Beyond Geometric Conversion: Enriching Industrial CAD Models for BIM-Based Design

Interoperability between industrial and construction digital models remains a persistent challenge, particularly in projects that require the integration of manufacturing machinery within building environments. Manufacturing workflows typically rely on CAD models based on the STEP standard, whereas the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) sector adopts BIM methodologies founded on the IFC standard, which integrates geometry with semantic, relational, and contextual information. Although both standards are mature and widely adopted, interoperability remains limited, with the main bottleneck arising from the transformation of industrial CAD models into semantically meaningful BIM representations.This paper addresses this gap by proposing a lightweight, open-source framework for STEP-to-IFC integration that goes beyond simple geometric conversion. Instead, the framework adapts industrial product logic to satisfy the information requirements of the AEC domain. The proposed procedure reduces assembly complexity by removing unnecessary components, simplifying overly detailed geometries, limiting the number of objects to those strictly required, and enriching them with appropriate semantic properties.The framework is implemented as a Blender add-on using the Bonsai extension and features an intuitive user interface, making it accessible to practitioners without advanced programming skills. Preliminary results demonstrate its effectiveness in enriching industrial CAD models with BIM-compatible semantics, highlighting its potential for both research and professional applications in complex industrial-building integration scenarios.