Exporting IFC from Archicad – Property Mapping

When working with IFC, the model data gets imported or exported according to your IFC Translator settings. This tool sets the guidelines for converting elements and deciding how they’re understood, whether it’s in ARCHICAD or the external app reading the IFC file. It’s like the rulebook that ensures everyone speaks the same language when sharing models.

To ensure a good BIM workflow, is important to understand how a Translator is built. Archicad’s template already contains many preset Translators for you to use out of the box. The translator is composed of Conversion Presets, such as “Property Mapping”, in which the user can add and edit IFC Properties that will be exported within the model, as well as relate Archicad Properties to it.

It’s important to understand that all Archicad Properties can be exported as Data, but they won’t become IFC Properties Automatically, if the user needs it to be an IFC Property, they can add them to the Map. See an example:

These mappings define the IFC properties assigned to elements when exported from Archicad.

• •Property data assigned to a parent element (such as IfcElement) are automatically assigned to all its child elements (e.g. IfcBeam, IfcColumn, IfcSlab, IfcWall, etc.)
• •X: Delete any data item by clicking the red X. Attributes cannot be deleted.
• •BOLD TYPE: IFC Entities which have property set data assigned to them are shown in BOLD.
• •BLUE TYPE: Properties of a child element are shown in blue type. You can see its parent type name in parentheses.
• •Chain icon: Indicates that the property has a mapping rule. View its mapping rule at the right side of the dialog box.

Predefined Property Mapping (Export Archicad to IFC)