BIM interoperability

The Autodesk commitment to interoperability

Buildings and infrastructure are complex, as are the Building Information Modeling (BIM) data and applications that support them. Autodesk offers more applications that further a BIM workflow than any other vendor. But we believe that AEC professionals need to be able to use any application from any vendor at any stage in design, construction, and operations processes. Autodesk is committed to advancing that degree of interoperability throughout the industry.

Autodesk supports buildingSMART International, the organization that develops and maintains the IFC standard, the leading interoperability standard. More than 100,000 users have downloaded our IFC Open Source export for Revit since 2011. No other vendor holds as many IFC import and export certifications.

Autodesk has supported the buildingSMART initiative on COBie (Construction Operations Building Information Exchange) BIM data standard. In January 2013, we completed the independently audited buildingSMART Alliance COBie Design Challenge for Architectural Design and Coordinated Design, achieving 100% positive marks with a complete COBie deliverable that required no additional processing or edits.

As the first major CAD vendor to run our applications on nonproprietary hardware, the Autodesk commitment to openness runs deep. Autodesk:

• Released an open way to get data in and out of our flagship application before any other major CAD vendor (DXF)
• Made our IFC import/export tool for Revit open source
• Secured the rigorous IFC 2.0 Coordination View certification in the first wave of vendors
• Helped found the International Alliance for Interoperability, which became buildingSMART
• Provides buildingSMART with solid support in its effort to further BIM openness