Understanding of IFC, IDM, IFD, MVD, and BCF

What is the difference between IFC, IDM, IFD, MVD, and BCF?

The global authority on open BIM, buildingSMART, has developed a number of international standards to support open BIM.

They maintain a variety of open solutions, including the ones listed below:

1- IFC (Industry Foundation Class): a data structure for exchanging information that is available in file format. IFC, . IFCxml, . IFCzip.

IFC enables the storage and interchange of pertinent data between software applications. This technique has the benefit of being extendable with new property sets. It is an object-based data structure specified by ISO 16739.

2- IDM (Information Delivery Manuals): is a way of defining exchanged processes and information. IDMs are process diagrams that are used to implement processes in software systems.

3- IFD (Information Framework Dictionary/ buildingSMART Data Dictionary) is implemented as the bSDD in order to define and convert attributes across languages.

4- Model View Definition (MVD) is a filter that retains only the data that must be shared. A MVD defines a subset of data; for the IFC schema, an MVD is required to satisfy one or more AEC industry interchange standards. MVDs are used to specify information exchange requirements and to certify software as being capable of importing and exporting those requirements. Among the released MVDs are the following: -IFC 2x3 coordination view; -COBie 2.4 (formerly IFC 2x3 FM handover view). IFC4 reference view.

5- BCF (BIM Collaboration Format): a format for communication back to the source of the material. BCF is now under study as a suggested standard by buildingSMART. The way it operates is that BCF attaches comments to objects within the information model. BCF is a file format that supports workflow communication by encapsulating messages from the design team and feeding the information back to the authoring software.