Workshop on Software Interoperability in the Building Industry

See a First Public Demonstration of New Interoperable Software for the Building Industry,

?How to Make Your CAD Data Do Five Times as Much Work at No Extra Cost?

It takes time and money to develop a set of architectural and engineering drawings that define a building, regardless of the size of the building or the sophistication of the CAD software used.? In most projects, this information ~~The information~~ must be ~~often~~ manually transcribed for use in other professional software, for work such as HVAC calculations and design ~~applications~~, cost estimating, ~~programs or~~ building energy performance simulation, and energy code compliance checking.? This is ~~yet another~~a manual and tedious process that requires resources.? If errors are made in the process, error detection and correction can be just as resource consuming.? Any changes to the design also require corresponding changes in the transcription for ~~input to relevant professional software~~these other applications.? Anybody who has ever ~~had to~~ prepared documentation for compliance with energy codes or generated a detailed cost estimate can testify to how time consuming, error prone and frustrating it is to read information from drawings or specifications and manually reenter the same information in the form required by the specific software application. It has been estimated that each data element in a building design is independently recreated seven times in the course of the design process.

There is now a better solution to this problem.? It lies in the concept of ?software interoperability:? the ability to share ~~and seamlessly exchange~~ the same information among software applications that perform different industry tasks.? In other words, the solution is to generate the information once and then automatically (or with minimal intervention) import it into any other application that may need it. The concept is an old one but it requires that all software developers agree to some framework that can be shared between tools.? That framework is called Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) and has been under development for over 5 years by a non-profit organization known as the International Alliance for Interoperability (IAI).? Architects and engineers have heard very little about this because it has taken time for software developers to incorporate this new approach.? But that is about to change, and you are invited to see a preview of how this change will improve the practice in your office in years to come.

A group of well known software developers for the building industry formed the Building Lifecycle Interoperable Software (BLIS) project and has developed commercial grade software that can seamlessly exchange IFC-based data developed in CAD applications for use in cost estimating, thermal analysis, mechanical design, construction planning and other industry processes. The BLIS group (Fig. 1) includes industry software leaders such as Microsoft, Graphisoft and Timberline.

It is now possible to take a standard two-dimensional CAD drawing (floor plan), define the third dimension, objectify it (i.e., define its content as ?objects?) and save it in the interoperable format.? Or, one can define the building in three dimensions using object oriented CAD software and save it directly in the interoperable format.? Software that performs quantity take-off can then use the saved information and generate lists of quantities for use by cost estimating applications.? Or, the saved information can be used to automatically check prescriptive compliance with energy codes.? Or, the saved information can be seamlessly imported into EnergyPlus (a ?new generation? simulation tool) for the simulation of the building?s energy performance.? The latter can save as much as 80% of effort and resources currently needed to prepare the building description for such an energy performance simulation.

Fig. 1 ? BLIS Software Environment: Participating Software Development Organizations and Types of Software

Some BLIS tools are already on the market and others are now in their last beta version and will appear on the market in the Spring 2001. BLIS partners are looking for opportunities for deployment of their software in real life design and construction projects.? They will provide free current software and software support to pilot projects willing to use the software and report on the experience.? This workshop will demonstrate the interoperable use of specific CAD, cost estimating, energy performance simulation, and code checking software from Microsoft~~/Visio~~, Graphisoft, Timberline, PNNL and LBNL.? It will also provide an opportunity to ask hard questions and obtain in-depth answers.