How-To Guide
Exporting IFC from Navisworks
The IFC Exporter turns any Navisworks selection into a clean IFC4 file that links straight into Revit — with your properties, your model colors, and your model coordinates carried through. Here is the whole workflow, start to finish.
Set your display units first
The IFC file is written in whatever linear units Navisworks is currently displaying, so set them before you export, not after.
Go to Options → Interface → Display Units and set Linear Units to what the receiving model expects — Feet and Inches Fractions for most US work. The exporter's completion report confirms which units were used, so you can verify it after the fact.
Open the exporter
On the C8 Data Toolkit ribbon tab, click Export IFC in the IFC Exporter panel.
Build your selection
The Selection panel at the top of the dialog shows a live count of what you have picked. The dialog stays open while you work, so you can pick items in Navisworks — model tree, search sets, selection sets, whatever you normally use — and watch the count update.
Nothing gets clipped or sectioned out. The exporter takes the geometry as it is.
Choose where the file goes
Under Export Location, browse to your output folder and set the IFC filename.
Add to existing IFC is the option worth understanding. Leave it off and each export replaces the file. Turn it on and the newly selected parts are appended to the existing file of that name instead.
Keep exporting to the same IFC and the modeler reloads one link in Revit, instead of adding a new link for every export. More on that in step 08.
Set your export options
Three toggles, all on by default.
| Option | What it does |
|---|---|
| Export properties | Writes the properties from the selected parents and their geometry-bearing children into IFC property sets. This is what carries your Navisworks property data through to Revit, where the modeler can see and use it. Turn it off for a geometry-only file. |
| Export colors | Carries model colors through as surface styling, so the IFC looks like what you were looking at in Navisworks. |
| Preserve model coordinates | Keeps the geometry at its original model coordinates. Turn it off and the objects land near the export origin instead. For anything going back into a coordinated model, leave it on. |
Export
Click Export IFC. Progress shows at the bottom of the dialog, and you can minimize the window and keep working while it runs.
Work in a different application rather than continuing in Navisworks. The export reads the model while it writes, and Navisworks is happier left alone until it finishes.
Check the completion report
When the export finishes you get a summary: the file path, the schema, the units used, the log file location, and a count of objects exported. Confirm the units line matches what you intended, then click OK.
If anything looks off, the log file has the detail:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\C8 Data\Navisworks Toolkit\Logs\IfcExporter.log
That is the file to send us if you need support.
Bring the IFC into Revit
First time. Insert tab → Link IFC → select your file. Revit converts it and writes companion files next to the IFC:
-
.ifc.RVT— what Revit actually links. Do not move, rename, or edit it. -
.ifc.log.html— the conversion report. -
.ifc.sharedparameters.txt— the shared parameters found in the IFC.
Every export after that. If you exported to the same folder and filename, you don't re-link — you reload. Select the link in the Project Browser and click Reload, or go to Insert → Manage Links. In Revit 2023–2025 there's a dedicated IFC tab in that dialog; Revit 2026 replaces the tabs with a filterable tree, reached the same way from the Insert tab's Manage panel.
When Revit links an IFC it generates a shared parameters file for the IFC properties. A newly linked IFC generates a new shared parameters file with different GUIDs, even when the property set and property names are identical — so view filters, schedules, and overrides built on those parameters stop working. Export to the same filename, reload the same link, and all of that survives the update.
Using the exported properties. With Export properties on, the data rides
along on the elements and the modeler can see it in Revit. To schedule or filter on those
fields, add them to the host project from the .ifc.sharedparameters.txt file
using Manage → Shared Parameters.
Coordinates. Leave Preserve model coordinates on and the geometry lands where it belongs. This matters most before Revit 2026, where you can't choose an insertion point when linking an IFC — the coordinates you export with are what you get. Revit 2026 adds IFC positioning options at link time.
If something looks wrong
| Symptom | Fix |
|---|---|
| Wrong units in the IFC | Display Units were set after the export. Fix the units in Navisworks Options and export again. |
| Objects sitting at the origin | Preserve model coordinates was off. Turn it on and export again. |
| No properties in Revit |
Export properties was off, or the parameters haven't been added to the host project
from the .ifc.sharedparameters.txt file.
|
| Reload shows old geometry |
Delete the .ifc.RVT cache file sitting next to the IFC and reload.
That forces a full rebuild from the IFC.
|
| References lost after a reload | Verify any dimensions or alignments you'd previously established — geometry changes can make those hard to maintain. |