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Export from Oasys GSA to IFC

The export is intended for:

  • viewing a GSA model in IFC graphical viewers
  • transferring GSA models into Tekla Structures..

There may be other applications that have not been tested. Note that exporting to Autodesk Revit is recommended to be done primarily by GSA Revit plugin (GsRevit), not via IFC.

All entities will be exported to IFC, i.e. the user has no option to reduce the export to part of a model. The user can choose whether to export the design layer, analysis layer or both layers.

The following options are available:

Generate assemblies for Tekla​

If ON, IFC objects are augmented with additional properties to facilitate import into Tekla Structures. It has no compatibility impact on importing to another software package. This switch can always be turned ON unless you aim to reduce the file size. The default is ON.

Layer(s) to export​

  1. Design layer: members are exported. Elements are skipped during export (default).
  2. Analysis layer: elements are exported. Members are skipped during export. The IFC file will be typically larger than if the design layer is exported since each GSA element has to be represented as one IFC object.
  3. Both: both design and analysis layer are exported to IFC file. This is not recommended.

Colors​

GSA lets you decide how the IFC objects are colored.

  1. None: in case you want to keep the IFC file small.
  2. By type: different entity types within GSA are assigned different colors. (default)
  3. By property: according to assigned property number within GSA.
  4. By group: according to assigned group number within GSA.

Shell elements​

There are several ways how to represent shell surfaces in IFC.

  1. As shells with no thickness (a plane shell). The thickness information is lost.
  2. As faces (e.g. a box consists of six faces so the thickness is determined). Not an efficient setting.
  3. As solids (an area is extruded by thickness, i.e. usually by thickness of a slab or a wall). This is the default setting and the format expected by Tekla Structures.

Beams​

The cross-sections of beams can be represented in two ways.

  1. By perimeter. Every section behaves as a user section. (default)
  2. As standard sections. IFC format supports basic standard sections as L, U, C, I shapes.

Which option to select depends on the target software.