IDS in 7 mins

Sometimes, people have been telling me, “IDS is too hard,” or “It’s too complicated.”

But is that really the case? In fact, IDS is probably the simplest, most popular, and fastest-growing international standard in the whole openBIM ecosystem.

Even before IDS 1.0 was officially released as a buildingSMART standard in June 2024, nearly 20 software applications had already adopted it. Fast-forward one year, and more than 50 tools now support IDS worldwide. Owners, designers, contractors, and even local governments are all starting to use IDS as the go-to standard for defining information requirements.

So this time, instead of giving you a link to a documentation page, let’s try something different:

Can we get you started with IDS in just 7 minutes?

Ready? Go!

What makes an information requirement effective?

Most of you have probably dealt with Information Requirements in one form or another. Yet, even with dozens of pages of documents, projects still struggle to deliver quality, and teams often can’t measure whether those requirements were actually met.

Why? Often because expectations weren’t clearly defined. We didn’t know exactly what outcome to expect.

Think about everyday life:

• We want something to be “good.”
• We want a person to be “excellent.”
• We want a task done “thoroughly.”

Sound familiar? In the professional world, you’ve likely heard similar phrases:

• “This project must use BIM.”
• “We need to do this at a deep level.”
• “The model should reach LOD 500.”

But here’s the problem: what does “good” actually mean? What counts as “thorough”? What does “using BIM” look like in practice?

Take the example of a door:

• Do we only need its height, width, and thickness?
• Or should we also include manufacturer product data?
• Do we need to model the handle geometry?
• What about decorative details on the frame?

Without clear answers, “requirements” become vague wishes.

An effective requirement must be precise and verifiable.

IDS — Turning vague wishes into clear rules

So, how do we move from fuzzy adjectives to clear, testable rules in a BIM environment?

That’s where IDS — Information Delivery Specification comes in.

At its core, IDS is about defining information requirements in a machine-readable way.

• It allows IFC models to be automatically checked for compliance, improving data quality.
• It sets clear expectations and eliminates ambiguity.
• It helps all project roles share the same understanding of what information is required.

That’s the concept. Now let’s get practical.

Three steps to your first IDS

Step 1 — What is a Specification?

Each IDS Specification is made of two parts:

• Applicability — Which objects does this requirement apply to?
• Requirement — What conditions must those objects meet?

Example: “All walls must have a fire rating.”

• Applicability = all walls
• Requirement = must include the property FireRating
• Together, these form one clear, testable rule.

Step 2 — The six Facets

The word facet comes from a diamond’s cut surface. In IT, it often means a dimension or aspect of information.

In IDS, six facets help define Applicability and Requirements:

• Entity (e.g., IfcWall, IfcDoor)
• Attribute (e.g., Name, Description)
• Classification (e.g., Uniclass, CCI)
• Property (e.g., Pset_WallCommon.LoadBearing)
• Material (e.g., concrete, brick)
• Parts (e.g., contained within a space)

Think of them as different “sides of the diamond.”

• In Applicability, facets act as filters — which objects are we talking about?
• In Requirement, facets act as constraints — what must these objects contain or satisfy?

Example:

• Entity = IfcWall → all walls
• Property = Pset_WallCommon.LoadBearing = TRUE → load-bearing walls
• Combine them → all load-bearing walls

Step 3 — Compose your rule

Now, just combine Applicability and Requirement, and you’ve got a complete IDS rule.

Here are some examples:

Example 1: Exterior load-bearing walls must have a fire rating

• Applicability:
  • Entity = IfcWall
  • Property = Pset_WallCommon.LoadBearing = TRUE
• Requirement:
  • Property = Pset_WallCommon.FireRating

Example 2: Bedroom area must not be less than 10㎡

• Applicability:
  • Entity = IfcSpace
  • Attribute = Description contains “BEDROOM”
• Requirement:
  • Property = Qto_SpaceBaseQuantities.NetFloorArea ≥ 10

Example 3: Brick wall types must follow classification and naming rules

• Applicability:
  • Entity = IfcWallType
  • Material = brick
• Requirement:
  • Classification = Uniclass 2015, code starts with EF_25_10
  • Attribute = Name follows format WT01, WT02…

See? it's really not that hard 😉

Once you understand this logic, creating IDS files becomes straightforward. Most IDS authoring tools offer user-friendly interfaces, and many are even free — just search and try them out.

Quick Summary

IDS is a clear, verifiable data standard for describing information requirements.

It enables:

• Owners to set explicit delivery expectations
• Designers & contractors to know exactly what to provide
• Software to automatically check IFC models for compliance

Of course, 7 minutes can’t cover evert detail. So here’s the link after all:

For more details, visit the official buildingSMART IDS page.