I am currently researching parametric information in IFC. As far as I can tell both IFC2x3 and IFC4 can express parametric geometries for certain objects and certain geometries using IfcProfile classes.
I have some questions regarding this:
If I use an authoring tool and export my file to IFC including parametric information, can other authoring tools understand this information? Was this part of the Ifc2x3 certification, is it part of the Ifc4 certification? (Example: Revit -> Ifc -> Allplan)
Is IFC capable of more complex parametric information e.g. for bridge construction, place components in reliance to a center axis?
There are two official MVDs for certification of IFC4. The Reference View does not feature parametric definitions in general, whereas the Design Transfer View does. Cannot say much about the state of DTV certification.
The Infrastructure and Rail rooms have worked on a number of projects (starting with IFC Bridge and ending with IFC Common Schema) to cover infra definitions. This also incorporated geometry. Various new classes have been introduced. The latest publication IFC4x2 focused on bridge and introduced the IfcSectionedSolidHorizontal. Other representations will be added in IFC4x3 for road and rail.