web-ifc Engine: Direct WASM IFC Parser

Overview

web-ifc is the WASM-powered IFC parsing engine beneath the ThatOpen component stack. It reads and writes IFC files at native speed in browser and Node.js environments. The central class is IfcAPI.

• Package: web-ifc (npm)
• Source: https://github.com/ThatOpen/engine_web-ifc
• Environments: Browser, Node.js (single-threaded and multi-threaded WASM)
• License: MPL-2.0

When using ThatOpen components (@thatopen/components), you rarely call web-ifc directly — the IfcLoader component wraps it. Use this skill when you need low-level IFC access, custom geometry extraction, or bulk property queries outside the component framework.

Critical Warnings

1. ALWAYS call Init() before any other method (except SetWasmPath). Every method silently fails or throws without WASM initialization.
2. ALWAYS call CloseModel(modelID) when done — each open model holds significant WASM heap memory. Forgetting this causes memory leaks that crash browser tabs.