IFC Viewer
Open an IFC and look at it. No install, no account, and the model never leaves your machine.
How it works
- 1Select an IFC file. It is read from your disk by your browser and goes no further.
- 2Geometry is built locally and the view fits itself to the model.
- 3Drag to orbit, scroll to zoom, right-drag to pan, and switch projection when you need it.
- 4For element properties, open the same file in the Property Explorer.
About IFC Viewer
Opening an IFC to have a quick look at it should not require a licence, an install or an account. Most of the time the question is small: is this the right model? Did the stair make it into the export? What is this object?
The viewer builds the geometry in your browser using WebAssembly, so the file goes from your disk to your screen without a server in between. For a model under a confidentiality agreement, that is the difference between being able to look at it and not.
What this viewer does today is navigation: orbit, zoom, pan, fit, and a projection toggle. It does not yet support clicking an element to inspect it. Rather than ship a click handler that quietly does nothing, that is left out until it works, and the page says so. For element data, Property Explorer gives you every property as a searchable table and Element Filter builds a precise selection, both from the same file.
An honest limit: this is the heaviest tool on the site, and a very large federated model will be more comfortable in desktop software. The nine data tools here do not load a 3D engine at all, so if you only need to read or convert the data, they stay fast no matter how big the file is.
Questions
- Is my IFC file uploaded anywhere?
- No. The file is read by your own browser and the geometry is built on your machine using WebAssembly. The model is never sent to FreeBIMTools, and there is no upload endpoint for it.
- How do I navigate the model?
- Drag to orbit, scroll to zoom, and right-drag to pan. Fit model returns to a view of the whole building, which is the fastest way back when you have lost yourself inside a wall.
- When would I use orthographic instead of perspective?
- Perspective looks natural and is better for understanding space. Orthographic removes the vanishing point, so parallel lines stay parallel, which makes it far easier to judge alignment and compare positions across a facade or a grid.
- Why is a large model slower here than in desktop software?
- Because it is running in a browser tab using your machine's memory rather than a native application's. That is the trade for not uploading anything and not installing anything. Large federated models are genuinely more comfortable in desktop software, and it is fair to say so.
- Can I click an element to see its properties?
- Not yet. The viewer currently handles navigation only. Rather than ship a click handler that silently does nothing, selection is left out until it works properly. Use the IFC Property Explorer for a searchable table of every property, or the IFC GUID Finder to look up a single element.
- Nothing appears after loading. What went wrong?
- Usually the export contained no geometry, which happens more often than people expect when an exporter is set to write data only. Run the file through the IFC File Analyzer: if it reports elements but nothing renders here, the geometry was not written into the file.
- Can it open a Revit .rvt file?
- No, and no browser tool honestly can. RVT is a proprietary format that needs Revit itself. Export an IFC from Revit and this viewer will open it.
Was this useful, or is something missing? There is no rating widget here, because a thumbs up with nowhere to go is not feedback. Tell us what IFC Viewer should do, and describe the job rather than the feature.