ABSTRACT
The advanced features that BIM software offers
have contributed to a considerable shift to the
way IT is used in the construction industry. The
exchange of BIM files is currently dominated by
proprietary solutions, meaning projects must see
to it that all collaborators have compatible soft-
ware from the same vendor. An open file format
has been developed to serve the market with an
open standard, the IFC, which has been in active
development for over ten years (iai-international.
org). However, the actual IFC project makes up
only a small part of all actual time and effort put
into standardization work required to make the
standard what it is today. The technical founda-
tions of the IFC standard reach back to standardi-
zation work done on open geometrical standards
for multiple industries. Work began in 1984 within
the ISO 10303 project, which is more commonly
known as the STEP project. (iai-international.
org; Gielingh, 2008). So far IFC has not gained
larger scale industry uptake outside individual
pilot projects (Kiviniemi, Tarandi, Karlshøj, Bell,
Karud, 2008), which is one of the primary motiva-
tors for the analysis in this paper.
