BIMcollab ZOOM — The Complete Guide: IFC Viewing and BCF Coordination in the Free Edition
BIMcollab ZOOM is an IFC viewer built for cross-discipline coordination: you load architecture, structure and services models together, navigate, cut sections and record issues in the open BCF format. There is a free edition open to everyone — but it is limited.
BIMcollab ZOOM
BIMcollab (KUBUS)
An IFC viewer with clash detection — the free edition is limited in capability.
Get it from the vendorWhat you get free
- Model federation — several IFC files in one scene.
- Navigation and sections — section planes and the properties of every element.
- Measurement and markup — dimensions, annotations and property stamps.
- Smart Views — filtering and colouring by properties, stored locally.
- BCF — create, edit and export issues for the team.
Licence limits
The free edition may be used by anyone, including for commercial work, but it is a reduced edition. Running rule-based geometric clash checks, Smart Issues, quantity Lists, IDS checking and sharing Smart Views with the team through the cloud are reserved for a paid licence. Understand that boundary before building a workflow on it.
Related tools
A free viewer with no restrictions — BIMvision. For viewing check results — Solibri Anywhere (existing users only). For open-source IFC editing — Bonsai.
BIMvision
Datacomp
A free IFC viewer — open a BIM model, measure, section and take off quantities, without a licence.
Get it from the vendor
Solibri Anywhere
Solibri (Nemetschek)
Solibri’s IFC viewer, now a legacy product — free only for existing users who stay on versions before 26.4.0.
Get it from the vendorOpen IFC Viewer
Open Design Alliance (ODA)
A free, light IFC viewer, available for Linux and macOS too.
Get it from the vendor
Bonsai (BlenderBIM)
IfcOpenShell
Native IFC editing inside Blender — open-source BIM.
Get it from the vendorThe bottom line
A fast, comfortable IFC viewer with full BCF support, but real clash detection needs a paid licence.