Internal Building Representation (IBR) File Format

IBR implements single file format that can be adapted to multiple use cases in any building.

Data in different verticals such as spatial, assets, and ontology often come from different source systems. This presents a challenge when a developer wants ensure updated data in downstream systems, especially when they want to combine data across multiple verticals. IBR is a solution that allows all of it to be combined in a meaningful, portable way.

IBR has no opinion of data requirements. If a developer wants to use IBR as an asset tracking tool, they can utilize the Objects message. If they later want to map asset locations to a single floor, that is possible by including a Layers message while updating the Objects messages with location data. If they want to track assets with relation to specific space classes, then they can add that data at a later stage without making a breaking change.

IBR comes with a rendering library (ibr-sdk) built on THREE.js that can be used to easily create a custom UI to visualize and edit the compact data. This allows developers to build custom features and have more control over their tooling.

IBR also comes with a parser (png-parser) that takes a floor plan in bitmap format and converts it to IBR format. This parser extracts the outer boundary of the floor plan and stores it in IBR format. This parser also stores the original bitmap image in one of the visualization layers of the output IBR structure for reference.