National Highways and Network Rail have jointly published guidance mandating IFC 4.3 compliance for all new BIM deliverables on major infrastructure schemes from April 2025. The buildingSMART-backed open standard is now supported natively in FreeCAD's BIM workbench and BlenderBIM, offering contractors a licence-free route to compliance. Industry body the UK BIM Alliance welcomed the announcement as a significant step toward reducing proprietary format dependency on publicly funded projects.

Source: Computerworld UK