requirements for IFC Road extension. This was based on the existing specifications and developments of work and was agreed in coordination with the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC).

Project Execution Plan Phase 1

Participate and contribute to IFC Common Schema development, in order to find those concepts common to all proposed and future IFC schema extensions.

Requirements Analysis

Build awareness and interest for additional participation and funding for Phase 2 to ensure testing and implementation is a success.

Process Map

Build awareness and interest for additional participation and funding for Phase 2 to ensure testing and implementation is a success.

IFC Road Shared Folders

For access to the shared information folders, please click on the link below.

Expert Panel Webinars

Phase 2 Deliverables

During this phase, the aim was to deliver the IFC Road Candidate Standard, develop the schema extension and prepare for deployment. It was also recognized at this time that among all the ongoing infrastructure extension projects that included Road, Rail, Ports and Waterways that a more focused harmonisation of the schema was needed. The result was the delivery of 5 reports as part of the Infrastructure Extension project. Below you can find further deliverables for phase 2 of the project.

Candidate Standard

The IFC Road Candidate Standard was delivered in May 2020. This significant milestone was part of the coordinated IFC Infrastructure Deployment for harmonization across multiple domains. You can read the standard below.

Project Execution Plan Phase 2

The project team began work on phase 2 in February 2019 following the completion of the requirements analysis report from phase 1. This next phase focused on the schema extension and definitions of property sets for the IFC Road project.

Conceptual Model

The IFC data model for the roads domain was extended by describing semantics and geometry for road infrastructure. This report presents the concepts pertaining to the subset of the conceptual model as a result of the IFC project extension.

Conceptual Model: Annex I - Example Instance Diagrams

This annex shows examples of how the proposed new concepts may be used together with existing IFC concepts to model various situation in road design.

Conceptual Model: Annex II - Reading Guide

This supporting document provides a guide for how to read the IFC Road Conceptial Model Report.

Conceptual Model: Annex III - Contributor List

The report below is the full contributor list for the IFC Road project.

Prototypical Implementation

The aim of this work package was to prototypically implement the various concepts within the conceptual model already during its development stages and provide feedback throughout.

Infrastructure Deployment Project Call for Participation

The Candidate Standard was approved and delivered in May 2020. The next phase is for software testing and implementation in order to ensure a final standard. The project team is calling on domain experts and software vendors to start work on the standard. There is a direct sign-up below which closes July 15th and a regular contact the project team form as well.

Join the project as a domain expert or a software vendor

The IFC Road team is calling for domain experts and software vendors to get engaged with the project. Fill in the survey below.

Domain Expert
For domain experts, we are looking for the following information

  • Basic information about you and the organisation you represent (Half page)
  • Whether you accept the terms of the participation agreement
  • A brief description of your candidate storyline.
  • What exchange scenarios take place within the storyline and which of these you would like to test with us?
  • Have you defined a process map or a BIM execution plan?
  • Which use-cases do you envision your storyline will support?
  • Which topics do you envision your storyline will support?

Software Vendor

  • Basic information about you and the organisation you represent (Half page)
  • Whether you accept the terms of the participation agreement
  • For each software package you wish to use to test and validate the IFC4.3 standard:
    • A brief description of your software.
    • State whether you are interested in Importing, Exporting (or both) of IFC content.
    • Which use-cases do you envision your software will support?
    • Which topics do you envision your software will support?

Webinar: IFC 4.3 Infrastructure Deployment Porject Call for Participation

Next Steps: Objectives and Contact the Team

Objectives for the next phase of the project

The IFC Road team continues to work on delivering a final standard. There is also a joint commitment to the deployment project to deliver a harmonized standard with work continuing on the common schema project.

Primary areas of focus:

  • Identification of validation requirements and success indicators
  • Development of test cases
  • Implementation support
    • A major focus on software vendors
  • Test data validation
  • Feedback
  • Property set harmonization
  • Schema documentation updates
  • Final standard delivery
IFC Road

Call for Participation

buildingSMART International and the stakeholders of the IFC Road Project are inviting Road authorities, software vendors and software developers to join the next phase of the project. In the coming years, the teams will aim to deliver a final standard for the road industry.

Why should you get involved in the IFC Road project?

  • Ensure the multi-billion road market can develop open and digital ways of working
  • Engage with road experts from around the world
  • Become a market-leader in your industry.
  • Understand the immediate priorities in the road infrastructure standard
  • Getting information and a test base for the IFC Infrastructure 4.3 Standard
  • Be part of the exciting project and innovate with the team