CalqLearn Calq: a building from A to Z / Part 11 Exchange
Take the model out
The Export menu: IFC in three schemas for coordination, gbXML for energy, DXF for CAD, and the files that travel beside them.
You will open the Export menu on Calq's sample house and see which file each partner of the project needs: the IFC schemas, the energy model, the CAD plans, and the handover and issue files.
Every file is written from the one model to an open standard: IFC (ISO 16739-1) by buildingSMART, its elements classed by Uniclass 2015, each file named by its ISO 19650 container ID.
01Choose the IFC schema
Open Export at the right of the title strip. The menu lists every file Calq writes from the model, in your browser. Three are IFC, the open format every BIM tool reads:
- IFC4 Reference View, the one to choose unless a partner asks for another: coordination with Revit, ArchiCAD, Solibri and the web viewers.
- IFC 4.3, the newest schema, for site and infrastructure work.
- IFC2X3 Coordination View 2.0, for tools that read nothing newer.
All three come from the same writer. Each wall, slab, door, window and room goes out as its IFC class (IfcWall, IfcSlab, IfcDoor, IfcWindow, IfcSpace) with the standard property and quantity sets and its Uniclass 2015 code, under its storey. Its GlobalId stays the same from one export to the next, so a partner's tool sees a changed wall as the same wall.
02Energy and CAD
1 gbXML 0.37 is the energy model: the rooms and the faces that bound them, each face split by the space on its other side, for an energy analysis tool.
2 DXF R12 plans writes every storey's plan as AutoCAD R12 DXF, in millimetres from the project base point, its layers named by ISO 13567. Calq writes DXF, not DWG: open the DXF in AutoCAD or any CAD and save it as a DWG there.
03The files beside the model
1 COBie 2.4 is the handover workbook: spaces, zones, types and components, tied to the IFC by GlobalId. 2 and 3 are the model's issues as BCF 2.1, the version most tools read, and BCF 3.0. 4 is what the project's stage asks of the model, as a buildingSMART IDS file any IDS checker reads.
Above the files, Sheet PDF and Sheet Set print drawing sheets (Part 9), and Revit link opens the link to Revit, the last lesson of this part.
04Export with a free account
Click a file to write it: it is written in your browser and lands in your downloads, named by the model's ISO 19650 container ID (Part 1). On the open board, without an account, Calq first asks you to sign in or make a free account, as here: the drawing is saved first, then exported. Every export is on the free account.