buildingSMART Data Dictionary

The bSDD helps to prevent misunderstandings and increase interoperability in the AECO industry, by providing standardized terminology extending IFC. If you are involved in a project requiring specialist object names and properties, or need to follow certain classification system, the bSDD can help you distribute, apply and validate that information.

No, bSDD is a service from buildingSMART International supporting the openBIM® workflow. The definitions from bSDD can be referenced in IFC models and IDS specifications. The bSDD is implementing concepts covered in ISO standards: 12006-3, 23386 and 23387.

Yes, but it’s not the complete IFC schema, just the data dictionary of IFC. The entities (classes) and properties from the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) are available in the bSDD. At the moment only IFC4.3 is in bSDD, but we are working on publishing also previous and future versions, as well as translations.

The bSDD is FREE to both access the public content and publish dictionaries. Isn’t that great? The service was built thanks to buildingSMART members. Apart from the key functionalities, which are free, there are also additional paid features, such as the ability to share dictionaries with limited people (private content). If you would like to know more or contribute to the bSDD development, contact us at: bSDD_support@buildingsmart.org

oThe bSDD holds all sorts of classification systems, national or domain-specific standards and even companywide or project-specific agreements. However, it is not supposed to contain project- or product-specific terms, as those are not neutral, universal and reusable.
The content consists of classes, properties, and relations between those, and it is contained under organisations and their dictionaries. Read more about the data model of bSDD.

The primary entry point to bSDD is the software and platforms that integrate with it. See the list of software integrated with bSDD. Ask your software vendor for more information.

You can also preview the content that is available in the bSDD on using the search page of bSDD.

Yes, you can! As long as the content is universal and reusable and doesn’t contain project- or product-specific terms. To start, fill out the form Request new organisation. As a publisher, you need to adhere to strict quality guidelines for structuring data. Read more about the data model of bSDD.

The standards and agreements in the bSDD are owned and maintained by the original owners. Just like any other hosting service, the data you put on it stays your ownership. By putting data in the bSDD your agree that buildingSMART International is allowed to distribute it, and end-users can use it.

There are tools allowing to reference content from bSDD in IFC models (e.g. usBIM from ACCA) and IDS specifications (e.g. Plannerly), as well as tools supporting authoring and management of data dictionaries (e.g. usBIM.bSDDeditor, Semantics4BIM). For a list of tools supporting bSDD, see the list of software integrated with bSDD. Do you know more tools supporting bSDD? Please add it to the list. Do you wish more tools to support bSDD? Ask your software vendor to implement our API.

Indeed, the bSDD went through transformation lately to better support the intended use-cases. The current bSDD is fully functional and stable, while we are constantly working on improving it and implementing new features.

Yes, you can use bSDD in contacts. Once activated, the content remains in bSDD for as long as the platform exists, and all resources obtain the immutable URI, meaning you will be able to read it even if deprecated by the author. We explain the minimum Service Level Agreement in our Terms of Service.