In our previous post – introduction: The BIM 2.0 required Technical Foundation - we referred to BIM 2.0 as a technological reset. It should span not only design phases and execution but also the maintenance till demolition.
Beyond standard architectural primitives (walls, slabs, columns), contemporary building assets comprise high-fidelity mechanical assemblies essential for facility management and lifecycle assessment. These components typically originate from manufacturer catalogs authored in mechanical CAD (MCAD) environments—such as CATIA, SolidWorks, NX, or Creo—which utilize distinct geometric kernels and data schemas.
The objective of BIM 2.0 should be the establishment of a singular environment for all building components, assemblies, and parts. This necessitates the deep integration of traditional AEC objects with MCAD-authored entities, ensuring that the transition between industries does not result in data loss or geometric discretization. Qonic considers a building as an assembly of subassemblies and parts – a paradigm we have in common with MCAD environments.
In the MCAD domain, STEP serves as the primary neutral exchange format, analogous to IFC in BIM. While IFC has adopted STEP’s geometric definitions, it has extended them to manage complex, domain-specific metadata. Historically, STEP has focused on geometric fidelity rather than extensible data attributes.
With Qonic we achieve parity between these standards. While maintaining IFC compliance, Qonic natively manages STEP geometry, enabling the mapping of arbitrary structured data and metadata to mechanical objects. This allows a complex assembly - such as an elevator system - to be integrated via STEP while being able to be enriched with the same level of structured data richness as native BIM elements. In the later facilities management phase, all the technical maintenance issues will be handled at the same level and on the same platform as a wall, door or any other element in the building.
A recent airport client of Qonic has all the data of its mechanical installations – e.g. luggage conveyors – in Maximo, a decades-old management application. With Qonic, the geometrical twin of such complex mechanical system can be visually connected with all data involved for easy maintenance.
In Qonic we have chosen for the integration of Building elements and MCAD based elements which is contingent upon Boundary Representation (B-Rep), or solid modeling.
The Qonic team leverages twenty years of expertise in B-Rep technology to eliminate the “approximations” commonly found in legacy BIM workflows. By utilizing our solid- modeling kernel, we ensure that the building model remains a high-precision digital twin. Unlike mesh-based approximations, B-Rep delivers 100% geometric accuracy - a requirement in high-tolerance industries like aerospace and automotive.
If you agree with Qonic’s vision on BIM 2.0 or parts of it, please share it with your peers. It helps Qonic
About
Erik de Keyser is Co-Founder of Qonic. He previously founded and led Bricsys for 18 years, building it into a global player in professional CAD and BIM software. That journey gave him deep insight into what the AEC industry needs—and where traditional approaches fall short. In 2021, he co-founded Qonic with former colleagues and supports it financially to fundamentally rethink BIM from the ground up.