openBIM CDE Synchronization

Bring openBIM® and GIS
inside your CDE

Discover usBIM.sync, the engine for synchronizing your projects between your CDE (Autodesk Forma, Bentley ProjectWise, Trimble Connect), your cloud spaces (Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Microsoft SharePoint), your PC and usBIM

Ask for more info

usBIM.sync is an integrated feature in usBIM and in the CDE usBIM.platform.
Get free access to a complete range of online software and 10 GB cloud storage

CDE sync software | usBIM.sync | ACCA software

usBIM.sync: the openBIM plus and openBIM–GIS integration in your teams' work environments

On a real project, data lives everywhere: on Autodesk Forma, Bentley ProjectWise, Trimble Connect, usBIM.platform — and on dozens of PCs, in local folders that have not yet entered any CDE.

Each platform has its own metadata, its own versioning rules, its own silos.

This fragmentation has a measurable cost: a NIST study (Gallaher et al., 2004) estimated at about 15.8 billion dollars per year the cost of inadequate interoperability in the U.S. construction industry — a figure the authors themselves define as conservative — with about two thirds borne by owners and operators, and the greatest losses occurring during operations and maintenance.

usBIM.sync connects these environments. But the point is not to “move files between CDEs” yet again!

The point is to bring the openBIM plus (IFC, BCF, IDS validation, bSDD, clash detection, code checking, data quality) and openBIM–GIS integration with Esri ArcGIS inside the CDE and authoring environment your teams already use. You do not change platform: you gain features your current CDE does not have.

OpenBIM CDE synchronization video | usBIM.sync | ACCA software

What usBIM.sync does

usBIM.sync brings openBIM, GIS and the entire life cycle inside the CDE and authoring environment where you already work. Synchronize your files — bidirectionally, without losing any data — between your Common Data Environment, your cloud spaces, your PC and usBIM, with cross-platform version control (side-by-side version comparison, direction arrows, synchronization status for each file and explicit alignment/conflict messages)

It is like giving openBIM and geospatial superpowers to the platform you start from.

Cloud CDE

Autodesk Forma / Autodesk Construction Cloud, Bentley ProjectWise, Trimble Connect and usBIM / usBIM.platform. Dassault Systèmes 3DEXPERIENCE is on the roadmap.

Cloud spaces

Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Microsoft SharePoint.

Local PC

Through the dedicated desktop app, with selective synchronization of one or more files and choice of destination folder. It closes the “first mile” of the information flow, where data often originates locally and enters the CDE only through late, manual uploads.

openBIM + GIS differentiator | usBIM.sync | ACCA software

The differentiator is openBIM + GIS, not file transfer

Bring clash detection, code checking, data quality and integration with Esri ArcGIS inside the CDE you already use.

No vendor lock-in

Teams keep their own authoring tools; data moves in openBIM.

Data over geometry

What moves between ecosystems is not geometry: it is data — version, status, properties, classifications, information requirements. usBIM.sync makes project data portable, governable and geolocatable regardless of the CDE, the authoring tool and the starting format.

What usBIM.sync does | usBIM.sync | ACCA software

Why synchronize with usBIM (not just stay in your CDE)

Every CDE has its strengths. Designers using Autodesk or Bentley tools find dedicated authoring functions in their home CDE — Forma, ProjectWise — perfectly suited to the design and WIP phase.

It makes sense to keep using them.

The real question is another one: what happens when you move from that strictly design-oriented phase to sharing among the different work groups?

It is in that transition — from Work In Progress to Shared, before publication — that the process must rely on open and neutral formats.

And here ACCA plays its role: it is the vendor with the highest number of IFC-certified software products in the world and a multinational member of buildingSMART.

usBIM natively manages IFC, BCF, IDS and bSDD, and on these standards it offers clash detection, code checking and data quality that the starting CDE does not have.

usBIM.sync is the bridge that, without migrations and without data loss, puts those functions at the service of the file that already lives in your environment.

Request more info about IFC/BCF sync between CDEs

From multiple CDEs to a single Integrated Data Environment (IDE)

When usBIM.sync keeps multiple CDEs, cloud spaces and PCs aligned, what you are really building is an Integrated Data Environment (IDE): a single data-centric source of truth that crosses the tools every team already uses.

But there is one condition that determines whether an IDE works or fails — the same one behind everything usBIM.sync does.

Integration without standardization only fuels chaos: connecting many tools faster, without making their data comparable, multiplies inconsistencies instead of resolving them.

This is where the openBIM functions of usBIM.platform turn synchronization into governance.

As data arrives from any CDE, usBIM.platform standardizes, checks and approves it: model checking and usBIM.dataquality verify the IFC, while usBIM.IDSeditor and bSDD enforce a predictable structure and shared semantics.

You can even define information Gates based on IDS and bSDD — controlled by usBIM.IDSagent — so that only data compliant with the structure required for each asset category enters the shared environment.

An IDE is not the sum of connected tools; it is the standardized and validated layer that crosses them.

What synchronization unlocks, phase by phase

Synchronizing a file with usBIM does not mean copying it elsewhere: it means enabling all the applications of the usBIM ecosystem on that file, throughout the entire life cycle of the work.

In coordination and data quality
Model federation, clash detection IFC-certified with usBIM.clash (hard clash, hard clash with tolerance, clearance clash, between entities of the same model or between different models), code checking with usBIM.code, information validation with usBIM.checker and requirements verification with usBIM.IDS and usBIM.bSDD. The detected issues become tracked tasks until resolution with usBIM.bcf and usBIM.resolver. Data, not only geometry, is brought under control.
During execution
Quantity take-off and works accounting with PriMus and the open .DCF format (PriMus-DCF), BIM 4D with usBIM.gantt, comparison between model revisions and between BIM model and point cloud with usBIM.compare — useful for checking the as-built against the design during works — and digital Construction Supervision with usBIM.cdl integrated with usBIM.resolver for non-conformity management.
In operations
The visual Facility Management with usBIM.maint (assets and interventions automatically displayed on maps and 2D/3D models) and real-time monitoring with usBIM.IoT.
In sustainability
Since the model travels in open IFC, the same synchronized file can feed LCA calculation over the life cycle, without re-entering data and without depending on the original authoring tool.

The same discipline applies at every critical exchange point.

Whenever data moves from one environment to the shared one — an as-built model from the execution phase, a maintenance record or a sensor reading coming from IoT and facility management systems during operations — usBIM.sync transports it and usBIM.platform first passes it through the IDS/bSDD quality gate.

Standardized data enters the Integrated Data Environment; non-compliant data is flagged before it can pollute the single source of truth.

The principle is always the same: the file stays where you created it, but its information becomes available to an entire ecosystem of openBIM functions.

Request more info about BIM CDE synchronization

Why open formats become essential along the EN ISO 19650 states

EN ISO 19650 describes how project information moves through defined states — WIP, Shared, Published, Archived.

Reading this pathway explains why openBIM matters, and where usBIM.sync belongs.

WIP

In WIP a file is developed within a single discipline or work group. Here it is entirely legitimate to work in native and closed formats and in the CDE linked to your authoring tool — Forma in an Autodesk workflow, ProjectWise in a Bentley workflow. Nothing needs to change.

Shared

When a file moves to Shared, it leaves that single group and reaches other specialists working with different software. From here on, sharing data in openBIM formats — and truly working in openBIM — is the only way to achieve real and open collaboration: every discipline reads, checks and coordinates the same information regardless of the tool that produced it.

Published and Archived

Published and Archived take the principle further. Information is delivered to the asset owner, who will use the models throughout the operations phase with completely different applications — often enterprise systems such as ERP or facility management. Open data is what keeps those models usable, vendor-independent and accessible for the decades of the asset’s life.

It is not a marginal preference: a growing number of governments now require delivery in IFC (EN ISO 16739-1) in public procurement specifically to guarantee technological independence and long-term access to data — Finland, Norway and Denmark among the pioneers, Spain and Singapore among current examples (buildingSMART, Global openBIM Mandates 2025).

This is exactly what usBIM.sync makes practical: teams keep their preferred authoring tools and CDEs during WIP, and when collaboration crosses a boundary the data is synchronized in usBIM as governed openBIM — ready for IFC/BCF coordination, IDS and bSDD validation, and the leap into a GIS digital twin. You adopt open data precisely when it becomes essential, without abandoning the tools you started from.

What synchronization unlocks, phase by phase | usBIM.sync | ACCA software

Bring your BIM into Esri ArcGIS, without limits

This is the capability that distinguishes usBIM.sync from any “sync”. Thanks to its connection with usBIM.geotwin — the dynamic, bidirectional integration between usBIM and Esri ArcGIS technology — usBIM.sync lets you synchronize an unlimited number of models, of any size, stored in Forma, ProjectWise or your cloud spaces (Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Microsoft SharePoint), directly with Esri GIS.

The result: you can visualize entire cities or large infrastructures as BIM models inside ArcGIS, without the limitations of complexity, number and data updates typical of traditional solutions. And you can synchronize changes made in the source CDE and authoring tool — Forma, Revit — and make them flow into ArcGIS in real time.

It is the leap from information model to geospatial digital twin: BIM data and territorial data coexist, navigable and queryable at every scale, from the building to the metropolis.

Bring your BIM into Esri ArcGIS, without limits | usBIM.sync | ACCA software

The information layer that powers BIM-GIS integration: IDS

When talking about BIM-GIS integration, the image that comes to mind is a 3D model that “lands” on a map.

That is only the surface. The real value of integration is not in the geometry entering the GIS: it is in the data that accompanies it.

A 3D scene without queryable data is a beautiful visualization; a 3D scene with normalized data is a digital twin for decision-making. ArcGIS is extremely powerful in spatial analysis — proximity, intersection, attribute selection across entire territories — but a query returns value only if objects carry coherent, structured and comparable attributes.

The spatial part of a question (“which buildings are within 200 m of a school”) is solved by GIS; the information part (“…and have a fire resistance class lower than R60”) can be solved only if that data exists, is present on every building and is written the same way everywhere. When models come from different teams, authoring tools and CDEs, that data is heterogeneous and not comparable — exactly what a territorial query cannot tolerate.

This is where Information Delivery Specification (IDS) comes in. IDS is a buildingSMART standard, linked to the IFC schema, that defines in machine-readable form which objects, classifications, properties, values and units must be delivered — and validates IFC models against those requirements with identical results in any checking software.

If every team validates its IFC against the same IDS before sharing, the data arriving on the territory is predictable, complete and homogeneous: a normalized information layer, the condition without which spatial querying in ArcGIS remains blind. bSDD (buildingSMART Data Dictionary) then anchors terms to shared definitions, keeping names unambiguous across languages and different teams.

At territorial scale, this governance is decisive. With usBIM.IDSagent, a large organization — a public administration or a large real estate or infrastructure management company — can define, validate and enforce a single data structure for each asset category, and require all subcontractors who design, execute or manage those assets to deliver in that structure.

Whatever software each team uses, every model arrives in the GIS with the same predictable structure: only in this way can the organization run reliable geospatial queries across the entire portfolio.

It is openBIM that makes this neutrality possible, and ACCA technology — IFC-certified, native to IDS and bSDD — that makes it applicable at scale. ACCA covers the entire chain with openBIM-native tools — usBIM.IDSeditor (free, online) to create the IDS, usBIM.checker for validation, and bSDD for shared semantics.

In this framework, usBIM.sync is the moment when territorial data is normalized and made GIS-ready: models, from any CDE or authoring tool, are synchronized in usBIM, validated against the same IDS, and pushed into ArcGIS through usBIM.geotwin — kept aligned as source models change.

BIM-GIS integration becomes truly powerful only thanks to openBIM and its standards: IFC makes data neutral and portable, IDS makes it normalized and comparable, bSDD makes it semantically unambiguous. It is the clearest demonstration of the data-over-geometry principle: what creates value in GIS is not the model you see, but the normalized data you can query.

Request more info about Common Data Environment synchronization

Frequently Asked Questions: CDE sync software

What is CDE synchronization in openBIM?

CDE synchronization in openBIM is the practice of keeping documents, IFC models and metadata aligned across different Common Data Environments using open, vendor-neutral standards. usBIM.sync performs this synchronization and adds openBIM functions (IFC, BCF, IDS and bSDD validation, clash detection, code checking) and integration with Esri ArcGIS that a generic file sync does not offer.

How is usBIM.sync different from other CDE synchronization tools?

Most CDE synchronization tools move documents between clouds. usBIM.sync moves governed openBIM information — IFC models, BCF issues and structured metadata — preserving properties, relationships and version lineage, and brings usBIM openBIM functions and integration with Esri ArcGIS inside the CDE you already use. In short: the value is openBIM and GIS, not file transfer.

Which CDEs and platforms does usBIM.sync connect?

usBIM.sync connects Autodesk Forma / Autodesk Construction Cloud, Bentley ProjectWise, Trimble Connect and usBIM / usBIM.platform, as well as cloud spaces such as Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive and Microsoft SharePoint and the local PC. Dassault Systèmes 3DEXPERIENCE is on the roadmap.

Why does BIM–GIS integration need openBIM and IDS?

A GIS spatial query returns useful results only if BIM objects carry coherent and comparable attributes. IDS (Information Delivery Specification), a buildingSMART standard linked to IFC, normalizes those attributes across teams and authoring tools, so models become queryable in Esri ArcGIS. Without normalized open data, BIM–GIS integration is only a 3D visualization, not a digital twin for decision-making. (See usBIM.geotwin.)

When are open formats needed in an EN ISO 19650 workflow?

In WIP, a single discipline can legitimately work in native and closed formats. From the Shared state onward — when other specialists become involved and, later, the owner’s operations systems such as ERP or facility management — open formats (IFC, EN ISO 16739-1) become the only way to collaborate and deliver without vendor lock-in. This is why a growing number of governments require IFC delivery in public procurement (buildingSMART, 2025).

Can usBIM.sync synchronize local PC files with cloud CDEs?

Yes. Through a dedicated desktop app, usBIM.sync synchronizes selected local folders and files bidirectionally with cloud CDEs, closing the “first mile” of the information flow, where data often originates on the PC before it even reaches a CDE.

Does usBIM.sync support IFC and BCF?

Yes. usBIM.sync is openBIM-native: it synchronizes IFC models and BCF issues while preserving their properties and relationships, so coordination, clash detection and validation work across platforms.

Do I have to change authoring tool or CDE to use usBIM.sync?

No. Teams continue to use Autodesk, Bentley or Trimble tools and their own CDE; usBIM.sync adds openBIM and GIS capabilities on top, with no migrations and no vendor lock-in.

Can usBIM.sync synchronize multiple CDEs at the same time?

Yes, and this is where it offers the greatest value. usBIM.sync can synchronize multiple CDEs at the same time, so different work groups can continue collaborating, each with its own technology: one team on Autodesk Forma with Revit, another on Bentley ProjectWise, another on Trimble Connect, others on cloud spaces such as Microsoft SharePoint or on local PCs. When so many technologies and groups converge on a single project, sharing in open formats and standardizing data become decisive: usBIM validates and normalizes every contribution with usBIM Data quality, usBIM.IDS and bSDD, so that — whatever the source CDE or authoring tool — federated information remains coherent, comparable and reliable. The more heterogeneous the ecosystem, the more powerful and necessary openBIM validation and standardization become.

What is an Integrated Data Environment (IDE) and how does usBIM.sync build it?

An Integrated Data Environment (IDE) is a single data-centric source of truth that crosses the different CDEs, cloud spaces and tools used on a project. usBIM.sync builds it by synchronizing those environments, while usBIM.platform standardizes, validates and approves data with openBIM controls — IDS and bSDD gates controlled by usBIM.IDSagent — so that the integrated layer remains coherent instead of chaotic. Integration without standardization only fuels chaos; standardized integration is what makes an IDE real.

Is usBIM.sync aligned with EN ISO 19650?

Yes. usBIM.sync operates along the EN ISO 19650 information states (WIP, Shared, Published, Archived), helping teams move to open formats precisely when collaboration crosses disciplinary and organizational boundaries.

Can usBIM.sync handle large models or entire cities in GIS?

Yes. Through usBIM.geotwin it synchronizes an unlimited number of models of any size in Esri ArcGIS, so entire cities and large infrastructures can be visualized and queried as BIM.

How can a large organization impose a single data structure on all subcontractors for GIS queries?

With usBIM.IDSagent. A large organization or asset manager defines a single IDS-based data structure for each asset category and validates every delivery against it, so all subcontractors who design, execute or manage the assets — whatever software they use — share models in the GIS with the same structure. This is what enables coherent geospatial queries across the entire portfolio, and it is openBIM (IFC, IDS, bSDD) and ACCA’s IFC-certified technology that make this standardization applicable at scale.

Does usBIM.sync help with LCA and sustainability?

Indirectly but importantly: since the model travels in open IFC, the same synchronized file can feed life-cycle assessment (LCA) without re-entering data and without depending on the original authoring tool.

What is IFC?

IFC (Industry Foundation Classes, EN ISO 16739-1) is the open, neutral data model for exchanging BIM information between different software. It is the format that makes the openBIM and GIS capabilities of usBIM.sync possible.

usBIM, the BIM management system, scalable and configurable according to your needs.

Get started with applications and 10GB of cloud storage space for free. Then choose the applications that you need to configure your usBIM experience according to your preferred workflow!

usBIM is the online system that integrates different types of BIM tools:
- BIM interoperability tools: allowing full interoperability during the various phases of construction design, execution and the relating maintenance processes
- BIM collaboration tools: specific BIM tools for improved collaboration and sharing of information among all the various stakeholders involved in creating or updating the digital twin during the project's entire life cycle.
With usBIM, manage the project, construction management and maintenance phases of a building or infrastructure, starting from the free usBIM solution.
usBIM offers you infinite configurations with functions, applications and cloud storage space that you can activate from the online store.
Only subscribe to the BIM tools that you really need.
Keep your usBIM tools under control. Check out your current configurations and remain updated with the latest available plugins.