Development of IFC 5 focuses on enhancing AEC software interoperability by simplifying and improving data exchange
Graphisoft, a global leader in openBIM solutions, hosted the latest General Assembly of Implementers meeting on February 5-6, 2025, at Graphisoft Park in Budapest, Hungary. Graphisoft CEO Daniel Csillag opened the two-day event, which brought together industry experts, technology innovators, and openBIM implementers from around the globe to discuss the future of buildingSMART’s standards and solutions.
With 40+ active participants from 19 countries, the meeting focused heavily on the future development of IFC 5 — the next generation of the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) standard, aimed at simplifying and improving data exchange in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) sector.
After a morning of updates and discussions around buildingSMART’s standards and solutions, the attendees split into several sub-groups for an IFC 5 hackathon. Focus areas for the groups included workflows, properties, materials, alignment, and georeferencing.
Key outcomes of the hackathon included:
Agreement on principles and scope of IFC 5
First demonstrations of IFC 5 data shared between multiple software tools
A roadmap for the next 6 months of development
“It was a pleasure to host the gathering of so many passionate people from the world’s top AEC/O software developers,” said Holger Kreienbrink, director of Product Intelligence and Partnerships at Graphisoft. “These meetings show that by working through buildingSMART, even competitors can move forward together on the shared goal of interoperability. IFC 5 will be a big step forward and opens new possibilities.”
“The principle of IFC 5 is that multiple users contribute pieces of data to the overall dataset,” said Léon van Berlo, technical director at buildingSMART International. “It was wonderful to see everyone contributing to parts of the overall IFC 5 definition in a place that has so much history for IFC. Working on the ‘rebirth of IFC’ in the same location that contributed so much to the original principles was very special.”
In the short term, Graphisoft will attend the upcoming buildingSMART International Summit on March 18-20 in Singapore with parent company Nemetschek Group, a Platinum Event Partner. This continued partnership highlights Graphisoft and the Nemetschek Group’s commitment to shaping the global digital construction ecosystem and fostering industry-wide collaboration through open standards and interoperability.
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