{"id":456868,"date":"2020-08-11T08:49:58","date_gmt":"2020-08-11T06:49:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bim-me-up.com\/?p=456868"},"modified":"2021-04-23T16:13:53","modified_gmt":"2021-04-23T14:13:53","slug":"the-most-popular-ifc-viewers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bim-me-up.com\/en\/the-most-popular-ifc-viewers\/","title":{"rendered":"The most popular IFC viewers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Anyone working with openBIM and IFC also needs a good and preferably vendor-neutral viewer. As I am asked this question very often, I will summarize the most frequently used viewers here today. <strong>free of charge<\/strong> Viewer and my experiences with them - and of course I look forward to your comments and additions!<\/p>\r\n<p>TOP 5 vendor-neutral viewers:\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\r\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iai.kit.edu\/1302.php\">FZKViewer<\/a> developed by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) is used worldwide by IFC experts as THE neutral viewer and is often my first choice. Unfortunately, the graphical user interface is a bit old-fashioned and the navigation is not exactly intuitive. The FZKViewer is very compact and requires no installation - it is simply unpacked after downloading and can be started by double-clicking on the .exe file. <br \/><em>Platform: Windows<br \/><\/em>\u00a0<\/li>\r\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/openifcviewer.com\">open IFC Viewer<\/a> is a relatively new and neutral development from the Open Design Alliance (ODA). The viewer also claims to support experimental IFC features. I haven't tested it thoroughly yet, but it certainly sounds promising.\u00a0<br \/><em>Platform: Windows \/ MacOS <br \/><\/em>\u00a0<\/li>\r\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/support.bimcollab.com\/en\/zoom\/free-ifc-viewer\">BIMcollab ZOOM<\/a> is very intuitive and easy to use. Even though BIMcollab offers a paid PRO version, the free version is completely sufficient for viewing and checking IFC files. <br \/><em>Platform: Windows \/ MacOS<br \/><\/em>\u00a0<\/li>\r\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/bimvision.eu\/en\/download\/\">BIM Vision<\/a> is a modular IFC viewer with its own SDK. In the free version, it is a solid viewer and can be extended with various plug-ins that enable, for example, the merging of IFC files or the export of sub-areas into a new IFC. <br \/><em>Platform: Windows<br \/><\/em>\u00a0<\/li>\r\n<li><em><br \/>\u00a0<\/em><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>Other viewers (not manufacturer-neutral):\u00a0<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.solibri.com\/de\/download-solibri-anywhere\">Solibri Anywhere<\/a>\u00a0is clearly laid out, but also has its own logic and does not necessarily display the IFCs faithfully - Solibri automatically calculates quantities based on the values contained in the IFC, but these cannot be found in other viewers, which can lead to confusion.<br \/><em>Platform: Windows \/ MacOS<br \/><br \/><\/em><\/li>\r\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dds-cad.de\/produkte\/dds-cad-viewer\/\">DDS-CAD Viewer<\/a> has a good range of functions and even offers collision detection. <br \/><em>Platform: Windows<\/em><em> <br \/><\/em>\u00a0<\/li>\r\n<li>Another option that is often overlooked, but in many cases is also suitable for quickly and easily viewing IFC files in the browser, is the <a href=\"https:\/\/viewer.autodesk.com\">Autodesk Viewer<\/a> - IFC files (and many other formats) can be uploaded here free of charge and are available after a short processing time, including the tree structure and properties. The files remain available online for 30 days (extension possible) and can also be shared with others. <br \/>Autodesk BIM 360 is also based on this technology and offers all the functions of a CDE platform in addition to the viewer. <br \/><em>Platform: all (browser)<\/em><br \/>\u00a0<\/li>\r\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Last but not least, Navisworks can also be interesting for Autodesk users, as it is not free of charge, but as part of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.autodesk.de\">AEC Collection<\/a> and offers many other BIM management functionalities, such as 4D simulation or clash detection.<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><br \/><em>Platform: Windows<\/em><\/span><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>In any case, the viewers must be updated regularly (preferably automatically), as there are currently regular innovations in the IFC area, especially with regard to IFC4. I also always use 2-3 viewers (at least one of which is manufacturer-neutral) so that I can compare the results with each other if necessary.<\/p>\r\n<p>What are your experiences here and which viewers do you use?\u00a0<\/p>\r\n<p><strong>Update 13.8. - your recommendations:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\r\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cloud.ibtnet.de\/public\/card-1_desite_share\">DESITE Share<\/a> - Particularly good for infrastructure projects \/ IFC 4.1<\/p>\r\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.areddo.com\"><span id=\"ember1476\" class=\"ember-view\">Areddo IFC Viewer<\/span><\/a>\u00a0- Very high performance<\/p>\r\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?client=safari&amp;rls=en&amp;q=usbim.viewer%2B&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;oe=UTF-8\">usBIM.viewer+<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\r\n<p>Online Viewer: <a href=\"https:\/\/ifc-view.com\">bimspot ifs-view.com<\/a><\/p>\r\n<p>Mobile solution: <a href=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/de\/app\/3d-pdf-reader\/id569307672\">3D PDF Reader for iOS\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\r\n<p><em>Please vote for your \"favorites\" in the sidebar and feel free to add new suggestions - as soon as a viewer has 3 suggestions, I'll add it to the list. Thank you \ud83d\ude42<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anyone working with openBIM and IFC also needs a good and preferably vendor-neutral viewer. Since I...","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":456867,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,117],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-456868","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bim","8":"category-ifc","9":"cs-entry","10":"cs-video-wrap"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bim-me-up.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/IFC-Viewer.1c151acba2d648cd98ed1a8ebe4fa64d.png?fit=500%2C326&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2lEa7-1UQQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bim-me-up.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bim-me-up.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bim-me-up.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bim-me-up.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bim-me-up.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456868"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/bim-me-up.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":457071,"href":"https:\/\/bim-me-up.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456868\/revisions\/457071"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bim-me-up.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bim-me-up.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bim-me-up.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bim-me-up.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}