DSTV/NC1, KISS, and IFC Files Explained

DSTV/NC1, KISS, and IFC Files ExplainedThe three file types that show up in almost every structural steel fabrication package, what each one actually contains, and how FabTrk turns them into a parts ledger and a 3D model.If you run a structural steel shop, fabrication packages land on your desk as a pile of files with unfamiliar extensions. Most of them fall into three families: DSTV/NC1, KISS, and IFC. Each one describes the same job from a different angle, and each one was built for a different machine or department to consume. Here is what each file actually is, who makes it, and why it matters. DSTV/NC1: instructions for one part A DSTV file, usually with an .nc1 or .nc extension, describes a single part. Not the whole job, not an assembly, one piece of steel. It comes out of the detailer's modeling software (Tekla, SDS/2, Advance Steel, and the like) and it is written for CNC machinery: beam lines, drill lines, plasma and oxy fuel tables, coping robots. Inside a DSTV file you will find: The section profile and grade, so the machine knows what stock it is working on The cut length Hole positions, sizes, and which face they go on Copes, notches, miters, and bevel cuts Marking and scribing information, including the piece mark The format is old, plain text, and rigidly structured, which is exactly why it survived. A beam line built in 1998 and one built last year both read it. If you open one in a text editor you can almost follow it: a header block with part identity and material, then blocks for each face of the section listing holes and contours. The key thing to remember: one file, one part. A job with 400 unique parts arrives as 400 NC1 files. KISS: the bill of material, in a format everyone agreed on KISS stands for Keep It Simple Steel. Where DSTV describes geometry for a machine, KISS describes quantities for people and software. It is the industry's common format for exchanging bill of material data between detailing software, estimating systems, and shop management tools. A KISS file is a flat text file where each line is a record: a part or assembly with its piece mark, quantity, section, grade, length, weight, and routing hints. It carries no geometry. You cannot cut anything from a KISS file, but you can order steel from it, price a job from it, and load a production system from it. Detailers export KISS alongside the drawings. If a fabrication package includes one, you have the whole job's material list in machine readable form, no retyping. IFC: the whole building in 3D IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) is the open format for exchanging full 3D building models between design tools. Where DSTV zooms in on one part and KISS flattens the job into a list, IFC contains the entire structure: every member positioned in space, with its profile, material, and identifying data attached. Detailers and engineers export IFC from their modeling software so other trades and other tools can see the building without owning the same software license. For a fab shop, the IFC is the file that answers "where does this piece actually go" without flipping through erection drawings. How FabTrk uses all three FabTrk ingests the fabrication package as a whole: drawings, KISS, DSTV/NC1 files, and IFC together. From that one upload it builds the working records automatically. The KISS and DSTV data become the parts ledger. Every part gets its piece mark, section, grade, length, and quantity, with weights derived from the section profiles rather than typed in by hand. The IFC becomes an interactive 3D model attached to the project, so anyone in the shop can spin the building around and find a member instead of hunting through sheets. The drawings are filed as project documents, and the project itself is created with its tasks, ready to move through Detailing, Shop, and Shipping. The point is not that these formats are exotic. They are the opposite: boring, stable, and already sitting in the package your detailer sends you. The waste happens when a person retypes what the files already say. Reading them automatically means the parts list, the weights, and the 3D view exist the moment the package arrives, and they all agree with each other because they came from the same source. If you are still keying bills of material into a spreadsheet from a PDF, the data was probably sitting next to that PDF the whole time. Upload the package and see how FabTrk handles it.