Exporting an IFC from Revit is easy. Knowing whether that IFC is good enough to issue is not. A free viewer will open a model where the spatial structure is broken, half the elements have no property sets, or GlobalIds are duplicated — it just renders what it can and says nothing. The receiving party's checker won't be so quiet. ClearIFC is the check to run before the model leaves your office: browser-based IFC validation, plus compliance checking against a buildingSMART IDS.
ClearIFC
Browser-based IFC validation and buildingSMART IDS compliance checking for AEC firms that deliver or receive IFC models — plus a free offline 3D IFC viewer for Windows.
Visit ClearIFCWhat a Viewer Won't Catch in an IFC Export
Geometry appearing on screen only proves the file parsed. The defects that get a model rejected in coordination or at a delivery gate are almost all invisible in a viewer:
- Broken or unresolved spatial structure — elements not correctly contained in a storey or space.
- Duplicate or malformed GlobalIds, which quietly corrupt a model on re-import and federation.
- Elements with no representation, empty representations, or solids the geometry kernel cannot build.
- Missing property sets and properties that the client's information requirements call for.
A Revit export can look perfect and still fail on every one of these.
What ClearIFC Checks
ClearIFC runs two kinds of check, entirely in the browser — the model never leaves your machine:
- Structural and data integrity — spatial hierarchy, GlobalId uniqueness and validity, representation completeness, and buildable geometry.
- Property completeness — the property sets and properties a rule set requires, checked element by element.
- IDS compliance — upload the client's buildingSMART IDS and every element is checked against it attribute by attribute.
Every failure is reported against the specific element — GlobalId, type and name — so the output is a fix list, not just a pass/fail. Reports export to PDF and CSV.
IDS is the open buildingSMART standard for information requirements: the client states once, in a machine-readable file, what a compliant model must contain, and any IDS-capable tool checks it automatically. It is the mechanism that makes an EIR testable instead of aspirational. Enterprise BIM suites support it; free viewers don't. See ClearIFC's IDS guide for a worked example.
The Free Offline Viewer
ClearIFC also ships a lightweight offline 3D IFC viewer for Windows 10 and 11 — orbit, pan, zoom, inspect an element's GlobalId and properties, and jump into online validation when something looks wrong. Free, no account, and useful on its own for quick checks of an incoming model without opening Revit or Navisworks.
Where It Fits in a BIM Workflow
- Before issue — the modelling team runs a check on every IFC export before it goes to the CDE, catching defects while they're cheap to fix.
- On receipt — a BIM coordinator runs an incoming-quality check on subconsultant models before federating them.
- At the EIR stage — the information manager validates against the project IDS as a formal acceptance gate.
If your IFC QA today is “open it in a viewer and spin it around”, you're only catching what's visible. Duplicate GUIDs and missing psets — the things that actually get a model bounced — aren't.
ClearIFC and Custom BIM Automation
ClearIFC came out of the same work this site is about: parsing a structured model, walking its object graph, and checking it against a formal rule set. It's now a general-purpose product — but if you need a project-specific rule set, an automated batch check wired into your delivery pipeline, or IFC validation triggered as models land in your CDE, that underlying approach is directly reusable. Pair it with a Revit API routine that fixes the source parameters and you close the loop between producing and validating the model.
Check your models before the client does.
Use ClearIFC as-is, or talk to us about a custom IFC/IDS validation gate.
