Loading and Modifying an IFC Mapping File

Before exporting a Revit project to IFC, you may need to map generic family instances to IFC containers (element types). You do this by creating a new IFC mapping file or editing an existing one. Also, you can use the following procedure to load the desired IFC mapping file before exporting a Revit project to IFC.

To load and modify an IFC mapping file

  1. Click ExportOptions (IFC Options).
  2. In the IFC Export Classes dialog:
    • To create a new IFC mapping file based on the IAI standard, click Standard.

      Revit creates an IFC mapping file named exportlayers-ifc-IAI.txt.

    • To load an existing IFC mapping file, click Load, navigate to the file, and click Open.

    Each row in the dialog represents an element category or subcategory. For standard building elements, an assigned class name appears in the IFC Class Name column. For building elements that do not have automatic mapping to IFC export classes, the value displayed in the IFC Class Name column is Not Exported.

  3. For each category or subcategory to export:
    • For IFC Class Name, enter the name of the IFC class for the particular category/subcategory pair.
    • For Type, enter the type of object within that subclass.

    Appropriate values are set according to the IFC standard definition. Selecting Not Exported prevents elements of that category or subcategory from being exported.

    If the values for a category or subcategory are blank, Revit will try to determine the appropriate category. If a match cannot be found for an object that has geometry, it is exported as a proxy object.

  4. To save the settings:
    • To save the settings in a new IFC mapping file, click Save As, navigate to a target folder, and enter a new file name. Click OK.
    • To save the changed settings in the existing IFC mapping file (whose file name appears in the dialog’s title bar), click OK.

When you export a Revit project to IFC, Revit automatically uses the appropriate IFC mapping file.