IFC Checker

What does Model health check?

Model health checks the IFC file itself, apart from any IDS. It checks that every record of the file can be read, that its entities and values match the IFC schema its header names, and that every element that should have a shape has one in 3D. It is reported apart from the Model Correctness Index, and a file read only in part withholds the index.

Check the file itself

  1. On Check, add the model and look at Model health above the tests. It is ticked when you add a model. With an IDS or a predefined test picked, it checks the file as well. With no test, it checks the file alone.
  2. Choose Run checker.
  3. On Results, read the Model health column of the Model table. It says Pass, or how many issues were found and how many of them are warnings.
  4. Open the Model health tab, the first of Extended data, to see each issue with where it is in the file (how to read it).
  5. With an IDS in the check, choose Download Excel or Download CSV to list the issues with their line and record. A check of Model health alone has no downloads.

The checks

  • File integrity: whether every record of the file can be read and, where one cannot, why and how much of the file was read. It runs on every check, with Model health ticked or not, because everything else depends on it. It also catches a file that is not IFC at all, such as a ZIP archive, a saved web page or an ifcXML file.
  • Schema conformance: whether the entities and their attribute values match the IFC schema the file's header names, and a chosen set of the schema's own rules. A release that IFC Checker holds no tables for is checked against the nearest one it has, and the report says so.
  • Geometry: whether every element that should have a shape has one in 3D. It waits for the 3D view of the model to be built, and says how many elements have no shape and lists them.

Checks of the file's identities (GlobalIds) and of its units, placement and georeferencing are not in this version.

The tab also repeats one line from the test's results: the generic elements, building elements with no class of their own. They are warnings and have their own tab.

What an issue is

A check that finds something reports a Warning, never a Fail. An issue is something to look into, such as a special character, such as an accented letter, written in a form the IFC format does not allow, or a value the schema's rule does not allow. It says where it is: a line and a record of the file, or the whole model. Fix it where the model is authored, then export the model again.

Apart from the index

Model health is reported in its own column of the Model table and its own tab of Extended data, and never changes the counts of the IDS check. One case reaches the index: when File integrity could read only part of the file, the index is withheld, because part of the model could not be checked (when the index is withheld).

A file that cannot be read

When the file cannot be read at all, the Model section says that nothing else could be checked, and the Model health tab says why and what to do. Troubleshooting.