IFC Property Set Checker
Find out what data a model really carries: which property sets are present, on which classes, and which elements are missing the ones you asked for.
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.
- 2Every element is read with both its own property sets and those of its type.
- 3Coverage is reported per class against the standard IFC4 property set for that class.
- 4Name your own required property sets and every element is checked against them too.
- 5Export the gaps as CSV, Excel or JSON.
About IFC Property Set Checker
A model is handed over, and somewhere downstream a schedule is built from Pset_DoorCommon. Half the rows come out blank. The model opened fine, the geometry is correct, and nothing warned anybody, because a missing property set is not an error in IFC. It is simply absence.
The awkward part is that absence is invisible from inside the authoring tool, where the data is on screen in the properties panel. Whether it survives the export depends on mapping settings that are easy to get wrong and easier to forget. The first time anyone finds out is when someone else opens the file.
This checker answers the question directly. It reads every element with both its instance and its type property sets, and reports coverage class by class: how many walls carry anything at all, how many carry Pset_WallCommon, which sets exist in this model and which properties are inside them.
Your own sets matter more than the standard ones. Most projects require property sets that IFC says nothing about, defined in an information requirement or a BEP. Name them and they are checked the same way, and those are the only results this tool calls a failure. Everything else it reports as an observation, because calling an optional property a breach would be inventing a rule the standard does not contain.
Properties that exist but hold no value are counted separately. A model full of empty strings passes a coverage check and helps nobody.
Questions
- What is a property set?
- A named group of properties attached to an element. Pset_WallCommon on a wall holds things like FireRating, IsExternal and LoadBearing. IFC defines a standard set for most classes, and authoring tools and project templates add their own on top. Property sets are where nearly all non-geometric information in a model lives.
- Does a missing property set mean the model is wrong?
- Not on its own. Almost every property inside the IFC standard sets is optional, so a model without Pset_WallCommon is still a valid IFC file. What it means is that whoever receives the model will not find the data they were expecting. That becomes a real problem at handover, when a schedule, a COBie deliverable or an asset register is built from properties that turn out not to be there.
- Can I check my own project property sets?
- Yes, and that is the part most worth using. Type the names your project requires, one per line, and every element is checked against them. Those are the only checks reported as a failure, because they are the only requirements anyone has actually stated. Everything else in the report is described as expected rather than required.
- Why does it say properties with no value?
- A property can be present and still hold nothing. An exporter that writes FireRating as an empty string has produced a model that looks populated to a coverage check and is useless to whoever reads it. Present but empty is counted separately for that reason. A value of zero or false is a real answer and is not counted as empty.
- Does it read type properties as well as instance properties?
- Both. Properties can sit on the element itself or on the type it comes from, and different exporters favour different ones. Reading only one of the two reports a model as empty when the data is simply on the other side, so the checker reads both and reports what it finds.
- 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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