MiniBIM

An open-source BIM application written in C++20.
Runs on Windows, Linux and in the browser, models with the SMLib solid kernel, ports its BIM features from BIMCraft, and speaks several languages.

Download (Windows, Linux, web) · Try it in the browser · 简体中文

MiniBIM reuses the user interface and renderer of MiniCAD, models with the SMLib geometry kernel, and is porting its BIM features from BIMCraft. The interface is multilingual.

Version 0.2.0 has BIMCraft's model, its interface and the rest of its ribbon tabs:

• Model: levels, grids, walls, floors, ceilings, roofs, rooms, doors and windows, families and components with their types and materials, columns; every edit is a command with undo; project files (.minibim, the same format as BIMCraft's .bimcraft)
• Views: 3D modelled with SMLib, plans of each level, sections and elevations, schedules, sheets, visibility / graphics overrides, view templates and filters
• Tabs: Architecture, Structure, Plumbing, Electrical, Lightning Protection, Data, Insert, Annotate, Massing, Modify, View and Manage
• Exchange: IFC (IFC2x3 / IFC4 in, IFC4 out), Revit projects (.rvt, read-only, with a report of what was left out), linked models, DXF import and link, point clouds (PTS, XYZ, PLY, LAS, E57)

What's in each release is in docs/release-notes; what comes next is in docs/PLAN.md (in Chinese): stairs, ramps and railings, groups, phases and design options, among others.

Building on Windows

You need CMake 3.20+, Ninja and Visual Studio (MSVC, C++20).

build.bat
out\debug\MiniBIMWin\MiniBIMWin.exe

Outside a Visual Studio developer environment, build.bat finds Visual Studio and runs vcvars64.bat itself. Inside a "Developer Command Prompt for VS" you can also run:

cmake --preset debug
cmake --build --preset debug

build.bat release builds the release version (a windowed program without a console).

Command-line options: --lang zh_CN (the language for this run only), --gpu d3d12|d3d11|warp (or the environment variable MINIBIM_GPU), --ui <interface description file.json>.

Building on Linux

You need CMake 3.20+, Ninja, GCC 13+ or Clang (C++20), the OpenGL ES 3 / EGL development packages and SDL3. On Ubuntu / Debian:

sudo apt install build-essential cmake ninja-build pkg-config libegl-dev libgles-dev \
    libx11-dev libxext-dev libxrandr-dev libxcursor-dev libxi-dev libxfixes-dev libxss-dev libxtst-dev \
    libxkbcommon-dev libwayland-dev wayland-protocols libdbus-1-dev libudev-dev

The Vulkan renderer (optional; used first when present, with OpenGL ES 3 as the fallback) also needs the headers and the shader compiler:

sudo apt install libvulkan-dev glslang-tools mesa-vulkan-drivers

SDL3 is sudo apt install libsdl3-dev on Ubuntu 25.04 / Debian 13 and later; on older releases build it from source, for example into ~/sdl3:

cmake -S SDL3-3.4.18 -B sdl3-build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$HOME/sdl3 -DSDL_TESTS=OFF
cmake --build sdl3-build && cmake --install sdl3-build

Then build MiniBIM (leave out CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH when SDL3 is installed system-wide):

cmake -S . -B out/linux -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=$HOME/sdl3
cmake --build out/linux
out/linux/MiniBIMLinux/MiniBIMLinux [project file]

Without SDL3 or OpenGL ES 3 only the core library and the tests are built (ctest --test-dir out/linux); without the Vulkan packages only OpenGL ES 3 is used. The command-line options are the Windows ones, with --gpu vulkan|gl. The open and save dialogs need xdg-desktop-portal or zenity.

Building for the web

You need the Emscripten SDK (build_wasm.bat expects it in D:\dev\emsdk; change EMSDK_ENV at its top).

build_wasm.bat serve

This builds out/build/wasm/MiniBIMWeb/ and serves it at http://localhost:8080/MiniBIMWeb/. The web version uses the browser's WebGPU and falls back to WebGL2 (add ?webgl to the address to force it). Opening reads the chosen file into the page; saving and exporting IFC ask for a file name and download the file. It doesn't autosave or keep settings. The first build downloads the WebGPU bindings (the emdawnwebgpu port) from GitHub.

Tests

run_tests.bat

It builds, runs ctest (the model, the commands, IFC, the Revit reader, the 3D scene, the main window, translations, the camera and an SMLib smoke test) and checks that the translation catalogs are up to date (tools/extract_messages.py --check) and that every icon the interface uses is generated (tools/make_icons.py --check). GitHub Actions builds the Windows, Linux and web versions and runs the tests on every pull request to main, and packages and publishes a release when a v* tag is pushed (.github/workflows/build.yml), then deploys the web version to https://minibim.bimhub.top (Cloudflare Pages, .github/workflows/pages.yml).

Languages

Interface text is written in English in the code and translated at run time from gettext catalogs (assets/i18n/*.po). Pick a language under File > Language, or follow the system's. Simplified Chinese, English, Spanish and Portuguese are available today. A new language is one .po file, with no code changes, and translations are welcome. See docs/i18n.md (in Chinese) for how it works.

Layout

Directory	Contents
src/	The MiniBIM core library: translations (I18n/), the camera and the model's 3D scene (View/), math and renderer interfaces (Core/, Render/), the solid kernel interface (Solid/)
src/Model/, src/Commands/	The building model, its commands and undo, ported from BIMCraft
src/Ifc/	IFC exchange: STEP reading, IFC4 export, IFC2x3 / IFC4 import
src/Rvt/	The Revit file reader (Apache-2.0, see License)
src/UI/	The MiniGUI interface library (copied from MiniCAD)
apps/Common/	The main window's interface and logic (platform-independent)
apps/Render/	Renderers (D3D12 and D3D11 on Windows, Vulkan and OpenGL ES 3 on Linux, WebGPU and WebGL2 in the browser)
apps/Win32/, apps/Linux/, apps/Web/	The Windows desktop host; the Linux host (SDL3); the web host (Emscripten)
assets/	The interface description ui/minibim_ui.json, the catalogs in i18n/, the icons in icons/ and the interface font for Linux and the web in fonts/
3rd/	SMLib (NURBS B-rep solid kernel, Apache-2.0), stb and nlohmann/json (MIT)
tools/	extract_messages.py: collects interface text and updates the catalogs; make_icons.py: draws every icon MiniBIM uses; make_web_font.py: makes the interface font for Linux and the web
tests/	Tests
.agents/	Notes, feature guides and skills for AI coding assistants (start at AGENTS.md)

License

MiniBIM is released under the MIT License. Third-party components (SMLib is Apache-2.0) and the code MiniBIM is ported from are listed in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md. The Revit file reader in src/Rvt/ (ported from BIMCraft, which ported parts of it from rvt-rs) is Apache-2.0 only, not MIT; builds that include it (the default, MINIBIM_WITH_RVT) ship its licence and notice as LICENSE-Rvt and NOTICE-Rvt.

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_{Autodesk and Revit are trademarks of Autodesk, Inc. MiniBIM is an independent open-source project and is not affiliated with Autodesk. IFC is an open standard of buildingSMART International (ISO 16739).}