IFC and DXF export: the model goes into CAD and back

What it gives you

• Elements, not triangles

  Walls, openings, slabs and rooms are elements in the IFC, the floor plan is lines on layers in the DXF: meant as a starting point in your planning software.

• Layers after the AIA guidelines

  A-WALL-EXTR, A-WALL-INTR, A-DOOR, A-GLAZ and more. Offices map them onto their own standard on import.

• Plan and model line up

  One drawing unit is one metre, and x and y in the DXF are those of the IFC. Floor plan and model lie on top of each other.

• IFC comes in as a house

  The import reads storeys, walls, openings, rooms, roof, location and north and creates a plan per storey that the editor, the checks, pictures and clips work with.

How it works

1. 01Finish the modelCheck the floor plans, set storeys, heights and roof. The buttons export what is on the screen.
2. 02Download as IFCIn the “Look” tab, “Download as IFC” writes the whole building as an IFC4 file to your device.
3. 03Download the floor plan as DXFIn the “Plan” tab, “Download floor plan as DXF” writes the storey open in the editor as DXF R12.
4. 04Open in your planning softwareThe IFC through your program’s IFC import, the DXF as a drawing in metres. Check door swings and stairs; both are assumptions.
5. 05Take over an IFCFor the way back, choose “IFC from Archicad, Revit or Vectorworks” when starting a project, let the browser read the file and look at the report.
6. 06Confirm the materialsUncertain matches between a material and a facade you choose once; the software remembers them. “Take over as an editable house” creates a plan per storey.

What the IFC and the DXF contain

The IFC is IFC4 in metres: project, site, building and storeys with their height; walls as IfcWall with axis, body and a layer set of their thickness; doors and windows as IfcDoor and IfcWindow in an opening; slabs, terraces and balconies; the roof as a slab on a flat roof, as prisms per wing on a gable or shed roof; stairs; rooms as IfcSpace with number, name and net floor area. With an address or coordinates set, latitude, longitude, true north and the reference to WGS 84/UTM are added. Element ids stay the same in a second export as far as nothing changed.

The DXF is AutoCAD R12 as text, one storey per file: wall faces with closed corners and jambs, doors with leaf and swing, windows with frame and glass, stairs, terraces and balconies, room outlines with name and area, and a title. The layers are A-WALL-EXTR, A-WALL-INTR, A-DOOR, A-GLAZ, A-FLOR-STRS, A-FLOR-DECK, A-AREA, A-AREA-IDEN and A-ANNO-TITL.

What was checked and what was not

Example files from the “Haus Lindenweg” study are public at /beispiel/haus-lindenweg.ifc and /beispiel/haus-lindenweg.dxf; the DXF takes ?storey=-1, 0 or 1 for basement, ground floor and upper floor. Load them into your program before you rely on the export.

What we checked on 1 November 2026: the IFC reads back with an open IFC library and passes the validation of IfcOpenShell 0.8 with the EXPRESS rules without a finding; every body can be triangulated. The DXF passes the audit of ezdxf 1.4 without errors. We did not open the files in Archicad, Revit or AutoCAD themselves. How your program takes over layer sets, rooms or layers only your own test will show.

IFC coming in: an editable house

The browser reads the file on your device; only the floor plans made from it are stored. A wall becomes the smallest rectangle around its body, a storey is a level with at least three full-height walls, doors and windows come through their opening in the wall, the roof from its type or the pitch of its faces. A building lying rotated is turned onto the grid, and north follows.

The report gives counts, location, notes and the rooms with the area from the file beside the one from VEDUTUM. Existing plans are replaced only after you confirm. The older route, converting an IFC to a GLB for viewing only, remains beside it; the “IFC import” page describes it.