Construction / Building-Information-Modelling DSLs Family Index
type: language-family-index family: construction-bim languages_catalogued: 27 tags: [language-reference, family-index, construction-bim, ifc, step-express, ifc-spf, ifcxml, ifcowl, cis2, gbxml, cobie, bcf, bsdd, mvdxml, ids, landxml, brick, haystack, dwg, dxf, energyplus, idf, openstudio, speckle, forge, cim-xml, iso-19650, openbim]
Construction / Building-Information-Modelling — Family Index
Family overview
Construction and building-information-modelling (BIM) DSLs are the textual schemas, ontologies, and exchange grammars used to describe buildings, civil infrastructure, MEP systems, and the built environment over its lifecycle. The defining standard for thirty years has been IFC (Industry Foundation Classes), buildingSMART’s openBIM schema, first published as IFC 1.0 in 1997 and steadily evolving through IFC 2x3 (2006), IFC 4 (2013), and IFC 4.3 — formalised as ISO 16739-1:2024 on 4 January 2024 (buildingSMART announcement). IFC 4.3 was the watershed expansion that brought horizontal infrastructure — rail, road, bridge, ports, waterways — under the same openBIM umbrella that had previously been vertical-buildings-only. The current documentation revision is IFC 4.3.2 (e.g. IFC4X3_ADD2, the 2026 elaborations clarify the ISO schema without changing it).
Underneath IFC sits STEP / ISO 10303 and its schema language EXPRESS — a 1990s-era data-modelling DSL from CAD/CAM/PLM interoperability work that defines the type system, attributes, inverse relationships, and WHERE-rule constraints IFC depends on. The dominant on-disk serialisation of an IFC model is IFC-SPF (STEP Physical File), the #42=IFCWALL(...) ASCII format inherited directly from STEP Part 21. XML (ifcXML) and RDF/OWL (ifcOWL) serialisations exist for linked-data and XML-toolchain use cases but are far less common in production.
A modern second-order language layer surrounds IFC: IDS (Information Delivery Specification) 1.0 became an official buildingSMART standard on 1 June 2024, superseding the older mvdXML approach as the way to express “what information must be in an IFC delivery for this exchange?” in a computer-checkable form (buildingSMART IDS); bSDD (buildingSMART Data Dictionary) provides the multilingual classification REST API; BCF (BIM Collaboration Format) and BCF API 3.0 carry issue-tracking and model-coordination communications between authoring tools; COBie (Construction Operations Building Information Exchange) is the spreadsheet-based facility-handover subset of IFC; and ISO 19650 (parts 1–6, 2018–2025, with major revisions of parts 1–3 in public consultation as of March 2026) is the process standard wrapping all of this — the how to manage information layer to IFC’s what is the information layer.
The proprietary-vendor zoo coexists alongside openBIM: Autodesk Revit (.rvt), Graphisoft ArchiCAD (.pln), and Robert McNeel Rhino (.3dm) plus Grasshopper visual-programming definitions dominate the authoring tool market. Autodesk also owns AutoCAD’s DWG and the text-based DXF exchange format, and the Forge / APS (Autodesk Platform Services) cloud layer. Energy analysis has its own DSL ecosystem — EnergyPlus IDF (Input Data File), the NREL OpenStudio wrapper around it (currently EnergyPlus 25.2.0 / OpenStudio 3.11.0 as of 2026), gbXML (Green Building XML, current 8.01) for the design-tool-to-energy-tool handoff, and Modelica building libraries for whole-building physics simulation. And on top of all of it, the smart-building / building-ontology layer — Brick Schema (currently 1.4.4, 2025-05-01, RDF/SPARQL-queryable) and Project Haystack (currently Haystack 4, tag-based) — addresses the “data analytics over running building telemetry” use case that IFC was never designed for. Finally, watch for the name collision: CIM XML (IEC 61970) is the electrical-grid Common Information Model, not generic BIM.
In our deep library
No standalone deep notes for any of these BIM-specific formats. Cross-references to adjacent Tier 3 family indexes:
- geospatial — CityGML, CDB, GIS overlap. CityGML sits at the BIM/GIS boundary (its LoD1-4 city models overlap with simplified IFC site-level geometry); CDB (OGC Common Database) is explicitly the bridge between BIM, geospatial, and simulation; and the IFC 4.3 infrastructure subspecs (Bridge/Tunnel/Road/Rail) bring openBIM into territory historically owned by geospatial.
- industrial-automation — BACnet object model, building-automation overlap. BACnet (ASHRAE 135) is the long-running building-automation protocol; its object model overlaps with Brick/Haystack telemetry semantics. KNX, Modbus, and OPC UA are adjacent.
- api-description — XML Schema, BCF API REST. IFC, IFC-XML, gbXML, mvdXML, IDS, BCF, and CIM XML are all defined by XSD or RNG schemas; BCF API 3.0 is REST/JSON.
- scientific — Modelica energy modelling. Modelica Buildings Library (LBNL) is the open-source Modelica package for whole-building simulation; overlaps with EnergyPlus and OpenStudio.
- notation-spec — EXPRESS / ISO 10303-11 is a formal information-modelling notation; arguably as much a notation language as a schema language.
- visual-dataflow — Grasshopper, Dynamo, Speckle. Grasshopper (for Rhino) and Dynamo (for Revit) are the dominant AEC visual-programming environments; Speckle is the open-source 3D data platform that ties them together.
Tier 3 family table — IFC family + STEP underpinnings
| Format | First appeared | Origin | Type | Status (2026) | URL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) | 1997 (IFC 1.0); IFC 4.3 = ISO 16739-1:2024 (approved 4 Jan 2024) | buildingSMART International (originally IAI, 1995) | openBIM data-model schema; written in EXPRESS, serialised as SPF/XML/OWL/JSON | De facto and de jure standard. Current schema IFC 4.3.2 (IFC4X3_ADD2, 2026 docs); covers vertical buildings + horizontal infrastructure (rail/road/bridge/ports) | https://technical.buildingsmart.org/standards/ifc/ |
| IFC-SPF (STEP Physical File / Part 21) | 1994 (ISO 10303-21) | ISO/STEP committee | ASCII text serialisation #42=IFCWALL(...); the dominant IFC on-disk format | Active, ubiquitous; the .ifc file you actually see | https://standards.buildingsmart.org/IFC/RELEASE/IFC4_3/ |
| ifcXML / ifcXML4 | 2001 (ifcXML for IFC 2x); ifcXML4 for IFC 4 | buildingSMART | XML serialisation of the EXPRESS-defined schema | Active but minority; XML-toolchain consumers; XSD generated from the EXPRESS schema | https://technical.buildingsmart.org/standards/ifc/ifc-formats/ |
| ifcOWL | ~2014 (W3C LBD CG); referenced in IFC 4 docs | W3C Linked Building Data CG + buildingSMART | OWL/RDF version of IFC for linked-data and SPARQL querying | Active but research-leaning; auto-generated from EXPRESS; less common in industry | https://www.w3.org/community/lbd/ |
| IFC-JSON | 2017+ (experimental); becoming first-class in IFC 5 | buildingSMART | JSON serialisation; lighter than SPF/XML for web tooling | Emerging; IFC 5 (alpha 2025, project plan vote closed Aug 2025) makes JSON-based representation a primary serialisation | https://github.com/buildingSMART/IFC5-development |
| STEP / ISO 10303 | 1994 (first parts published) | ISO TC 184/SC 4 | Family of data-exchange standards for product-data interoperability; IFC is one application protocol | Foundational, still actively maintained; AP242 (managed model-based 3D engineering) is the aerospace/defence flagship | https://www.iso.org/standard/63141.html |
| EXPRESS (ISO 10303-11) | 1994 | ISO TC 184/SC 4 | Formal data-modelling DSL; entity types, attributes, inverse rels, WHERE rules, derived attrs | Foundational for IFC and other STEP application protocols; little new uptake outside STEP-derived work | https://www.iso.org/standard/38047.html |
| CIS/2 (CIMSteel Integration Standards) | 1995 (CIS), CIS/2 ~2003 | University of Leeds + AISC | STEP-based exchange schema for steel structures (members, connections, materials, fabrication) | Active in steel-fabrication corner; IFC steel-detailing modules increasingly overlap | https://www.cis2.org/ |
| IFC 5 (in development) | 2025 alpha; project plan vote closed 8 Aug 2025 | buildingSMART International | Next-generation IFC; modularised; JSON-first serialisation; OpenUSD-influenced composition model | Alpha, still evolving; the long-term successor to IFC 4.3 | https://ifc5.technical.buildingsmart.org/ |
| IFC Bridge / Tunnel / Road / Rail (sub-specs) | Folded into IFC 4.3 (2024) | buildingSMART infrastructure rooms | Domain extensions to the IFC entity hierarchy for civil infrastructure | Active; part of the ISO 16739-1:2024 standard | https://technical.buildingsmart.org/standards/ifc/ifc-schema-specifications/ |
Tier 3 family table — Energy / sustainability / facility ops
| Format | First appeared | Origin | Type | Status (2026) | URL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| gbXML (Green Building XML) | 2000 | Green Building XML Consortium (orig. GeoPraxis) | XML schema for design-tool → energy-analysis-tool handoff | Active, current 8.01; ~50 vendor implementations (Autodesk, Trimble, Graphisoft, Bentley) | https://www.gbxml.org/ |
| COBie (Construction Operations Building Information Exchange) | 2007 (Bill East, US Army Corps of Engineers) | US Army Corps + NIBS; UK BSI; ISO via 19650-4 | Spreadsheet-format subset of IFC for facility-handover asset data (no geometry, just data) | Active; BS 1192-4:2014 superseded by BS EN ISO 19650-4:2022; US NBIMS-US v3.6 2025 | https://www.nibs.org/projects/cobie |
| EnergyPlus IDF (Input Data File) | 2001 (EnergyPlus 1.0) | DOE / LBNL / NREL | Text-based key-value DSL for whole-building energy simulation input (objects + fields) | Active; EnergyPlus 25.2.0 (2026); epJSON co-format since v8.9 | https://energyplus.net/ |
| OpenStudio SDK | 2008 | NREL | C++/Ruby/Python SDK wrapping EnergyPlus IDF + Radiance + Modelica; OSM model format | Active; OpenStudio 3.11.0 (2026) bundles EnergyPlus 25.2.0 | https://openstudio.net/ |
| Modelica Buildings Library | 2009 | LBNL (Wetter et al.) | Open-source Modelica package for whole-building HVAC/envelope/control simulation | Active; overlaps scientific (Modelica language) | https://simulationresearch.lbl.gov/modelica/ |
| ISO 19650 (parts 1–6) | 2018 (P1–2); P3 2020; P4 2022; P5 2020; P6 2025 | ISO TC 59/SC 13 | Process standard for information management using BIM (not a data DSL); supersedes UK PAS 1192 series | Active; P1–3 revisions in public consultation 10 March 2026, expected publication 2027 — proposed merger of P2+P3 into single asset-lifecycle process | https://www.iso.org/standard/68078.html |
Tier 3 family table — Civil / infrastructure / land
| Format | First appeared | Origin | Type | Status (2026) | URL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LandXML | 1999 (v1.0); current v1.2 (2008) | LandXML.org consortium | XML schema for civil/survey/grading data (alignments, surfaces, parcels, pipe networks) | Active but ageing; v2.0 working draft since 2014, never finalised; IFC 4.3 and InfraGML are eating its lunch | http://www.landxml.org/ |
| CityGML | 2008 (CityGML 1.0); current 3.0 (2021) | OGC + Karlsruhe / TU Munich | XML/GML schema for 3D city models at LoD0-4 | Active; cross-listed in geospatial; sits at the BIM/GIS boundary | https://www.ogc.org/standard/citygml/ |
| CDB (Common Database, OGC) | 2008 (CDB 1.0, originally Presagis); OGC standard since 2014; CDB 2.0 (2024) | OGC | Synthetic-environment storage standard; bridges BIM + geospatial + flight/driving-sim | Active; the BIM-↔-simulation glue layer; OGC CDB SWG | https://www.ogc.org/standard/cdb/ |
| CIM XML (IEC 61970) | 1999 (IEC 61970-1) | IEC TC 57 / EPRI | Common Information Model for electric power grids; XML + RDF profiles | Active; distinct from generic BIM — this is the electrical-grid CIM, not architectural; ENTSO-E, CIMug, NERC use it | https://webstore.iec.ch/publication/6208 |
| ADMS / IEC 61968 (Asset Data Management for utilities) | 2003 (IEC 61968-1) | IEC TC 57 | Companion to CIM for utility asset management & operations (DMS/OMS/AMS) | Active; CIM/CIM-XML reused as the underlying schema | https://webstore.iec.ch/publication/63125 |
Tier 3 family table — Building ontologies / queries / requirements
| Format | First appeared | Origin | Type | Status (2026) | URL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IDS (Information Delivery Specification) 1.0 | 2021 first drafts; 1.0 official 1 June 2024 | buildingSMART International | XML-based DSL for specifying BIM information requirements; supersedes mvdXML | Active, current 1.0; 1.1 and 2.0 feedback being collected; the modern BIM-data-requirements standard | https://www.buildingsmart.org/standards/bsi-standards/information-delivery-specification-ids/ |
| mvdXML (Model View Definition) | 2012 | buildingSMART | XML DSL for subsetting IFC schemas to MVDs (specific exchange views) | Superseded by IDS for new work; still used in legacy MVD certifications | https://technical.buildingsmart.org/standards/mvd/mvd-xml/ |
| bSDD (buildingSMART Data Dictionary) | 2010s; relaunched as REST API 2020+ | buildingSMART International | Multilingual classification system + REST API for property/classification mapping | Active; the IFC-property-lookup backbone; integrates with IDS | https://www.buildingsmart.org/users/services/buildingsmart-data-dictionary/ |
| BCF (BIM Collaboration Format) — file | 2009 (BCF 1.0) | buildingSMART (proposed by Tekla + Solibri) | ZIP-of-XML format for model-issue communication (markup, viewpoint, comments) | Active; BCF 3.0 (current); supplemental Documents folder added in 3.0 | https://technical.buildingsmart.org/standards/bcf/ |
| BCF API 3.0 | 2014 (1.0); current 3.0 (2022) | buildingSMART | REST/JSON API spec for BCF servers (BIMcollab, Newforma Konekt, Catenda, Bricks, usBIM, OpenProject, …) | Active, the REST companion to BCF-file | https://github.com/buildingSMART/BCF-API |
| Brick Schema | 2016 (UC Berkeley + UCSD + IBM Research) | Brick Consortium (now hosted by LF Energy) | RDF/OWL ontology for buildings; SPARQL-queryable; HVAC/lighting/security/fire | Active; current 1.4.4 (2025-05-01); merged with RealEstateCore ontology in 1.4.0 | https://brickschema.org/ |
| Project Haystack | 2011 | Project Haystack community (orig. SkyFoundry / J2 Innovations / Tridium) | Tag-based ontology for smart-building telemetry data; flat list of tags → Haystack 4 type/subtype model + Trio/Zinc serialisations | Active; Haystack 4 current; widely supported by BAS vendors (Tridium Niagara 4.14+) | https://project-haystack.org/ |
| mvdXML 1.1 | 2016 (revised) | buildingSMART | XML schema for MVD concept-templates and applicability rules | Legacy; new work goes to IDS | https://technical.buildingsmart.org/standards/mvd/ |
Tier 3 family table — Vendor / authoring / cloud formats
| Format | First appeared | Origin | Type | Status (2026) | URL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AutoCAD DWG | 1982 | Autodesk (Mike Riddle / John Walker) | Binary CAD drawing format; reverse-engineered by ODA (Open Design Alliance) | Dominant 2D CAD format; proprietary but ODA Teigha provides interop | https://www.autodesk.com/products/autocad/overview |
| AutoCAD DXF (Drawing Exchange Format) | 1982 | Autodesk | ASCII (and binary) text format for CAD drawing exchange; group-code / value pairs | Active, the open text counterpart to DWG; ubiquitous interchange format | https://help.autodesk.com/view/OARX/2026/ENU/?guid=GUID-235B22E0-A567-4CF6-92D3-38A2306D73F3 |
| Revit (.rvt / .rfa / .rte) | 2002 (Revit 4.0 acquired by Autodesk from Revit Technology Corp) | Autodesk | Proprietary BIM authoring file format; reads/writes via Revit API + Forge | Dominant vertical-buildings authoring tool worldwide; IFC export quality the main openBIM lever | https://www.autodesk.com/products/revit/overview |
| ArchiCAD (.pln) | 1984 (ArchiCAD 1.0) | Graphisoft (Hungary, now part of Nemetschek) | Proprietary BIM authoring file format | Active; second-largest BIM authoring tool; strong IFC support | https://graphisoft.com/solutions/archicad |
| Rhino 3DM | ~1998 (Rhino 1.0) | Robert McNeel & Associates | Open NURBS-based 3D modelling file format (openNURBS toolkit) | Active; widely used in computational-design AEC; the open-source openNURBS lib enables cross-tool reads | https://www.rhino3d.com/ |
| Grasshopper definitions (.gh / .ghx) | 2007 (Rhino plugin, David Rutten) | Robert McNeel & Associates | Visual dataflow programming environment for Rhino; .gh binary / .ghx XML | Active; the AEC industry’s dominant visual-programming environment; cross-listed visual-dataflow | https://www.grasshopper3d.com/ |
| Dynamo (Revit) | 2014 | Autodesk (Ian Keough) | Visual dataflow for Revit / Civil 3D / FormIt; .dyn (JSON) | Active; the Revit-native counterpart to Grasshopper | https://dynamobim.org/ |
| Speckle | 2018 (founded); $12.5M Series A 2024 | Speckle Systems (Dimitrie Stefanescu) | Open-source 3D data platform; .speckle / JSON-based object model; commits, branches, versioning | Active, fast-growing; integrates Rhino/Revit/Grasshopper/IFC; “Speckle Intelligence” launched 2025 | https://speckle.systems/ |
| Forge / APS (Autodesk Platform Services) | 2015 (Forge), rebranded APS in 2023 | Autodesk | Cloud BIM API platform (Model Derivative, Data Management, Viewer, ACC); JSON+REST | Active, Autodesk’s strategic cloud layer | https://aps.autodesk.com/ |
| BIMserver (open-source IFC database) | 2009 | TNO / TU Eindhoven | Open-source IFC server with revisioning, queries, plugins | Active but lower velocity; adjacent to Speckle’s space | https://github.com/opensourceBIM/BIMserver |
Notable threads
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IFC 4.3 = ISO 16739-1:2024 is the openBIM watershed for civil infrastructure. Until 2024, IFC was a “vertical buildings” schema (walls, slabs, beams, MEP). IFC 4.3 folded in Bridge / Tunnel / Road / Rail / Ports / Waterways as first-class domain extensions, made it an official ISO standard (ISO 16739-1:2024, approved 4 Jan 2024 — see buildingSMART announcement), and gave national infrastructure procurement bodies (Highways England, Norwegian Roads, Deutsche Bahn, the FRA) a single open exchange standard to mandate. This is why the openBIM mandate wave (UK 2016, Germany Stufenplan, Norway, Denmark, France, Spain, US GSA) accelerated post-2024: IFC 4.3 closed the infrastructure gap that previously forced rail/road agencies to write their own bespoke schemas or accept Bentley/Autodesk lock-in.
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IDS 1.0 supersedes mvdXML for “what information is required?” mvdXML (Model View Definition) was the 2012-vintage answer for declaring “an IFC export for steel coordination must contain at least these entities + these property sets.” It was technically capable but unfriendly — verbose XML, weak tooling, hard to author by hand. IDS (Information Delivery Specification) 1.0 became official on 1 June 2024 and is a clean restart: simpler XML, much better tool support (Solibri, BIMcollab, ACCA usBIM, Bonsai, IfcOpenShell), human-authorable, and aligned with the IFC property + classification system through bSDD. IDS is rapidly becoming the standard way to express BIM requirements in employer’s information requirements (EIRs) under ISO 19650.
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Brick + Haystack are the smart-building ontology layer that IFC is not. IFC is designed for the design and construction lifecycle — it captures geometry, classifications, properties, schedules. It is poor at “this thermostat in room 312 streams a sensor reading every 60 seconds.” That space is owned by Brick Schema (RDF/SPARQL, current 1.4.4, merged with RealEstateCore in 1.4.0, Brick Consortium) and Project Haystack (tag-based, Haystack 4). Brick is academic / research-led; Haystack is BAS-vendor-led (Tridium Niagara, J2 Innovations, SkyFoundry). Increasing work is being done to bridge IFC → Brick (e.g. the LBL “BrickIFC” tooling and IFC4Brick mapping research), recognising that the design-time and operations-time models need to converge.
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gbXML vs IFC vs OpenStudio IDF for energy analysis is a three-way standoff. Energy modellers want geometry + thermal-zone topology + construction layers + internal loads + HVAC system definitions. IFC has all of this in principle but energy-tool vendors find it bloated and inconsistently authored. gbXML 8.01 is a leaner XML schema that ~50 tools (Revit, ArchiCAD, IES VE, OpenStudio, DesignBuilder) export to. EnergyPlus IDF is the actual simulation input — text key-value DSL — and OpenStudio’s OSM model wraps it. The 2026 reality is: design tools export gbXML, modellers fix it up in OpenStudio, OpenStudio writes IDF, EnergyPlus simulates. IFC-to-IDF round-tripping remains technically possible but operationally rare.
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The Revit lock-in vs. openBIM dynamic continues to shape industry economics. Autodesk Revit’s
.rvtis a proprietary binary; the only way to fully interoperate with Revit projects is via the Revit API (Forge/APS) or via IFC export — which historically has been lossy. Government openBIM mandates (UK BIM Mandate 2016, US GSA, EU member states catalogued in buildingSMART Global Mandates 2025) explicitly require deliverables in IFC, not RVT, precisely to break this lock-in. Speckle, ODA’s Teigha, and the open IFC tools (IfcOpenShell, xBIM, Bonsai/BlenderBIM) form the technical counterweight. -
ISO 19650 is the process standard, IFC is the data standard; 2026 revisions are merging delivery and operations. ISO 19650 parts 1–6 (published 2018–2025) define the project information-management process under BIM — common data environments, information delivery plans, security, H&S, asset-operation handoff. In March 2026 parts 1–3 went out for public consultation, with proposed structural changes including dropping the formal distinction between the delivery phase (P2) and operational phase (P3) in favour of a single continuous asset-lifecycle process, and a vocabulary shift from “BIM” toward broader “Information Management.” Expected publication 2027.
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CIM XML (IEC 61970) is the electrical-grid Common Information Model — easily confused with generic BIM, fundamentally different. When someone says “CIM” in an architecture/AEC context, they usually mean City Information Modelling or generic Common Information Modelling. When an electrical utility says “CIM,” they mean IEC 61970 CIM, the schema covering generation, transmission, substations, breakers, busbars, RDF-profiled, used by ENTSO-E, EPRI, NERC, and most North-American/European TSOs. The two communities barely talk. Anyone working at the building↔grid boundary (DERs, microgrids, EV charging) ends up needing both ontologies.
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IFC 5 (in alpha 2025–2026) modularises and JSON-ifies the schema. The IFC 4 monolith is universally acknowledged as too large, too coupled, and too STEP-EXPRESS-bound. IFC 5 (Core Project Plan vote closed 8 Aug 2025, alpha development active at github.com/buildingSMART/IFC5-development) reorganises around a modular core + domain extensions, adopts a JSON-native serialisation as a first-class citizen, and takes design cues from Pixar’s OpenUSD composition model. It is not expected to be production-ready before 2027–2028; IFC 4.3 will remain the practical standard for years.
Citations
- ISO 16739-1:2024 — IFC for data sharing in the construction and facility management industries — Part 1: Data schema
- buildingSMART — IFC 4.3 Approved as a Final Standard (4 Jan 2024)
- IFC 4.3.2 documentation portal
- buildingSMART Technical — IFC standards index
- IFC 5 development (GitHub) — alpha
- IFC 5 learning portal
- buildingSMART IDS 1.0 (official 1 June 2024)
- IDS GitHub (XML schema, examples)
- buildingSMART BCF (file format)
- BCF-API 3.0 GitHub
- gbXML schema 8.01 (current)
- COBie NBIMS-US v3 2.6 Standard (NIBS, Apr 2025)
- BS 1192-4:2014 (UK COBie, superseded by ISO 19650-4)
- ISO 19650-1:2018
- ISO 19650 2026 revisions in public consultation — REBIM analysis
- Brick Schema (current 1.4.4, 2025-05-01)
- Brick GitHub releases
- Project Haystack 4
- OpenStudio (current 3.11.0 + EnergyPlus 25.2.0)
- EnergyPlus (DOE/NREL/LBNL)
- Modelica Buildings Library (LBNL)
- LandXML.org (last release v1.2, 2008)
- OGC CityGML 3.0
- OGC CDB 2.0 (synthetic environment standard)
- IEC 61970 CIM (electric-grid Common Information Model)
- Speckle
- Autodesk Platform Services (formerly Forge)
- BIMserver (open-source IFC server)
- buildingSMART Global openBIM Mandates 2025 Edition
- ISO 10303 (STEP) — Part 1 overview
- ISO 10303-11 (EXPRESS)