Free IDS validator: check IFC models against IDS in your browser
Bimlyte is a free IDS validator that checks IFC models against buildingSMART IDS 1.0 files in your browser — on your own device, with no upload and no account.
Load your IFC models and the IDS file you were given, run the validation, and see in a report and in the 3D model exactly which elements miss which requirement — then hand the result over as an Excel workbook.
Check an IFC model against an IDS file in four steps
- Open a Bimlyte project and add your IFC models — IFC2X3, IFC4 or IFC4X3_ADD2.
- Add the .ids file on the Validation page. Bimlyte reads it straight away and flags any rule that no model could ever meet, before you run anything.
- Click Run validation, choose the models, and say which IDS files apply — the same ones for all models, or different ones per model.
- Read the report: the pass rate, the specifications that fail, the reason each element fails and the values it actually holds.
What Bimlyte checks
The whole of IDS 1.0, not a subset:
- All six facets — entity, attribute, property, classification, material and part of — in both the applicability and the requirements of a specification.
- Every restriction IDS defines: lists of allowed values, patterns (regular expressions), numeric ranges and text length.
- Required, optional and prohibited cardinality, for single facets and for whole specifications.
- Numbers compared in SI units with the tolerance IDS prescribes, so a length of 3000 mm and one of 3 m are the same value.
- Properties, classifications and materials an element inherits from its type, not only the ones written on the element itself.
- IFC2X3 class names mapped to their IFC4 counterparts the way the IDS standard defines.
Tested against the official buildingSMART test cases
Bimlyte's IDS engine passes all 334 test cases of buildingSMART's official IDS 1.0 test suite — attribute, classification, entity, material, part of, property, restriction and tolerance — in its own automated tests, which run on every change to the engine.
That is a self-run result against the published test cases (as of August 2026), not a certification by buildingSMART. Where Bimlyte cannot judge a value faithfully — a unit that has no conversion to SI, for example — the report says Not checked instead of guessing a pass or a fail.
The IDS file is checked before the model is
- Every IDS file is read and audited the moment you add it, and its errors and warnings are shown next to the rule they concern.
- A specification that no model could ever satisfy is stopped with an error instead of failing every element; a property set misused against the buildingSMART standard sets is flagged as a warning.
- The IDS viewer shows every specification as a plain sentence — which elements it applies to and what they must have — so a requirement can be read without opening the XML.
- The file is kept exactly as it was uploaded, and downloading it gives back the original bytes.
A report that explains every failure
- An overview with the pass rate, elements and specifications by outcome, elements by IFC class and the biggest problems.
- Every failure in plain words — missing property set, missing value, wrong data type, wrong predefined type, present but prohibited, not classified, no material.
- The values the failing elements actually hold, the commonest first, next to the value the IDS requires — which is usually the fastest way to see whether the fix is in the model or in the export settings.
- Failure patterns: which requirements fail together on the same elements.
- Every table can be searched, filtered and sorted, and the IFC GUIDs or tags of the selected rows copied as one list.
See the result in the 3D model
- Colour the model by result: failed in red, not checked in amber, passed in green.
- Make everything else transparent or hide it, and group the elements by specification, requirement, IFC class, model or IDS file.
- Select an element in the model and see how each report judged it, check by check.
Several models in one run
- Check an architectural, a structural and an MEP model in one validation, each against its own IDS files, and read one report for all of them.
- Run a validation again on the current revisions of the models in one click, and keep the earlier reports alongside.
- Each model is checked in full and on its own; IDS has no rules across models, and neither does the validation.
Your model and your IDS file stay on your device
The validation runs in a background worker inside your browser, using the same WebAssembly IFC engine as the viewer. The IFC model, the IDS file and the report are never sent to a server — Bimlyte has no server that processes project files.
Reports are stored in the project on your device and travel inside a .bimlyte package, so a colleague can open the same result in a browser without validating again. Validations, reports and exports work on Android and iOS tablets and phones too, and once Bimlyte is installed they work with no connection at all. Checking an IDS report on your phone on the train? No problem — even without signal.
Hand the result over in Excel
- Export the whole report — overview, specifications, problems, elements and checks — or any single table to an .xlsx workbook.
- Choose the sheets, include or leave out the checks that passed, and see how large the file will be before you export it.
- The workbook records who ran the validation, when, and on which files.
What the IDS validator does not do
- It does not write or edit IDS files. Create them in an IDS editor or export them from your requirements tool, then check models with them here.
- IDS checks information, not geometry: clashes, clearances and other spatial rules remain a job for a model checker.
- Turning failed checks into BCF issues is on the roadmap. Today you copy the GUIDs of the failing elements or export them to Excel.