BSPRO COM-SERVER: interoperability between software tools using industry foundation classes

The continuing development of the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) standard by the International Alliance for Interoperability (IAI) creates new possibilities for achieving interoperability for design software through the use of a common object model of the building and its open data transfer standard. Several architectural CAD tools are already IFC compliant. However, in-depth knowledge of the highly complex IFC object model is required to develop IFC-compliant software. It has proven quite difficult to read the huge amount of building data stored in an IFC file, extract the information needed by a particular application, and correctly update the IFC file with new data. To make this work easier for developers not familiar with the IFC, Olof Granlund Oy has developed a new development tool, BSPro COM-Server for IFC Files. Using this tool, a software developer of new or existing tools can achieve IFC compatibility with a quite reasonable amount of work.