How to Find Clashes Between Building Elements in IFC
Detect where pipes hit walls, ducts cross beams, or elements overlap before they become expensive problems on site.
Clashes happen when two building elements occupy the same space. A pipe running through a beam, a duct passing through a wall without a sleeve, or two columns overlapping are all examples. Finding these conflicts in the model is much cheaper than finding them on the construction site.
How to run clash detection
- Upload your IFC file. If you have separate discipline files (architecture, structure, MEP), use Merge Files first to combine them.
- Open the Clash Detection tool.
- Select which element groups to check against each other (for example, structural elements vs. MEP elements).
- Click Run. BIMCamel analyzes every pair and reports where elements intersect.
Reading the results
The report lists each clash with the element types involved, their locations, and the severity. You can sort by severity to focus on the most critical issues first.
Before running clash detection
- Run a Model Health Check to make sure the model is clean. Orphaned geometry or duplicate elements can create false positives.
- Make sure coordinates are consistent across all files if you merged multiple models.
Clash detection is one of the biggest time-savers in BIM coordination. Catching issues digitally can save weeks of rework on site.