The buildingSMART standards are often expressed as technologies which can be leveraged in existing industry tools and platforms, or serve as the basis for new ones. These open, international standard technical specifications are crucial to the transformation of the built environment industry and central to its effective digitization. These core technologies include:
- Industry Foundation Classes (IFC)
- BIM Collaboration Format (BCF)
- Model View Definitions (MVDs) and the new Information Delivery Specification (IDS).
All provide important, complementary functions for the exchange of Building Information Models (BIMs) among different software products and platforms. Also complementary to these standards, are other initiatives which help enrich implementation such as:
- IFC formats – STEP, JSON, XML, RDF/TTL and more;
- buildingSMART Data Dictionary (bSDD)