BIM Fit Check: Round 2

Georeferencing and Alignment Exchanges in IFC 4.3

23. September 2025
Štefan Jaud

Štefan Jaud served as Technical Lead for the second BIM Fit Check, held September 23, 2025 during the buildingSMART International Summit. For the first time, two use cases ran on the same afternoon — alignment exchange and georeferencing, both in IFC 4.3, each with its own test models, evaluation criteria, and jury. Both scenarios come directly from what infrastructure engineering firms deal with on real projects.

Photos: Jens Pottharst / buildingSMART Deutschland e. V.

The georeferencing track ran the same scenario as the first round in Essen — same question, same IFC 4.3 entities, extended to a new set of participants.

The alignment exchange track worked through railway and road exchange scenarios. The test asks whether the semantic alignment structure survives even the round trip scenario: IfcAlignment, IfcRelNests, IfcLinearElement, horizontal and vertical segments, all present and intact in IFC 4.3.

The day

September 23, 2025: The buildingSMART International Summit had gathered in Berlin that week to mark thirty years of buildingSMART Germany. Both BIM Fit Check tracks ran that day at the Titanic Chaussee hotel — nine companies on the alignment exchange, three on georeferencing, two separate juries evaluating independently.

Alignment exchange

Nine companies tested their software against the alignment exchange use case:

Company Software
AKG Software Consulting GmbH VESTRA INFRAVISION
albert.ing GmbH squirrel
A+S Consult GmbH KorFin®
IB&T Software GmbH card_1
QLX GmbH smarttrass
RIB Software GmbH RIB Civil
ProVI GmbH ProVI CAD
Safe Software Ltd. with con.terra GmbH FME Platform
thinkproject GmbH VDC Manager

Jury: Andreas Pinzenöhler (IQSOFT GmbH), Peter Bonsma (RDF Ltd.), Richard Brice (Bridge and Structures Office, Washington State, USA).


Georeferencing

Three companies tested correct coordinate reference system handling in IFC: RIB Software GmbH, A+S Consult GmbH and Safe Software Ltd. with con.terra GmbH.

Jury: Prof. Dr. Christian Clemen (HTW Dresden), Andreas Geiger (KIT), Christoph Kautter (DB InfraGO AG).

Congratulations!

All nine passed

Dr. Christian Schlosser from the Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs and Transport presented the certificates at the event. The participants also received a digital badge, commemorating their success.