What a topic holds
A topic is one issue. It has a title, a type such as Issue or Warning, a status, a priority, who it is for, a due date, labels, a description and comments. It also has one or more viewpoints, each a picture with the camera it was taken from, and it names the elements it is about by their GlobalId, so a tool that has the same model can show them.
What IFC Checker writes
IFC Checker writes BCF 2.1. One topic stands for one specification and group of requirements of the test, listing its elements and what each fails, with a picture of them from the 3D view. A topic keeps the same ID every time the same model is checked against the same test, and a summary topic gives the index and the counts. What your own tool does when it opens the file depends on the tool. Reading a BCF back into IFC Checker is not in this version.
Try it in IFC Checker
- Run a check. The issues it found are the topics of BCF topics on Results.
- Choose Download BCF under the Model table to write the file, and open it in your authoring or coordination tool (How do I export BCF issues, Excel or CSV?).
Where to read more
buildingSMART publishes the standard, its versions and its documentation:
- buildingSMART: BIM Collaboration Format (BCF)
- BCF on GitHub, with its schemas and its documentation