# Handling IFC files on Linux

Working with [IFC
files](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industry_Foundation_Classes) on a
linux system is still not something easy, but there are already a couple
of things you can do:

#### 1. Add a MIME type

To have .ifc files recognized, add a file named
"application-x-extension-ifc.xml" to ~/.local/share/mime/packages (or
/usr/share/mime/packages for system-wide) with this content:


    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><mime-info xmlns='http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/shared-mime-info'>  <mime-type type="application/x-extension-ifc">        <sub-class-of type="text/plain"/>     <comment>Industry Foundation Classes</comment>      <glob pattern="*.ifc"/>   </mime-type></mime-info>


Then run "update-mime-database ~/.local/share/mime" to update your
mimetypes database.

#### 2. Add an icon

Grab an icon from
[here](http://www.buildingsmart-tech.org/specifications/ifc-overview/ifc-overview-summary),
and save it as ~/.icons/x-extension-ifc.png (or
/usr/share/icons/x-extension-ifc.png for system-wide). Now your file
manager should display IFC files a bit more nicely:

![](../../images/2012/ifc-dolphin.jpg)

#### 3. Open IFC files

There are currently no applications that can save ifc files (might
change sooner than you think, however), but there are already a couple
of solutions to open them. The following example is taken from the
[buildingSmart examples
page](http://buildingsmartalliance.org/index.php/projects/commonbimfiles/)
((Duplex model):

[FreeCAD](http://free-cad.sf.net): Can open IFC file with its internal
parser (not all entiites are supported and, starting from version 0.13
(to be released soon), is able to use
[IfcOpenShell](http://www.ifcopenshell.org) if it is installed on your
system, and with it, can import the whole contents of an IFC file:

![](../../images/2012/ifc-freecad.jpg)

[OpenIfcTools](http://www.openifctools.org): Has a javawebstart viewer,
simple but very good for quickly inspecting IFC files:

![](../../images/2012/ifc-openifctools.jpg)

[Blender](http://www.blender.org): Can also open ifc files when
[IfcOpenShell](http://www.ifcopenshell.org) and its blender importer
addon are installed. Although it uses the same IFC import engine, the
file import operation is much faster than FreeCAD, because the mesh data
that blender uses is much quicker to construct than FreeCAD's more
complex parametric objects:

![](../../images/2012/ifc-blender.jpg)

[BimServer](http://www.bimserver.org): The BimServer is a multiplatform
server application, made to share, review and maintain IFC-based
projects. It has several interesting functionalities such as conversion
to/from several other formats, cobie support, revision control, etc...
It has also a WebGL viewer program for it (called
[BimSurfer](http://bimsurfer.org/)), which can render a the project in
WebGL (3D inside your web browser):

![](../../images/2012/ifc-bimserver.jpg)

#### 5. Save IFC files

This is not yet possible, but Thomas Krijnen, the guy behind
[IfcOpenShell](http://www.ifcopenshell.org) is working on it, so very
likely Blender and FreeCAD will be able to output IFC files in some near
future.