IFC viewer for reviewing models, not just looking at them
Bimlyte is an IFC viewer that opens IFC2x3, IFC4 and IFC4.3 models in your browser and lets you work with them: find elements by their properties, inspect their data, measure, cut sections, combine discipline models and raise BCF issues from the view.
Everything on this page runs on your own device, in the free version, with nothing to install. The sample project opens in one click if you want to try it before loading your own files.
Bimlyte's IFC viewer at a glance
- Models: IFC2x3, IFC4 and IFC4.3 (IFC4X3_ADD2), including the infrastructure classes for roads, bridges and rail — several models in one project.
- Issues and checks: BCF 2.1 and BCF 3.0 issues inside the 3D view, and IDS 1.0 validation reports coloured on the model.
- Devices: all key features work in a current browser on Windows, macOS, Linux and ChromeOS, and on Android and iOS phones and tablets, including the iPad; it installs as an app and keeps working offline.
- Cost and privacy: free, no account, and the model is processed on your device — nothing is uploaded.
Open one model, or a whole set of discipline models
- Create a project and drop in your IFC files — architecture, structure, MEP — or a single model on its own.
- Models load one after another, in the order of the Files list, so the first one is ready to look at while the others follow.
- One model is the primary model: the others are placed relative to it, sharing one coordinate datum, and its storeys name the floor plans. Any model can be set as primary.
- Unload a model you do not need right now and load it again later, without removing it from the project.
Find your way around the model
- Orbit turns around the surface under the cursor, the wheel zooms to the point under the cursor, and a double-click frames the element you clicked.
- Switch between perspective and orthographic with O, fit the view with F, and use the view cube to look from any side.
- Fly mode (X) moves through the building like a camera; with gravity on, you walk on its floors.
- Floor plans are generated from the model: pick a storey above the view cube, named after the primary model's storeys and shown with its elevation.
The model tree
- Browse the model by IFC class, by model, or by model and class, with friendly class names such as Walls and Doors if you prefer them to IfcWall and IfcDoor.
- Show, hide, isolate or colour any branch of the tree; H hides, I isolates and T makes the selection transparent.
- Search the tree, and act only on what the search shows under a row.
Filter elements by their properties
The model tree filters elements by rules — the quickest way to answer "which elements are…" without exporting anything:
- Rules on IFC class (with or without its subclasses), predefined type, name, tag, GlobalId, type, model, building, storey, space, system, zone, material, classification, and any property or quantity.
- Operators that fit the field: equals, contains, is any of, greater than, between — and has value / has no value.
- A numeric rule takes a unit — mm, m and so on — so you type a value the way the drawing gives it.
- Fields, values and counts come from the models you have loaded, so you pick from what is actually there; fields with no matching elements fold away.
- Combine up to twenty rules, isolate the result in the 3D view with one click, and save the filter with the project.
Find the elements that are missing data
"Has no value" turns the filter into a quick completeness check: every door whose Pset_DoorCommon has no FireRating, every wall with no classification, every space without a number. The tree shows how many elements match, and Isolate in view shows where they are.
When the requirements are written down as an IDS file, the same question can be answered formally — every element, every requirement, in a report you can export.
Inspect element data
- The inspector shows an element's attributes, type, materials and classifications — Uniclass, OmniClass and others — with every property set and quantity set in its own tab.
- A value the element takes from its type is marked with ⓘ, so you can tell whether it was set on the element or inherited.
- Select several elements to compare their properties side by side.
- Export the data of the selected elements to Excel, choosing which identifiers and which property sets go in.
Measure and cut through the model
- Measure length, area and volume, and the angle between two edges or two faces, with snapping to edges and points you can move afterwards.
- Put a section box around the selection with B and drag it by its faces.
- Add section planes on any face, with a section fill and cut lines so a cut reads like a drawing.
- Units, dimension colours and the grid are yours to set.
Save what you are looking at
- Save the current 3D view and come back to it later.
- Save a selection as a named set with G, and select it again in one click.
- Saved views, selection sets and model-tree filters are stored in the project and travel inside a .bimlyte package; a view or a set says so when it was made on a different revision of a model.
Keep the revisions of a model
- Upload a new revision of a model and Bimlyte keeps the earlier ones as R1, R2, R3, with the placement and settings carried over.
- Switch back to any earlier revision by setting it as current.
- Bimlyte keeps and switches revisions; it does not list the differences between two of them.
Arrange the workspace around the model
- Dock the inspector, the issue window and the report window beside the 3D view, in columns and rows, or under the side panel — or let them float.
- Windows that share a place stack as tabs; pick a window's place on a small layout map, and reset the layout in one click.
- Each device keeps its own layout, and so does each screen orientation.
- On a desktop, move a window to a separate browser window — onto a second screen, for example.
An IFC viewer on an iPad, an Android tablet or a phone
- Open the same app in the browser of an iPad or an iPhone, or in Chrome on an Android tablet or phone — nothing to install from an app store, and all key features work as they do on a desktop.
- Touch works throughout: tap to select, pinch to zoom, long-press for menus; menus, sorting and filters open as sheets sized for a finger.
- Add Bimlyte to the home screen and it opens like an app — and keeps working offline on site. On an iPhone or iPad this matters more: Safari can clear the stored data of a website you have not used for about a week, and a site added to the home screen is exempt.
- A phone has less memory than a desktop, so a large federated model loads more slowly there; for the largest models a desktop browser is the better choice.
From the model to issues and checks
- Create a BCF issue from the current view with N: it captures the camera, what is visible, the colours and the section state, with a snapshot you can mark up.
- Browse the project's BCF issues inside the 3D view and open one to get back to its exact view.
- Open an IDS validation report beside the model to colour elements by result.
When a model opens empty or without properties
- No geometry: the file was probably exported without body geometry. Export it again from the authoring tool with geometry included.
- Properties missing: some exporters write property sets on the element's type rather than the element. Bimlyte shows values taken from the type and marks them with ⓘ; if nothing appears at all, check which property sets the export was set to include.
- Wrong version: Bimlyte reads IFC2x3, IFC4 and IFC4.3. Native files such as .rvt, .pln or .nwd need an IFC export first.
- Very large model: the limit is your device's memory and graphics, not an application cap. A current desktop browser, ideally Chrome, copes best.
What the IFC viewer does not do
- It does not author or edit the model. Bimlyte reads IFC; producing it is the authoring tool's job.
- It does not detect clashes. Clashes found in a model checker can be tracked here as BCF issues.
- It does not compute the differences between two revisions of a model.