IDS (Information Delivery Specification) (IDS)

IDS — Information Delivery Specification — is a machine-interpretable specification of what information must be present in a BIM model, primarily for IFC-based exchange. Its point is to state requirements in a form that is both human-readable and computer-checkable, instead of leaving them in prose that only a person can interpret.

With IDS a project defines exactly which objects, properties, classifications, materials, quantities or values a delivery must contain. The core purpose is automatic compliance checking: software validates a delivered IFC model against the specification, so it works like a structured requirements checklist that a machine can enforce — not just a document everyone hopes was followed.

That makes IDS the technical, checkable expression of information requirements normally stated at a higher level in the Exchange Information Requirements, and the practical way to operationalise Level of Information Need — specifying what information is needed, at what detail, for which objects. It is a buildingSMART standard; version 1.0 became an official standard in June 2024. In Italian it is the specifica di consegna delle informazioni, though the acronym IDS is usually kept.