Overview

IFC-Lite is a next-generation IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) platform built with Rust + WebAssembly for parsing, geometry processing, and WebGPU for 3D visualization. It's designed to be a 95x smaller and significantly faster alternative to existing web-based IFC solutions.

Features

| Feature | Description | |---------|-------------| | STEP/IFC Parsing | Zero-copy tokenization at ~1,259 MB/s with full IFC4 schema support (776 entities) | | Streaming Pipeline | Progressive geometry processing - first triangles render in 300-500ms | | WebGPU Rendering | Modern GPU-accelerated 3D visualization with depth testing and frustum culling | | Columnar Storage | Memory-efficient TypedArray storage with 30% string deduplication | | Zero-Copy GPU | Direct WASM memory binding to GPU buffers |

Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18.0+ with pnpm 8.0+
• Rust toolchain with wasm32-unknown-unknown target
• Modern browser with WebGPU support (Chrome 113+, Edge 113+, Firefox 127+, Safari 18+)

Installation

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/louistrue/ifc-lite.git
cd ifc-lite

# Install dependencies
pnpm install

# Build all packages
pnpm build

# Run the viewer
cd apps/viewer
pnpm dev

Basic Usage

import { IfcParser } from '@ifc-lite/parser';
import { Renderer } from '@ifc-lite/renderer';

// Parse IFC file
const parser = new IfcParser();
const result = await parser.parse(ifcArrayBuffer);

// Access entities
const walls = result.entities.filter(e => e.type === 'IFCWALL');
console.log(`Found ${walls.length} walls`);

// Render geometry
const renderer = new Renderer(canvas);
await renderer.loadGeometry(result.geometry);
renderer.render();

Documentation

| Resource | Description | |----------|-------------| | User Guide | Complete guide with tutorials and examples | | API Reference | Rustdoc API documentation | | Architecture | System design and data flow | | Contributing | How to contribute to the project |

Architecture

IFC files flow through three layers:

Parser (Rust/WASM) — Zero-copy STEP tokenizer, entity scanner, and geometry processor using nom, earcutr, and nalgebra.

Data (TypeScript) — Columnar TypedArrays for properties, CSR graph for relationships, GPU-ready geometry buffers.

Output — WebGPU renderer, Parquet analytics, glTF/JSON-LD/CSV export.

Project Structure

ifc-lite/
├── rust/                      # Rust/WASM backend
│   ├── core/                  # IFC/STEP parsing (~2,000 LOC)
│   ├── geometry/              # Geometry processing (~2,500 LOC)
│   └── wasm-bindings/         # JavaScript API (~800 LOC)
│
├── packages/                  # TypeScript packages
│   ├── parser/                # High-level IFC parser
│   ├── geometry/              # Geometry bridge (WASM)
│   ├── renderer/              # WebGPU rendering
│   ├── query/                 # Query system
│   ├── data/                  # Columnar data structures
│   ├── spatial/               # Spatial indexing
│   ├── export/                # Export formats
│   └── codegen/               # Schema generator
│
├── apps/
│   └── viewer/                # React web application
│
├── docs/                      # Documentation (MkDocs)
└── plan/                      # Technical specifications

Performance

Bundle Size Comparison

| Library | Size | Gzipped | |---------|------|---------| | IFC-Lite | ~86 KB | ~28 KB | | Traditional WASM | 8+ MB | N/A | | Reduction | 93% | - |

Parse Performance

| Model Size | IFC-Lite | Notes | |------------|----------|-------| | 10 MB | ~800ms | Small models | | 50 MB | ~2.7s | Typical models | | 100+ MB | ~5s+ | Complex geometry |

Geometry Processing

• 1.9x faster mesh extraction than traditional solutions
• Streaming pipeline with batched processing (100 meshes/batch)
• First triangles visible in 300-500ms

Browser Requirements

| Browser | Minimum Version | WebGPU | |---------|----------------|--------| | Chrome | 113+ | ✅ | | Edge | 113+ | ✅ | | Firefox | 127+ | ✅ | | Safari | 18+ | ✅ |

Development

# Watch mode for all packages
pnpm -r dev

# Build specific package
cd packages/parser && pnpm build

# Run tests
pnpm test

# Build Rust/WASM
cd rust && cargo build --release --target wasm32-unknown-unknown

# Generate Rustdoc
cd rust && cargo doc --no-deps --open

# Build documentation site
cd docs && mkdocs serve

Packages

| Package | Description | Status | |---------|-------------|--------| | @ifc-lite/parser | STEP tokenizer & entity extraction | ✅ Stable | | @ifc-lite/geometry | Geometry processing bridge | ✅ Stable | | @ifc-lite/renderer | WebGPU rendering pipeline | ✅ Stable | | @ifc-lite/query | Fluent & SQL query system | 🚧 Beta | | @ifc-lite/data | Columnar data structures | ✅ Stable | | @ifc-lite/spatial | Spatial indexing & culling | 🚧 Beta | | @ifc-lite/export | Export (glTF, Parquet, etc.) | 🚧 Beta |

Rust Crates

| Crate | Description | Status | |-------|-------------|--------| | ifc-lite-core | STEP/IFC parsing | ✅ Stable | | ifc-lite-geometry | Mesh triangulation | ✅ Stable | | ifc-lite-wasm | WASM bindings | ✅ Stable |

Contributing

We welcome contributions! Please see our Contributing Guide for details.

# Fork and clone
git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/ifc-lite.git

# Create a branch
git checkout -b feature/my-feature

# Make changes and test
pnpm test

# Submit a pull request

License

This project is licensed under the Mozilla Public License 2.0.

Acknowledgments

• Built with nom for parsing
• earcutr for polygon triangulation
• nalgebra for linear algebra
• wasm-bindgen for Rust/JS interop