IFC4.3 version available in AECOsim Update 4

Hello Karina, 

I have attached below the exports options which are available in latest OpenBuildings Designer Update 9 CE release. 

Here also, we do not have IFC 4.3 export option as of now. We need to talk to Product management team to confirm about your queries. 

Thanks & Regards, 
Arindam Roy

Hello Karina, 

One update on Arindam's comment, our iTwin workflow support the export to IFC 4.3. Please have a look at the attached wiki to understand the workflow. 

Regards,
Alifur

Hello Alifur,

where can we find which exact version of IFC4 is implemented? There are a lot of intermediate versions like for example the "IFC4 Add2 TC1" which is the most current released and approved version if I'm not mistaken.

Hi Karina,
The IFC 4.3.0 version has been released as ISO just one month ago, as you can see here: https://technical.buildingsmart.org/standards/ifc/ifc-schema-specifications/ and AECOsim Update 4 was released in 2018, so it is impossible that version can support IFC 4.3.

In addition to that, IFC 4.3 schema is an extension of IFC4 to include Infrastructure entities for Rail, Roads... (https://www.buildingsmart.org/ifc-4-3-infra-and-rail-extension-deployment-production-standard-out-for-vote/) so my logical says that there will not be so much changes affecting to AECOsim / OpenBuildings Designer but to our civil product line (OpenRoads, OpenRail, etc...)

Regards,

Eduardo Cortes

@Karina, for your information the IFC workflow through iTwin / iModel as described in the link Alifur sent above is very limited. It will indeed generate an IFC 4x3 file with the correct geometry. But iModel doesn't recognize any "building" classification when using the default Microstation connector (which is the only possibility from the iTwin interface).

The result will be a "chaotic" IFC file that doesn't follow the usual structure of buildings/storeys and their linked elements. Even worse all elements will be classified as "ifcBuildingElementProxy". Not sure if the properties like quantities and pset_... will be included. But in my opinion the IFC4x3 file you can get with this workflow is far inferior to the IFC4 export directly from OBD.

It's a different story when importing IFC and I think even Revit files into the iModel. In those cases the proper ifc classification will be retained.