buildingSMART Data Dictionary

Last November, Nordic buildingSMART's workshop on Data Dictionary was held at KTH, Stockholm. It is perhaps more convenient to provide a summarized background before I proceed to my short report on the major topics discussed during the workshop:

buildingSMART is a neutral, unique and international non profit organization that aims for standardizing building information exchange and thus facilitate the smooth flow of information through the entire life cycle of the building. Data Dictionary is one of the three major components of the buildingSMART's initiative which serves to link existing product and material databases to disciplinary building information models (BIMs). The aim is generating a global IFD (International Framework for Dictionaries) library to be used by all actors around the world.

BuildingSMART data model and and buildingSMART processes are the two other components. The former is best known by the vendor-neutral and object-based building information model, IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) which is based on EXPRESS modelling language and is registered by ISO as ISO/PAS 16739. The latter is often translated as Information Delivery Manual (IDM) and is devised for filtering out portions of a building model for specific contractual situations. IDM is linked to the concept, Model View Definition (MVD) which defines a subset of the IFC schema delineated by certain data exchange requirements.

The dominant theme of the discussions at the workshop was how should problems triggered by trans-sectoral, trans-cultural and linguistic diversities in building industry  be overcome in search of a consistent worldwide standardization practice. Participants did not fully agree on - among others - whether GUIDs (Global Unique Identifiers) of materials, products, etc. suffice or actual names should also be incorporated in building data models.

It was emphasized by attendees that manufacturers and material providers play a momentous role in realization of bsDD. They should thus be motivated and conducted through both encouraging and mandating strategies to provide their product specifications in standard and life-cycle-supporting formats such as EPD (Environmental Product Declaration) and Omniclass instead of commonplace paper or PDF manuals.

Participants believed that IFD is intended to and will be the ultimate solution for overcoming current limitations of IFC. The global data dictionary of tomorrow should be flexible enough to swiftly navigate between different classification systems and cover the wide range of fully generic to very specialized object specifications. BuildingSMART Data Dictionary makes it possible to envision coexistence of radically different representations of the world accessed through simplified API's as well as user-friendly interfaces.

Source:
http://www.buildingsmart.com/