Lobbyist Wars and BIM Development. Part 1: Format STEP-IFC and how Revit conquered the CAD world.
By: Artem Boiko
Tags: Bim, Revit, Autodesk, Ifc, Construction

In the 17th century, every advanced Dutch farmer wanted to get hold of a tulip; in 2017, an advanced internet user wanted to buy Bitcoin. Nowadays, every advanced construction company dreams of using 3D-7D BIM in their planning and the competitive advantages that this technology will bring them.

This series of articles focuses on the uneven development of BIM across countries. This topic cannot be started without a short excursion into the history of the emergence of BIM programs or, more precisely, the data formats that have now led to a lobbying struggle for the possibility of planning $10 trillion of new construction contracts each year and, as a result, to a very uneven development of BIM in different countries.

In this article we will answer the question: where did STEP, IFC and buildingSMART come from, how a Soviet mathematician helped AutoCAD to conquer the world market for СAD and why Autodesk rarely mentions Revit in its financial statements.

The main events tree will help you follow the information presented in this article. To add a comment to this diagram or to consider in more detail individual fragments of the map, follow the link: BIM development map from 1980 to the present

Creation of IFC and buildingSMART

How did the active introduction of BIM begin, without which it will be impossible to imagine the construction of any facility in any country in the world already in 2030?

Like much in this world, BIM began with a conflict -> an arms race and -> military technology, or rather, with the STEP format (Standard for the Exchange of Product model data). This format was created at the end of the Cold War between the USSR and the United States by companies involved in the design of complex military equipment in the first 3D modeling programs. After the military firms only oil and gas firms were the first to use these technologies where large profit margins allowed oil corporations to use these new “very expensive” technologies, which were still in their infancy.

The conflict between two giants ended with the defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The level of orders for military equipment and missiles declined, and the military bureaus repurposed their work for the civilian sector.

The margins in the production of “pots and buildings” are less than in the production of tanks and aircraft, so interest in the further development of the 3D STEP format began to wane, and the creators of CAD (computer-aided design) for the military industry reoriented to the less profitable civil engineering industry.

At the same time, by the end of the 80s, the new AutoCAD program, as the flagship product of the young Autodesk company, just 4 years after its creation, became the most widely used 2D CAD software in the world.

Along with the success of the DWG format for 2D modeling, Autodesk began to look towards a new promising direction — 3D design, while the question arose of creating a new format that will replace DWG and STEP.

By this time, the peak of popularity of the military STEP format had already passed, but at the same time it remained the leader of the still little-known 3D design. Since a rich infrastructure has already been created around the STEP format in the form of a mass of specifications in the status of ISO standards, this format attracted the attention of Autodesk, which, after the success of its first AutoCAD program, was engaged in the development of new products for various industries, including architecture, civil engineering and mechanical engineering.

Developers of the new format from Autodesk did not have a rich imagination, and they did not have the opportunity to apply it — they were given very modest deadlines, and the task looked very global. Therefore, they took as a basis the old military STEP format, or rather Application Protocol 225. More on this in the third part:

To take control of the creation of a new format, standards and their further development, Autodesk, together with a cartel of consulting and telecommunications firms, creates a new format IFC to replace the outdated STEP.

So in 1994 the “new” IFC format was born, which in the future will successfully replace the STEP format. It can be assumed that the format itself was fully developed by Autodesk, and its further development should have taken place under his strict guidance, and the standards and rules for use for this new format were written by the rest of the parties to the transaction, who established the rules according to their needs.