4.2.4 Document Association

The concept Document Association describes how objects or object types can have associated documents indicating external files. Documents may be referenced in their entirety such as to capture product brochures, data sheets, multimedia content, or thumbnail images. Contents within documents may be referenced from any object, and may be used to synchronize information in other files such as work schedules for project management applications.

Typical document meta data, such as issue date, editor, and similar, can be captured with the association, the document content however remains with the external files.

The following diagram shows the generic classes and relationships used when applying this concept. In addition, concepts may have particular importance to common or standardised industry practices and scenarios. For these specific usage scenarios, the tables below shows a recommended list of general usage patterns that users may adopt.

General Usage

ApplicableEntity
IfcObjectDefinition