Extension of the upcoming IFC alignment standard with cross sections for road design

In the field of structural engineering, the data exchange of product models is mainly achieved using the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC). Until now, IFC is not very suitable for sharing product data models of infrastructure constructions, such as roads, tunnels or bridges. Important alignment information, such as horizontal or vertical alignment, is missing. Besides this, it is also not possible to describe the cross slope, superelavation and cross sections of roads with the help of IFC. As a consequence, buildingSMART, the organization that maintains IFC, started a project called “Infrastructure Alignment & Spatial Reference System” (known for short simply as “P6”) for developing an alignment and reference system. Based on the first version of the finalized conceptual model (“V 1.0”) developed by the P6 group we show how cross sections for roads can be integrated into this model. This demonstrates how IFC can be extended for use in road design applications.