July 2, 2008

IFD Library Partners work to establish standards for BIM software

Denise Holtby

Editor, RCD Digital Media

For many years now, computer programmers and software developers have been using open-source code to create software and build web sites.

Instead of starting from scratch, programmers can speed up their programming tasks by simply using code that others have already created and offered for free.

It’s this kind of collaborative effort that has inspired a new initiative to create standards that will help creators of software for building information modelling (BIM) to develop software that “talks” to other BIM software.

For example, if an architectural firm is using Company A’s BIM software and building-product objects, while the consulting engineers working on a project with that architect use Company B’s BIM software, the two software programs should be able to work together.

To that end, instead of having many software developers and information providers creating building information modelling software and libraries in isolation, four organizations have banded together to establish terminology protocols and standards they hope will be adopted universally.

This terminology standard is called “IFD Library” (IFD stands for International Framework for Dictionaries), and is operates as part of the buildingSMART International organization.

The four organizations, collectively called “IFD Library Partners,” are:

• Construction Specifications Canada (CSC) (Canada);

• Construction Specifications Institute (CSI) (USA);

• buildingSMART Norway (Norway); and

• STABU Foundation (Netherlands)

In April 2008, these four groups — along with buildingSMART Alliance and International Code Council (ICC) — co-sponsored a North American workshop in Washington, D.C.

The conference drew nearly 50 participants, including government officials, representatives of codes and standards organizations, application developers, standards developers, information technologists and information publishers.

David Watson, President of Digicon Information Inc., publishers of master specifications in Canada, was among the Construction Specifications Canada representatives who made presentations at the workshop.

“The focus of the workshop was the promotion of standards that allow for an open exchange of information that will help to bring BIM into wider use,” Watson says.

According to Watson, the group focussed on three key areas:

1. The use of buildingSMART model exchange technology, including adoption of Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) to store and transmit data. IFC is a maturing technology for software developers and is being used by software applications in major BIM projects around the world.

2. Setting standards for terminology that describes a BIM object without depending on the terms used to describe them. Instead, each object would be assigned a unique id number assigned by the IFD Library online database. The unique id number would define an object, such as a vinyl-clad window, in detail and in any supported language, and would include all of that object’s relevant properties. By using an id number, information about the object can be understood by any number of dissimilar software applications that support the IFD Library standard.

3. The need to (a) establish protocols that allow users to model building processes; and (b) to create process-oriented rules that enable an application to identify only the objects needed and the person or persons allowed to access the information and make changes.

“The workshop participants’ efforts are aimed primarily at data storage and software professionals, so that in the future, companies that use BIM software can come to expect a perfectly fluent communication of design intent between one software and another, even within the same language,” says Watson. “That way, they can be confident that the data they send is read and interpreted accurately at the other end.”

“Once design and construction firms have confidence in the reliability and inter-operability of BIM software, and firms see the benefits to having accurate inter-operabilty, their use will continue to spread,” says Watson.

The workshop concluded with a discussion of opportunities and challenges as architectural, engineering and construction industry practices change and improved technology and open standards become available.

Some of the key items identified for further action were:

• Building on interest in BIM to expand communications to the industry and attract support for projects and implementations of BIM standards;

• Leveraging and optimizing work being done by buildingSMART chapters and BIM standards development in North America and Europe;

• Expanding the knowledge base on the core buildingSMART technologies and their application; and

• Using the benefits of model-based information to support the need for improved sustainability of the built environment.

Andrew Arnold, product manager for SmartBIM, says that Reed Construction Data is committed to keeping the lines of communication with the workshop’s sponsors open as their efforts continue.

“This group is working to establish an information repository that is open and shareable,” says Arnold. “From an industry perspective, that is a huge benefit.”

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