Autodesk to Help Drive Data Interoperability in AEC Industries

SAN RAFAEL, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADSK), a world leader in 3D design, engineering and entertainment software, announced that the company’s Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) exporter for its Revit products is now accessible as open source code, licensed through a LGPL v. 2.1 licensing agreement. Since 2005, Autodesk Revit products have provided IFC file export, making it possible to export replicas of project models to the standard IFC file format. IFC files can then be imported into any design program that is compliant with the same standard, helping to support greater interoperability in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry.

“For several years now, our customers have been asking for greater flexibility with the Revit IFC file format output”

Enabling the Revit IFC exporter code to be licensed as open source software provides users of Autodesk Revit products, including Autodesk Revit Architecture 2012, Autodesk Revit MEP 2012 and Autodesk Revit Structure 2012, with greater flexibility to customize their Revit IFC file output to help them better meet the needs of specific project or government IFC file input requirements. With access to the Revit IFC exporter source code, users can add custom parameter sets to elements exported to IFCs, or custom quantities to the elements exported. Users may also, for example, change the representation of the exported elements, should they find another, more useful encoding.

“For several years now, our customers have been asking for greater flexibility with the Revit IFC file format output,” said Jim Lynch, vice president, Building and Strategic Technology Group, Architecture, Engineering and Construction Solutions, Autodesk. “The decision to release the Revit IFC exporter code as open source furthers our ongoing commitment to support the IFC standard, and marks the latest demonstration of the Autodesk drive to encourage full data exchange within a Building Information Modeling workflow.”

The Revit IFC exporter open source code is managed by a five-member steering committee composed of one Autodesk employee and four members of the AEC Building Information Modeling (BIM) community. The Revit IFC Exporter Open Source Committee is chaired by Emile Kfouri, BIM application development manager, Architecture, Engineering and Construction Solutions, Autodesk.

Availability and More Information

The Revit IFC exporter open source code is now available. Access to the Revit IFC exporter open source code, as well as information regarding the Revit IFC Exporter Open Source Committee, can be found at the SourceForge repository at sourceforge.net/projects/ifcexporter. For more information about the IFC standard visit the buildingSMART organization site at www.buildingsmart.org.

About Autodesk BIM Solutions

Building Information Modeling (BIM) is an intelligent model–based process that provides insight for creating and managing building and infrastructure projects faster, more economically, and with less environmental impact. Autodesk BIM solutions for building and infrastructure lifecycles are based on intelligent models created with Autodesk Revit and AutoCAD Civil 3D software. Helping to expand the benefits of BIM is a powerful set of complementary solutions for visualizing and simulating projects virtually, documentation and professional drafting, and data management and collaboration. The Autodesk Building Design and Autodesk Infrastructure Design Suites offer a comprehensive set of tools to support BIM workflows in a single, cost-effective package.

About Autodesk

Autodesk, Inc., is a leader in 3D design, engineering and entertainment software. Customers across the manufacturing, architecture, building, construction, and media and entertainment industries-- including the last 16 Academy Award winners for Best Visual Effects-- use Autodesk software to design, visualize and simulate their ideas. Since its introduction of AutoCAD software in 1982, Autodesk continues to develop the broadest portfolio of state-of-the-art software for global markets. For additional information about Autodesk, visit www.autodesk.com.

Autodesk, AutoCAD, Civil 3D and Revit are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders. Academy Award is a registered trademark of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Autodesk reserves the right to alter product offerings and specifications at any time without notice, and is not responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in this document.