How to Share BIM Models with External Stakeholders — Safely, View-Only
Send clients, contractors, or teammates a read-only 3D viewer link to your BIM model. Password-protect it, set an expiration, and skip the install. Or invite them straight into a Collaborate room and review together live.
Emailing a 200 MB IFC file rarely ends well — mailboxes reject it, cloud drives strip metadata, and you lose control over who opens it. BIMCamel's Share IFC File tool turns any completed job into a read-only link that opens directly in a browser viewer. No download, no BIM software, no fuss.
- What a share link does
- You generate a link from Job History (per completed job) or from the tool grid (Share IFC File tile).
- The recipient opens the URL — the model loads in BIMCamel's read-only viewer with a project tree, properties panel, and camera controls.
- They can explore, rotate, section, and inspect elements — but they can't download the IFC.
That last part is important. The share link only exposes the fragment-converted geometry and properties — never the raw `.ifc` source. Even a technical recipient can't reverse-engineer the source file from the fragment stream.
Password-protecting a share Every share link is password-protected by default — BIMCamel auto-generates a strong password and shows it to you once. Pro and Team users can set their own custom password instead, or remove the password entirely for a frictionless public link. The recipient sees a password prompt before the viewer mounts. Wrong passwords return a 401 immediately. Passwords are salted and hashed on the server (HMAC-SHA512); the plaintext is shown once to you and sent once in the optional email, never stored in plain form.
Sharing without a password (public link) If you prefer a frictionless link — a portfolio piece, a public tender clarification, or an internal team channel where the audience is already trusted — Pro and Team users can tick No password. A warning confirms that anyone with the URL can view the model. Downloads stay blocked for everyone.
Setting an expiration date Pro+ users can set a hard expiration date in the share modal. After that moment the link returns HTTP 410 Gone and nobody — including the original recipient — can open it again. The expiration is capped to your tier's retention window. Free accounts keep results for 7 days, so a Free share can't outlast that; Pro and Team keep files until you delete them, so you can set the expiration as far out as you need. Without an explicit date, the link expires automatically when the job's retention window ends.
Sending the link by email (Team+) Team and Admin users get a Send link by email field in the share modal. Type a recipient address and BIMCamel sends them a clean, inline email with a big Open the model button, the password (if any), and the expiration date. The email uses the same template as BIMCamel's pipeline-completion notifications, so inbox placement is reliable — no HTML soup, no spam triggers.
What the recipient can do inside the shared viewer - Rotate, pan, zoom the model. - Toggle a project tree showing Project → Site → Building → Storey → Space with element names. - Select an element in the 3D scene or the tree — the properties panel opens with every attribute and property set. - Create section planes to slice the model.
What the recipient can NOT do - Download the IFC, fragment, or any derivative file. - Run pipeline operations against the model. - Save selections or searches — those require an account. - See any other files or models in your account.
Why this is safer than email or cloud storage - No download. The viewer streams fragment geometry — there is no `Save as` route that recovers the source IFC. Compare this to emailing a file, where the recipient can immediately forward the attachment to anyone. - Expiration built in. Cloud-storage links often outlive the reason they were created. BIMCamel share links hit a hard cutoff and stop working — no manual revocation required. - No signup for the recipient. They click the link, enter the password, and they're viewing. No account to manage, no data to store. - Password is yours to choose. For high-sensitivity models, pick something long. The link and password travel on separate channels (link in chat, password in SMS, for example).
- How to generate a share link
- Upload your IFC and run any BIMCamel tool — even the IFC Viewer counts as a completed job. Any completed job can be shared.
- Open Job History.
- On the row, click Share.
- Optional: tick No password, or type a custom password (Pro+), or set an expiration date (Pro+), or enter a recipient email (Team+).
- Click Generate link → copy the URL + password with one button, or trust the email delivery to the recipient.
That's the whole flow. The recipient never touches BIMCamel as a logged-in user; you never send them the source file; and you always know when the link expires.