How to Export Navisworks Files (NWD, NWF, NWC) to IFC for Free

Turn a federated Navisworks model into a clean IFC 2x3 or IFC 4 file — geometry, property sets, classifications, and federation hierarchy preserved — using a free, open-source Navisworks plug-in. No enterprise licence required.

If you have ever received a Navisworks file (NWD, NWF, or NWC) from a coordinator and needed to push it downstream as IFC — into a CDE, a validator, an open-BIM workflow, or just an open-BIM tool — you know the problem. Navisworks does not ship a first-party IFC exporter. The third-party converters that do exist are mostly priced for enterprise. And the obvious workaround — go back to the original BIM authoring model and re-publish — is usually not available because you do not own the source files.

This guide walks through how to export Navisworks files to IFC for free, using an open-source Navisworks plug-in maintained as part of the BIMCamel project.

No Navisworks? You do not need it. The online Navisworks to IFC converter takes an NWD in your browser and gives you an IFC back, with nothing to install, keeping properties, materials and the model hierarchy. Convert an NWD online. The rest of this guide is for people who work inside Navisworks and want the plug-in.

What you need

Navisworks Manage or Navisworks Simulate, version 2020 through 2026. Navisworks Freedom does not load third-party plug-ins, so it will not work here.
The free Navisworks Files to IFC Exporter plug-in — install once, works across every supported Navisworks version on the machine.
A Windows machine. The plug-in is a Navisworks .dll, and Navisworks itself is Windows-only.

Step 1 — Install the plug-in

Head to the download page and grab the installer. You have two download paths:

Download installer — opens the latest release page on GitHub with the installer ready to download.
Download from GitHub — opens the full releases list. Pick this if you need a specific older version or want to verify checksums and release notes first.

Close Navisworks if it is open, then run the installer. It registers the plug-in for every Navisworks Manage / Simulate version it detects on the machine — no per-version re-install required.

Step 2 — Open your model in Navisworks

Launch Navisworks Manage or Simulate. Open the NWD, NWF, or NWC you want to export — or open a fresh document and append several files to build a federation first if that's the shape you want to deliver as IFC.

Step 3 — Pick what to export

A new BIMCamel ribbon tab appears with an Export to IFC button. Before you click it, decide your scope:

Whole model. Default behaviour. Every loaded file in the federation gets exported as one consolidated IFC, with the Navisworks tree mapped onto IfcSpatialStructure.
Selection. Select elements in the 3D view or the Selection Tree first, then click Export. Only the selected elements are written.
One saved selection / search set. Right-click a Selection Set or Search Set in the Sets palette and choose Export to IFC. Useful for slicing a federated model by discipline (Mechanical only, Structural only) without rebuilding the file in another tool.
Multiple search sets at once. Open the export dialog and tick several search sets — the plug-in writes one IFC per set in a single run (`Mechanical.ifc`, `Structural.ifc`, `Architecture.ifc`, `Electrical.ifc`). A quick way to turn a federated NWD into a per-discipline IFC bundle ready for handover.

Step 4 — Choose the IFC version

In the export dialog, pick the IFC schema:

IFC 2x3 — the most widely supported handover format. Use this unless you have a specific downstream requirement otherwise. Navisworks itself (round-trip), FreeCAD, common coordination and authoring tools, and most CDEs treat IFC 2x3 as the safe default.
IFC 4 — newer schema with richer geometry definitions and improved property handling. Use this when your downstream consumer specifically asks for it.

The plug-in writes both schemas natively — it is not a 2x3 file with the version header flipped.

Step 5 — Map elements and parameters (optional)

A useful feature of the exporter is the mapping editor. By default the plug-in picks sensible IFC classes from each element's Navisworks category, but you almost always know better. Open the Mapping tab in the export dialog and you can:

Map any Navisworks category to a target IfcClass — `Item · Type → IfcWallStandardCase`, `Item · Type → IfcDoor`, etc.
Map any Navisworks property — Item, Element, authoring-type, Common, or custom tab — to a specific IFC Pset and property name: `Type · Mark → Pset_BIMCamel.Mark`, `Custom · Cost Code → Pset_CostBreakdown.Code`.
Save the mapping as a preset and reuse it on every export for the same project or client. Mapping presets are JSON files you can commit to your project's coordination repo so the whole team exports the same shape.

This is the difference between an IFC that imports as `IfcBuildingElementProxy` blobs everywhere and one that lands as proper `IfcWall`, `IfcDoor`, `IfcDuctSegment` elements with structured Psets — which means downstream tools (coordination rule sets, IDS specs, clash detection, QTO extraction) actually work.

Step 6 — Configure what to include

The defaults are sane, but you can tune:

Geometry. All / Visible only. The Visible-only setting honours Navisworks' current visibility toggles, so you can hide systems in the 3D view and the export skips them.
Property sets. Navisworks tabs (Item, Element, authoring-type, Common, custom) map onto IfcPropertySet definitions. You can deselect tabs you do not want to ship.
Classifications. Uniclass, OmniClass, custom classifications round-trip into IfcClassificationReference.
Coordinates. Either preserve Navisworks' world coordinates as-is, or re-centre near the origin. The latter is helpful if the source authoring software wrote the model thousands of metres from origin (which BIM authoring and civil design federations often do).
GUIDs. Stable element GUIDs derived from the Navisworks source ID. This matters if you plan to re-export next week and run a Compare against today's version — stable IDs make the diff meaningful.

Step 7 — Split the output by file size (optional)

For huge federations (the kind that come out as 600 MB+ NWDs), one monolithic IFC is rarely what you want. Most CDEs cap upload size; most downstream viewers run out of memory loading a 1 GB IFC. The export dialog lets you set a target file-size cap — typical values: 100, 200, 500 MB. When set, the exporter writes multiple linked IFC parts (`Project_Tower.part01.ifc`, `.part02.ifc`, `.part03.ifc`, …) instead of one file.

Federation references are rewritten between the parts so downstream viewers reassemble the model correctly, and the spatial structure (IfcProject → IfcSite → IfcBuilding → IfcBuildingStorey) is preserved across every chunk.

Step 8 — Export

Pick an output folder, click Export. Progress shows in the Navisworks status bar. A 100 MB federation typically writes in 30–60 seconds; larger models scale linearly with element count. When you've ticked multiple search sets, each one runs in sequence and lands in the same output folder.

The resulting `.ifc` files are plain ISO 10303-21 STEP files — they open in any IFC viewer.

Step 9 — Validate and use the IFC

Once the export finishes, drop the IFC into BIMCamel for a quick sanity pass:

Open the IFC Viewer and verify the project tree looks right, elements are selectable, and properties read across.
Run a model health check — it flags missing GUIDs, far-from-origin coordinates, orphan geometry, and other typical post-export issues so you can fix them before delivery.
If your contract requires IDS compliance, run the IDS Validator against your spec.
Send the IFC into a Collaborate room for live multi-discipline review.

Common gotchas

Far-from-origin geometry. If the source authoring software wrote at survey-grid coordinates, the exported IFC will too. Turn on Re-centre on export, or run the Fix Coordinates tool on the resulting IFC.
Missing property sets. If a tab is empty in Navisworks, the corresponding IfcPropertySet will be empty too — that's a source-data problem, not an export bug. Re-run the data-extraction step in the original authoring tool and re-federate.
Wrong IFC class. If everything lands as `IfcBuildingElementProxy`, you skipped Step 5 — open the mapping editor and map the relevant Navisworks categories to real IfcClass values.
Hidden elements. With Visible-only ticked, anything hidden in the Navisworks Selection Tree is skipped. Forgot to unhide a system before exporting? Toggle it back on and re-export — the plug-in does not cache.
Linked NWCs. Navisworks treats NWCs as references. The exporter follows the references and emits one consolidated IFC by default. If you want one IFC per discipline, tick multiple search sets (Step 3) instead.

Why use this rather than a paid converter?

It is free, MIT-licensed, and the source is on GitHub. Read the code, fork it, ship a PR.
No licence server, no phone-home telemetry, no per-seat fee.
Built by a coordinator who exports Navisworks federations to IFC every week — so the defaults match the actual workflow, not what a product manager imagined.
Pairs cleanly with the rest of the BIMCamel platform — the exported IFC drops into validation, clash detection, BCF coordination, and pipeline automation without leaving the browser.

The bigger picture

Navisworks is excellent at federation and clash review on the desktop. IFC is the lingua franca for everything downstream — handover, CDE ingestion, FM, web viewers, open-source tooling. Bridging the two should not require a five-figure procurement cycle. This plug-in is that bridge.