BIM content Library; Autodesk supports IFC?

[Anonymous]

We currently use 3 of the 4 major BIM authoring apps (ADT & Revit included) at our firm and overall we feel this is a wise strategy for us. As one would expect one of our primary challenges is to coordinate centrally managed resources such as BIM content libraries. Like most design firms we populate our central BIM resource library (BIM content files and otherwise) by routinely harvesting data from past projects. Our goal then is to make available these harvested nuggets to all future project teams regardless of which of the 3 BIM authoring apps is chosen to be used on that project. The pebble in my shoe, of course, is the current hostility amongst the various packages toward supporting a non-proprietary file exchange standard for BIM content such as IFC represents. Ideally I'd love the luxury of having to maintain our content library in one shareable non-propraitary file format such as IFC but I'm a realist as well so I understand that this ideal environment may never come to fruition. I do expect, however, that each of the BIM authoring software vendors would recognize the value of and therefore fully embrace a common exchange format for content files since that would have a tremendous positive effect on the BIM movement overall. I recall the saying as being "a rising tide floats all boats" or something like that.

I'm puzzled somewhat when my observations seems to contradict this wisdom about how the industry succeeds in moving itself forward I think I may have acquired. As a general rule I do, however, try periodically to step back, put myself in the other's shoes and question my initial perceptions, giving the benefit of doubt, and genuinely try to understand whether there is in fact some wisdom hidden in the decisions of others which I may have missed. Hence the reason for my post. I've noticed that while it's comparatively easy for us to share BIM content files created by our project teams who've chosen to utilize Bentley's BIM software products and, even though we don't use or have plans to adopt Graphisoft's ArchiCAD software, I witness that ArchiCAD also seems to be eagerly embracing the notion of a shared non-proprietary file exchange format (IFC) for BIM content...for some reason Autodesk products are much less accomodating to this idea. Specifically I struggle to understand why I am unable to save or export a Revit2010 family out to an IFC file. Could it be that I'm missing some basic understanding of the relational concept of Revit families to Revit projects (which we are allowed to export to IFC) which would explain this seemingly peculiar decision by Autodesk?

I welcome thoughtful feedback from other CAD/BIM leaders who may find themselves in similar predicaments at their firms as well as insightful feedback from Autodesk product managers themselves.

[jmcintyre]

I would speculate it's not in Adesk's best interest to have seemless IFC transfer. The other, smaller software vendors have always been quicker to embrase conversion from other formats, (how many years could Microstation read DWG files before acad could read DGN files?) as they are in the minority want to avoid their clients moving away from the software. Adesk, on the other hand has a massive majority and see their software as the industry standard, so why would they make it easy for 'other' programs to talk to theirs?

[omc-usnr]

Autocad reads DGN files? You're joking, right?

Yeah, I know they "say" they can import a DGN, but have you seen the resultant mess? Not usable.

Reid

[Anonymous]

Yes I too am cynical enough to expect that to be the official Autodesk response but I’m hoping for a more enlightened one expressing a long term vision that, of course, strives to retain their dominant competitive position but in a way that embraces the notion of expanding the economic impact of the BIM software market segment overall. I’m trying hard to avoid the temptation of my own cynicism and give Autodesk execs the benefit of the doubt.

Perhaps a rant here is a little off the main point of requesting an Autodesk official policy of supporting IFC but I can’t help myself. I believe that such a predatory posture as you describe toward towards competition while in such a dominant market position would threaten to choke their market segment overall from expanding as it naturally would in response to some much broader economic pressures I think we’re witnessing right now. I believe their markets are poised to expand tremendously in the near term in what I think could be a very positive reaction to a variety of current worldwide economic pressures. Clash detection software analysis solutions such as Navisworks and Solibri are already proving their worth to the industry. And soon we should start seeing all the sustainability products such as Ecotect begin to show their value too. Who’s to say where this sort of innovation should stop…or even slow down? I recognize that the Autodesk marketing execs are quite capable and might even prove able to throttle this pending software market expansion to the point necessary for them to retain their near monopoly position in their market niche…but I propose that that sort of throttling of the market hand would not be healthy for the AEC sector of the economy overall. I’m hoping to hear, in this thread or otherwise, from Autodesk’s executive decision makers that they do recognize how intertwined their long term corporate fortunes are to the health of the AEC sector overall and will choose to steer their firm’s product development appropriately. The dangers down the road, in my opinion, are that either our justice dept will determine, as they eventually did with the railroad trusts some years ago (I’m sure there are other perhaps more directly appropriate examples), that the sort of stranglehold you describe on the broader economy requires some sort of government intervention or, in the absence of that sort of governmental display of wisdom+courage, then we could eventually see this particular software sector play out the same sort of slow death march we’ve been witnessing lately among the major auto manufacturers. A more optimistic example though which I think we could point to is of an industry standardizing around a non-proprietary standard, TCP/IP, and the resultant now enormous segment of our economy which is still building up around the internet infrastructure. And probably the willingness of the once fledgling auto industry to embrace a standard fuel type, gasoline (hopefully soon to evolve now into a standard battery config), and the subsequent explosion of that industry is another fine example of how this amazing phenomena works…if only we can avoid the short term temptations+benefits of indulging our greed and arrogance and remember that capitalism only thrives when we adhere to the big picture concepts of supporting a true free enterprise system. I could go on and on but I expect the point is overly made already so I’ll step down from my soapbox now. Hopefully any ego bruises I’ll sustain here for my preaching indulgance will be minimal.

Any insights as to why not facilitate an IFC export from a Revit family when this same functionality exists from an rvt file?

[dgorsman]

Most likely, same as any other business decision: somebody ran a few calculations and determined that the value put in would exceed the value they get out of it.

[Anonymous]

I appreciate the prompt removal of the troll comments by the forum moderator. I suppose I provoked that response with my inclusion of the terms greed and/or arrogance in my rant, though inflaming the Autodesk user base is certainly not my intention. I'll log that observation as a lesson and try to be more careful in my tone in the future. Irrespective of any IFC related frustrations I may have our firm does genuinely, after all, view Autodesk, Bentley, Solibri and a variety of other software companies as partners in our quest to provide the best possible design services to our clients. One of the things I am hoping to provoke, however, is a public response of some sort by an appropriate Autodesk product development person regarding IFC output specifically from Revit families.

Is this missing functionality merely an oversight? And if so is it soon to be corrected? Or might the relationship between Revit families to Revit projects be more complicated than I'm perceiving such that providing IFC export capability from the family editor also might indeed represent more effort than it's worth?

[jmcintyre]

Ah, no. I've never had the opportunity to experience the delights of importing DGN files, but Adesk made it a 'new feature' so I foolishly expected it to work (silly me). This thread raises a good question and I use the analogy of when a company I used to work for purchased Oce plotters. We found (back then) that these plotters didn't read HPGL files at all well. When I asked the tech to explain he looked at me with disdain and asked why they should read any other format. It'd be great if every printer used the same common driver/language but that won't happen.
The same could be argued about any product.

[bgrosso]

There's another step involved. There are many things for which the value accrued exceeds the value invested, but our resources do have a limit so we also need to look for where the most value accrues. In addition, with IFC investment we have the additional guidance of what is actually covered by the certification process.

[Anonymous]

apart from the money aspect that others have already touched on

Autodesk are unable to develop an efficient file sharing format for their own suit of software tools........so wholeheartedly signing up to the IFC campaign.......would lead to public humiliation as they would look like clowns when they were unable to deliver where others can

[dgorsman]

We do see the occaisonal AutoDesk person in here, but its far from frequent outside of *very* new products like Plant3D. Remember, those at AutoDesk who know such plans or information are usually unable to discuss such issues publicly (or even privately with non-team members). The best I can suggest is get in on Beta testing. If you prove yourself capable of providing sincere, productive feedback you may be provided an opportunity to help steer features for new releases.

While you may justly view the various software vendors as partners, they are under no obligation to view their competitors (including supporting different formats) as such even if they all provide you products. How much support do *you* give your competitor companies?

[Anonymous]

Yes certainly I cannot argue against the idea that one must carefully restrict the amount of help one provides to one's competitors but we all do some amount of information sharing in the interest of helping the overall industry progress. Just a quick glance at my bookshelf I see, for example, the AIA's Architectural Graphic Standards publication sitting alongside various CSI publications. Directly in front of me on my bulletin board are outlines of MasterFormat and Uniformat for quick reference. If I turn around the designer seated directly behind me has a LEED publication out on his desk...and so on. We have several employees at our firm who actively participate in USGBC, CSI, AIA, etc activities which benefit not only our firm but other firms just like ours whom we compete directly against for projects. We're careful not to divulge any proprietary secrets of ours or our clients and, in fact, are usually contractually bound to be careful in that way. These forums are filled with people who are doing exactly what you're talking about; helping their fellow competitors work through training related or other issues while successfully balancing that against their need to remain competitive in the market. I'm sensitive to the danger you describe; it's absolutely a valid concern. My observation, however, has been that quite often potential clients will even attach some value to that sort of leadership activity...as long as they're comfortable that you're competant enough to avoid divulging any bonafide trade secrets they may need to share with you in the process of completing their projects. It's a concern sure but it's certainly manageable. I think you also have to factor in the cost associated with what if everyone refused to share these sorts of common framework things. Edited by: brianyeo4527 on Mar 11, 2010 4:17 AM

[Anonymous]

Your printing analogy is actually not a bad one. And it did happen. We could draw the parallel of why Autodesk might be reluctant to accommodate DGN import/export directly to why Oce might be reluctant to accomodate the digestion of HPGL files directly since this was/is, in fact, a proprietary format developed by one of their direct competitors. Even though it was for many years a defacto standard it wasn't truly neutral to the competitors so widespread adoption of it naturally favored HP products. That it became a defacto standard is because HP was better at writing drivers than their competitors but that's not really the point. What we see now in our office, and I suspect yours as well, is much more scalable. We've standardized on a WindowsServer environment for all our printers and all of our applications, including the Autodesk ones utilize Windows WYSIWYG print drivers just fine. So to support our environment each of the printer hardware manufacturers whose products we use now only need to focus their driver development on one common standard which is neutral with respect to them and their competitors...at least until Microsoft decides they should expand their market to include the printer hardware manufacturing business. A nice byproduct of this "new" infrastructure design is that it also helps to free us, the end users, from limitations imposed by the antiquated pen plotter language itself. This is another example, I think, of the adoption of a non-proprietary (relative to the printer manufacturers) standard enabling the industry to progress to its next logical stage of development.