Transfer of Architectural Data from the IFC Building Product

A standardized, object-oriented building product model for buildings is introduced that can be used as a means of electronic exchange between various software tools. The ability to transfer architectural data between a commercially available computer-aided design (CAD) program and a widely available zone fire simulation tool illustrates the applicability of this model in fire engineering. This article describes the software developed to interpret the building product model and the test buildings used to verify the exchange process. In general the building geometry, topology, and other properties can be transferred satisfactorily but some inconsistencies exist due to the structure of the building product model, the CAD implementation of the model, and the simplifications required by the zone modeling approach.