IFC import: from the building model to a reliable cost estimate.
Renaldo reads rooms, apartments, façade, roof, windows and doors straight from your IFC model and turns them into quantities and costs. Whether that works is decided while modelling – not at export. This guide says what matters and shows it per tool for Archicad and Revit.
Three sentences that make the difference.
Room names are the foundation
Renaldo derives the room type from the name. "Bathroom" becomes a bathroom with tiles, sanitary fit-out and extract air – "R-102" becomes living space, and the entire bathroom fit-out is missing from the estimate.
Apartments must be grouped
Without an apartment assignment Renaldo assumes one dwelling unit. An apartment building is then costed like a single-family house – apartment entrance doors, meters and bathrooms per apartment are lost.
The import reports no warnings
Discarded openings, skipped walls and unrecognised rooms happen silently. That is why there is a control image: it shows what Renaldo read before you import.
Six things – and where they come from.
Everything else in the model can be anything. These six points decide whether the estimate is right.
| Renaldo needs | In the IFC | What counts |
|---|---|---|
| Rooms with a room type | IfcSpace with Name/LongName | Meaningful names from the word list – Bathroom, Kitchen, Bedroom, Corridor, Storage; German Bad, Küche, Schlafzimmer, Flur, Abstellraum. No numbers, no abbreviations. |
| Apartments | Apartment code in name or number, parent space or IfcZone | Simplest: WE01-01, WE01-02 … as the room number. Renaldo builds the dwelling units from it. |
| Room quantities | Qto_SpaceBaseQuantities | Enable base quantities at export: area, perimeter, height, wall areas per room. |
| Façade | IfcWall with Pset_WallCommon.IsExternal | Mark exterior walls as external, gable walls included. Renaldo measures the façade area from geometry – also for gables exported as a rectangular wall clipped by the roof. |
| Windows and doors | IfcWindow/IfcDoor with OverallWidth/OverallHeight | Placed in the wall; Renaldo assigns them to rooms by position. The entrance door carries -AT- or "Entrance" in its name – otherwise it counts as an interior door. |
| Roof | IfcRoof, one covering surface per pitch | Renaldo reads eaves, ridge, verge and eaves height from geometry. Two roof surfaces = gable, four = hip, one = mono-pitch – or pick the roof form in the preview. |
Balconies as slabs with "Balcony" or "Balkon" in the name. What is not in the model comes as a short list: building perimeter, number of stairwells, basement perimeter and height, apartment entrance doors, roof windows, dormers, balcony railing lengths.
The same six points – in your BIM software.
The import is the same for every program. What differs is only where you set the six points. One page per tool that maps every requirement to the concrete feature.
Archicad → Renaldo
Zones as rooms (Name = room type, Number = apartment code), wall position Exterior, element ID for entrance door and balcony, translator with base quantities, one roof per pitch. Including the modelling order when working from a point cloud.
Archicad workflow →Revit → Renaldo
Export rooms in 3D views, enable base quantities, wall function Exterior, room number as apartment code, entrance door via type name or IfcName, one roof per pitch. With the matching export setup.
Allplan, Vectorworks or another tool? The six points apply unchanged; send us a first export, we run it through our importer and reply with the concrete findings.
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Start for freeMirror first, then check.
The reference file
A complete apartment building with basement, three apartments, gable roof, gable walls, overhang and balcony – every rule of this guide is applied in it. Open it in your program and mirror its structure.
Reference file (IFC, 150 KB)The control image
On import, Renaldo shows the model in 3D as it was read: rooms green when the room type is recognised, red when not; windows blue, doors brown, the entrance door orange. Cut per storey, hide roof and façade, tap elements. Red rooms can be corrected right before importing.
Open the guide in the appExport again, import again – without losing anything.
An IFC is a snapshot of the design stage. When the design changes, simply import the new file. Renaldo does not ask what to keep – it follows one fixed rule:
- The new model defines the geometry – areas, perimeters, windows, doors and apartment assignment always come from the new file.
- Recognised rooms keep their identity – photos, defects, inspection checkpoints and all settings are preserved. Recognition uses the
GlobalId, otherwise storey and name. - Rooms missing from the new model are dropped – the preview shows beforehand which ones, and what is attached to them.
What matters for this: keep working in the same model file so the GlobalIds stay stable, and do not rename rooms without reason.
Frequently asked questions about the IFC import.
See what RENALDO can do for your own project.
Start for freeUpload the model, read the control image, calculate.
The IFC import is part of Renaldo Expert, Developer and Contractor. Start free, import a first model, see immediately what was read.
Your designer starts with a model.
A prepared starting point reduces repeated data entry, especially in renovation. RENALDO generates draft drawings from the building model and room schedule at the click of a button. Your designer receives the model via IFC, reviews it and develops the architectural design and subsequent planning.
Start with the existing building
Available LOD2 building data and a hypothetical room schedule provide an initial model. Existing drawings, surveys, scans or IFC data refine that starting point.
Hand over the full model
IFC4 export includes the components present in the model: walls, slabs, roof, stairs, windows and doors, plus spaces, quantities, materials and properties. Draft drawings from the Planning Center support the handover.
Review and develop the design
The designer checks dimensions and existing conditions, adds a measured survey where needed and makes the final architectural adjustments. Professional planning builds on the early design.
LOD2 and a hypothetical room schedule are early design assumptions, not a measured survey. Spaces without a known location remain records without invented geometry. The designer checks import and editability in the chosen CAD system and remains responsible for professional review and approval.
Module: Renaldo Planning Center, included in Studio packages. File handover follows the project release rules for plans and data exports; a trial alone does not unlock IFC downloads. Housing and homeowner project and package rules apply.
See what RENALDO can do for your own project.
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