IV – Data and Process Modelling II
7U4X0 REAL ESTATE, URBAN DEVELOPMENT AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Ekaterina Petrova, Assistant Professor, Information Systems in the Built Environment
Department of the Built Environment
Agenda
• Design workflow
• Model integration
• Open standard
• Industry Foundation Classes (IFC)
2 Data and Process Modelling II
Design workflow
What differentiates the building sector from many other industries is the wide range of
different products in use and number of software vendors in the market.
In other industries (e.g., automotive and aircraft manufacturing), the main
manufacturers decide which software products their suppliers must use. At the same
time, large, global software manufacturers provide complete solutions for these
industries that cover many parts of the design and engineering processes.
3 Data and Process Modelling II
Design workflow
4 Data and Process Modelling II
Design workflow
5 Data and Process Modelling II
Design workflow
6 Data and Process Modelling II
Design workflow
7 Data and Process Modelling II
Design workflow
8 Data and Process Modelling II
Design workflow
9 Data and Process Modelling II
Design workflow
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Small recap
BIM means Building Information Modelling
• Modelling the information about a building
• All of the information, not just the geometry
• The process of creating a Building Information Model
BIM also means Building Information Model
• The result of the Building Information
BIM provides a digital representation of physical and functional characteristics of a
facility.
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Need for model and data integration
A problem is that many of these tools
are still islands of automation i.e. have
no or only limited support for data
exchange between the separate
applications.
Consequently, data and information
that already exists in digital form needs
to be re-entered manually, which is
laborious and prone to introducing new
errors. As a result, islands of data are
also created (siloes).
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Need for model and data integration
To remedy this situation, a data exchange format is required that makes it
possible to transfer building data between software products with as little data
loss as possible. Such a format must set out uniform, unambiguous descriptions of
geometric information that are clear in their meaning and therefore not open to
misinterpretation.
A further important aspect is the detailed description of semantic information,
including the classification of building components within a common hierarchy of
types, the description of the relationships between them and the definition of their
relevant properties (material, building times, etc.
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Need for model and data integration
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Need for model and data integration
This is where the term interoperability comes into play, which means
the loss-free exchange of data between software products by different
vendors.
A Building Information Model is a shared digital representation founded on
open standards for interoperability.
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Open standard
Definition:
A standard is a document recognized agreements, specifications
or criteria about a product, service or method.
Standards can be established within a company or organization within a consortium of
organizations or by authorized standards-organizations.
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Open standard
An open standard is a standard that is publicly available.
Open standards which specify formats are sometimes referred to
as open formats.
An open format is a file format for storing digital data, defined by a
published specification usually maintained by a standards organization,
and which can be used and implemented by anyone.
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Open standard
When we say ‘open standard’. In the built environment, what do we
mean?
First, it means sharing data using the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC)
standard
• The full ‘de facto’ standard is available through buildingSMART
([Link])
• The core of IFC is defined as ISO / PAS16739
• buildingSMART are committed to making ISO 16739 a full standard for data
exchange
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BuildingSMART Standards
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BuildingSmart: home for OpenBIM
• Huge source of information for the use of building data (IFC-based):
[Link]
-october-6-november-2020/
for all presentations shown at the latest buildingSMART Summit
• Technical Roadmap:
[Link]
• Digital Twin position paper:
[Link]
ystem-of-digital-twins/
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Industry Foundation Classes (IFC)
Data Standard – Industry Foundation Classes (IFC)
IFC represents a data schema for sharing construction and facility
management data across various applications used in the AEC/FM
industry domain. It is an object-oriented data schema based on class
definitions.
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IFC
SCHEMA Vehicle;
ENTITY Car
color: STRING;
brand: STRING;
type: STRING;
fuel: STRING;
END_ENTITY;
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IFC
• There are no licensing fees for using the IFC model.
• Numerous software products have since implemented the IFC model.
• More than 160 implementations of the standard in individual software products.
• In many countries it has now become an obligatory data exchange format for
construction tendering and approval procedures.
• IFC has become the definitive format for realizing Open BIM.
• IFC data model focuses on the description of buildings. Extensions for describing
other built structures, such as civil engineering infrastructure, are currently in
development.
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IFC
Layers
The general principle is that elements in the upper layers can reference elements in
the layers below but not vice versa. This ensures that the core elements remain
independent.
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IFC
• Domain layer
• Interoperability layer
• Core layer
• Resource layer
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IFC
Inheritance hierarchy
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IFC
Division Between Semantic Description and Geometric Representation
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IFC Technical Roadmap
[Link]
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IFC for collaboration and coordination
29 Fundamentals of BIM: IFC, STEP, and EXPRESS
Example: IfcWindow
#121 = IFCDIRECTION((0., 0., 1.));
#122 = IFCDIRECTION((1., 0., 0.));
#123 = IFCDIRECTION((0., 0., 1.));
#124 = IFCWINDOW('0LV8Pid0X3IA3jJLVDPidY', #2, 'Window xyz', 'Description of Window', $, #125, #130, $, 1.400, 7.500E-1);
#125 = IFCLOCALPLACEMENT(#98, #126);
#126 = IFCAXIS2PLACEMENT3D(#127, #128, #129);
#127 = IFCCARTESIANPOINT((0., 1.000E-1, 0.));
#128 = IFCDIRECTION((0., 0., 1.));
#129 = IFCDIRECTION((1., 0., 0.));
#130 = IFCPRODUCTDEFINITIONSHAPE($, $, (#150));
#131 = IFCRELFILLSELEMENT('1CDlLMVMv1qw1giUXpQgxI', #2, $, $, #97, #124);
#132 = IFCPROPERTYSET('0fhz_bHU54xB$tXHjHPUZl', #2, 'Pset_WindowCommon', $, (#133, #134, #135, #136, #137, #138, #139, #140, #141, #142, #143,
#144));
#133 = IFCPROPERTYSINGLEVALUE('Reference', 'Reference', IFCTEXT(''), $);
#134 = IFCPROPERTYSINGLEVALUE('FireRating', 'FireRating', IFCTEXT(''), $);
#135 = IFCPROPERTYSINGLEVALUE('AcousticRating', 'AcousticRating', IFCTEXT(''), $);
#136 = IFCPROPERTYSINGLEVALUE('SecurityRating', 'SecurityRating', IFCTEXT(''), $);
#137 = IFCPROPERTYSINGLEVALUE('IsExternal', 'IsExternal', IFCBOOLEAN(.T.), $);
#138 = IFCPROPERTYSINGLEVALUE('Infiltration', 'Infiltration', IFCBOOLEAN(.F.), $);
#139 = IFCPROPERTYSINGLEVALUE('ThermalTransmittance', 'ThermalTransmittance', IFCREAL(2.400E-1), $);
#140 = IFCPROPERTYSINGLEVALUE('GlazingAresFraction', 'GlazingAresFraction', IFCREAL(7.000E-1), $);
#141 = IFCPROPERTYSINGLEVALUE('HandicapAccessible', 'HandicapAccessible', IFCBOOLEAN(.F.), $);
#142 = IFCPROPERTYSINGLEVALUE('FireExit', 'FireExit', IFCBOOLEAN(.F.), $);
#143 = IFCPROPERTYSINGLEVALUE('SelfClosing', 'SelfClosing', IFCBOOLEAN(.F.), $);
#144 = IFCPROPERTYSINGLEVALUE('SmokeStop', 'SmokeStop', IFCBOOLEAN(.F.), $);
#145 = IFCRELDEFINESBYPROPERTIES('2fHMxamlj5DvGvEKfCk8nj', #2, $, $, (#124), #132);
#146 = IFCELEMENTQUANTITY('0bB_7AP5v5OBZ90TDvo0Fo', #2, 'BaseQuantities', $, $, (#147, #148));
#147 = IFCQUANTITYLENGTH('Height', 'Height', $, 1.400);
30 Fundamentals of BIM: IFC, STEP, and EXPRESS
EXPRESS: A data modelling language for the IFC standard
Definition of an entity type using the data modelling language EXPRESS
31 Fundamentals of BIM: IFC, STEP, and EXPRESS
