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Tools & comparisons · 2026-10-02 · 8 min
Presentation Images From an IFC Model: Boards, Covers and Coordination Views
Most project images are screenshots with the toolbar cropped out. A model already contains what a good presentation image needs — sections, disciplines, storeys, real north — and a template can turn it into a board, a cover or a coordination view in minutes.
Presentation Images From an IFC Model: Boards, Covers and Coordination Views — IFC Viewer Online article cover
Every project needs images long before it needs renders: a cover for the stage report, a board for the design review, a picture for the bid, a post when the planning application goes in. They are usually screenshots with the toolbar cropped out, and they look like it.
The model already knows a great deal that a good presentation image needs. Where the storeys are. Which elements are structure and which are services. Where the site is and where the sun is. A template that uses that knowledge produces something in minutes that would take an afternoon in a layout tool.
Four image types every project uses
Cover, board, data sheet and coordination view — four images every project needs, all made from the model.
| Image | For | What makes it work |
|---|
| Cover | Reports, bids, the project page | One strong view, generous space, the project name |
| Board | Design reviews | Several views — exterior, section, plan — in one consistent look |
| Data sheet | Handover, client updates | A view with the key facts and a QR link to the live model |
| Coordination view | Coordination meetings | Disciplines in consistent colours, architecture translucent |
Sections that read as sections
A cut model without poché looks broken: hollow walls, slabs with no thickness, a building with a slice missing. Filling the cut faces is what turns it into a section. The same fill should apply whether the cut comes from a presentation template or from the section tool — two different looks in the same report is the kind of inconsistency reviewers notice.
Plan cuts per storey are placed from the storey levels in the IFC, at a working height above the floor; the details are in how to measure an IFC model online.
Coordination images by discipline
For a coordination meeting the useful image is not the prettiest one. It is the one where everybody can find their own work: structure in one colour, mechanical in another, electrical in a third, and the architecture faded back so it gives context without hiding anything.
- Disciplines are detected from ISO 19650 file naming (the role code), then from the file name, then from the content.
- Any detection can be overridden per model — naming conventions are not always followed.
- The architecture goes translucent automatically when structure or services are present.
Light, finish and brand
A few controls account for most of the difference between a screenshot and an image: soft light from the right direction, a background that is not the default grey, and a consistent colour palette. Brand colours can be set once — or taken from an existing image — and every template then uses them.
From one image to a deck
The same views can be assembled into a slide deck — project, statement, grid of views — and exported, so the design review presentation is built from the model rather than from screenshots pasted into slides. Undo covers every step, and the layout is saved with the file so the next revision starts where the last one ended.
For moving images, the same shots become a video: turning an IFC model into a video. For quality evidence to go with them, see what to hand over with an IFC model.
Presentation Images From an IFC Model: Boards, Covers and Coordination Views