IFCTERRAIN – A FREE AND OPEN SOURCE TOOL TO CONVERT DIGITAL TERRAIN MODELS (DTM) TO OPENBIM INDUSTRY FOUNDATION CLASSES (IFC)

Abstract

Digital Terrain Models (DTM) play an important role for digital twins of the built environment. However, if the Building Information Modeling method (BIM) is used, many engineers find it difficult to provide BIM-compliant terrain models. We present a small tool with which classic DTM, which have been created by landsurveyors or geospatial engineers, can be converted into the format Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) in order to be used in openBIM projects. This paper first clarifies the use cases and then goes into detail on possible configurations of the transformation process. With the presented software tool IfcTerrain the user may select different export options concerning IFC object type of the terrain, geometric representation, georeferencing or the annotation with metadata. IfcTerrain is free and open source and was developed in the context of an educational institution.