IFC-based Data Structure Design for Web Visualization

Daejin Lee, Wonik Choi

http://doi.org/

When using IFC data consisting of STEP schema based on the EXPRESS language, it is not easy for collaborating project stakeholders to share BIM modeling shape information. The IFC viewer application must be installed on the desktop PC to review the BIM modeling shape information defined within the IFC, because the IFC viewer application not only parse STEP structure information model but also process the 3D feature construction for a 3D visualization. Therefore, we propose a lightweight data structure design for web visualization by parsing IFC data and constructing 3D modeling data. Our experimental results show the weight reduction of IFC data is about 40% of original file size and the web visualization is able to see the same quality with all web browsers which support WebGL on PCs and smartphones. If applied research is conducted about the web visualization based on IFC data of the last construction phase, it could be utilized in various fields ranging from the facility maintenance to indoor location-based services.