IFC Naming Checker
Check element names against the convention your project actually uses, and find the blank names and invisible whitespace that break everything downstream.
Drop your IFC here
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Large models work best on a desktop browser. Files above roughly 500.0 MB may exceed browser memory.
How it works
- 1Select an IFC file. It is read from your disk by your browser and goes no further.
- 2Blank names, padded names, names that only repeat the class and names written more than one way are reported straight away.
- 3Give a pattern, optionally scoped to one IFC class, and every name is tested against it.
- 4Export the findings as CSV, Excel or JSON.
About IFC Naming Checker
Names are the part of a model everybody reads and nobody validates. IFC calls Name a label and says nothing more about it, so whatever convention a project has lives in a document rather than in the file, and nothing checks it until a schedule comes out wrong.
The failures are rarely dramatic. A trailing space that no interface displays. The same code typed once in capitals and once in lower case. Forty elements exported with no name at all. Each one is small, and each one breaks an exact match somewhere: a spreadsheet lookup, a filter, a join to an asset register, a script that groups by name.
This tool reports those four things without being told anything, because they are problems regardless of what convention you follow. Then it takes your convention as a pattern and tests every name against it. That second half is the only part that calls anything a failure, because it is the only part where a requirement actually exists.
Patterns can be scoped to one IFC class, which is how a real convention usually works: doors carry one code, walls another, spaces a third. Run it once per class and export each result.
Nothing here is renamed. Changing names inside a model is the authoring tool's job, and doing it in a browser without knowing what references those names would create a worse problem than the one it solved.
Questions
- Does IFC define a correct element name?
- No. The standard treats Name as a label and says nothing about its content, which is why every naming convention is a project decision rather than a rule. That is the reason this tool separates two things: observations that hold whatever your convention is, and the pattern you supply, which is the only part reported as a pass or a failure.
- Why does a trailing space matter?
- Because it is invisible everywhere it counts. A name with a trailing space looks identical on screen to one without, and then fails an exact match in a spreadsheet lookup, a filter, a schedule join or a script. The report shows the padding as a highlighted dot so you can see what is actually in the file.
- What is a name written more than one way?
- Two or more names that become identical once case and spacing are ignored, but differ in the file. WA-EX-001 and wa-ex-001 are one example, as are Door 2 and Door 2 with two spaces. Anything that groups or joins on the name treats them as different values, so a count that should read four reads two and two.
- How do I write the pattern?
- As a regular expression. There are ready-made ones above the field for common shapes, and pressing one fills it in so you can adjust it. A pattern can be scoped to a single IFC class, which is how you say that doors follow one rule and walls another. Case sensitivity is a toggle, since some conventions care and some do not.
- Is an unnamed element counted as a failure?
- Against your pattern, yes. A convention describes what a name must look like, and an absent name cannot satisfy it. Unnamed elements are also listed on their own, because on many models that is the largest single finding and it is worth seeing separately from the pattern result.
- Is my IFC file uploaded anywhere?
- No. The file is read by your own browser using a WebAssembly IFC parser. The model is never sent to FreeBIMTools or anywhere else, and there is no upload endpoint for it.
- Can it read 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 tool will read it.
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