An ontology-based analysis of the industry foundation class schema for building information model exchanges

Robust knowledge sharing frameworks between different stakeholders in a building project is of high priority. Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) provides a rich schema for interoperability through object-based transactions. However, IFC lacks semantic clarity in mapping entities and relationships, resulting in multiple definitions to map the same information between different federated models. The objective of this research is to examine IFC from a perspective of an ontological framework, which can make the IFC definitions more formal, consistent and unambiguous. Different methods of ontological approaches to engineering knowledge are reviewed. Various issues such as the need for a logical framework, the current semantic approaches in the AEC/FM industry, and advantages of building an ontology structure are addressed. A comparative study of the ontology and segments of the existing IFC schema definition are performed. This exercise reveals the ambiguous nature of current IFC definitions and proposes reforms such that data exchanges would be more semantically robust. An ontology would structure the overall interoperability of BIM tools by providing a formal and consistent taxonomy and classification structure for extending IFC and for defining subsets as model view definitions (MVD).