Photographs 1 - Seiichiro Hori
Photographs 2 - Yuichi Matsumoto
AP225 Building Elements by Explicit Shape Representation
AP230 Building Structural Frame: Steelwork
Part 106 Building Construction Core Model
Appendix - Press Release on CIMsteel Integration Standards
Robert Anderson, BSI, UK
Andrew Crowley, Leeds University, UK
Wolfgang Haas, Haas & Partner, Germany
Torbjorn Holm, EuroSTEP, Sweden
Seiichiro Hori, Daitec, Japan
Juha Hyvaerinen, VTT Building Technology, Finland
Richard Junge, CAB, Germany
Han Kiliccote, Carnegie Melon Univ, USA
Robert Los, TNO Building Construction, NL
Raimo Pehrsson, PI Group
Patrice Poyet, CSTB, France
Raimar Scherer, TU Dresden, Germany
Graham Storer, Taylor Woodrow, UK
Tatsuo Terai, Chiba Institute of Techn, Japan
Mike Ward, University of Leeds, UK
Alastair Watson, Leeds University, UK
Jeffrey Wix, Jeffrey Wix Consulting, UK
Kees Woestenenk, STABU, NL
Yuichi MatsumotoTaisei Corp, Japan
WH reported on the status of AP225, particularly focusing on use. Currently there are 3 implementations by German CAD-sytems and 2 implementations by Belgian CAD-systems. Also, two Japanese system vendors have begun to implement. All the implementations are based on the ARM of the Committee Draft of AP225.
AP225 was currently out for international DIS Ballot, with an April 7th closing date. Some issues have already been norified and are therefore known. The review in Japan resulted in several issues, the following two being the most significant:
On 2-3 December 1996, there was a meeting to harmonize the Building Construction Core Model (Part 106) and AP225 (J Wix, W Haas). The study resulted in several issues. It was considered that accounting for some of them at this late stage would require major technical changes. This would likely result in the need for a second DIS balloting of AP225, with a delay of at least 8 months. In addition the BCCM will change. Therefore, it was decided only to include the less major changes which would not necessitate a second DIS ballot. Harmonization between BCCM and AP225 could be undertaken later when a stable published BCCM is available as part of amendments to AP225, or even a new version of AP225.
MW announced that, with the completion of Clause 4 of the AP230 document and completion of the ARM validation clause of the AP230 Validation report, Group One documentation for AP230 was now complete.
He reported that the entire set of definitions accompanying the CIMsteel Integration Standard (CIS) data-model had now been rewritten in line with STEP guidelines as Object and Assertion definitions for AP230. These would shortly be appearing on the WWW at:
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/civil/research/cae/step/ap230/ap_doc/ap_c4/ap_c.htm
but currently existed only in paper format.
MW went on to present the ARM clause of the AP230 validation report and announced that this document was already on the WWW at:
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/civil/research/cae/step/ap230/ap_val/ap_val.htm
MW concluded his presentation with a selection of Issues which have been generated against AP230 by reviewers in Finland, Japan, the UK, and the US; and outlined current options for their resolution.
AC then spoke about the development of CIS/2.0 and the fact that this latest version of the European standard would be far more STEP aligned than CIS/1.0, and thus much more closely aligned with the version of AP230 which will be submitted for CD ballot than CIS/1.0 is to the current Working Draft of AP230.
AW announced that the CIMsteel project had now found sufficient resources to fund MW and AC until the end of 1997. He emphasised, however, that the resources had yet to be found to fund Interpretation and Qualification for AP230 and that until this problem was resolved, AP230 could not progress to CD ballot.
Finally, Yuichi Matsumoto gave a demonstration of the SIRIUS structural steelwork system, for which a CIS translator was being planned.
Jeff Wix presented progress of work on part 106 at a meeting held in conjunction with the UK project on 'Computerised Exchange of Information in Construction'. The model has been restructured according to a modular architecture as agreed at the Toronto meeting and now incorporates an identifiable kernel, core extensions and a number of schema which provide 'services' to entities within the kernel and core. A number of these schema are from the 40 series generic resources whose facilities are now directly incorporated into the part 106 ARM.
Thomas Liebich presented the proposed Type Definition entity structure which has been developed by the IAI and contributed to the model. The purpose of the Type Definition is to allow dynamic definition of information so that the model structure does not become too cumbersome. For instance, a Type Definition applied to a Window entity allows types of window to declared as required rather han having all types of window within a model. The facility relies on agreement of an information structure external to the model either on an industry or project basis. The purpose of this was discussed. Information from a report on the business benefits of Standards for the Exchange of Information in Construction were presented to the meeting. The current version of the model (T200) will be posted to the Web site at BRE within the next few weeks. A completed version of the model will be presented as a formal Working Draft at the San Diego meeting.
A meeting of the WG10: Architecture group was attended on Thursday at which the concepts of part 106 were presented and discussed in conjunction with the proposed development of the Engineering Analysis Core Model. It was noted that a number of concepts within the models are held in common.
Bernd Wenzel and Torbjorn Holm (EuroSTEP) described the advancing work on road modelling in Sweden, supported by the Swedish Ministry of Roads. Detailed information would be available shortly through Bernd. Other work was known to be going on in the Netherlands and Germany, and there might now be interest also in UK. It was suggested that there could be a workshop in due course to draw together the strands of work in different countries.
Jeff Wix understood that a leeter had been sent by IAI to Geneva requesting formal Liaison status of IAI with STEP. This would presumably be considered at the next SC4 meeting (Dallas). There was no SC4 meeting at Chester.
HK gave a short presentation of the work he was involved in at Carnegie under the auspices of NIST. He proposed a new IR for exchanging information about processing codes and standards. Even though this new IR allows a strict separation between standards processors and design systems that use them, it contains concepts that may be used bydesign systems to improve designs generated by them.
On Tuesday afternoon, the Building Construction sub-group staged a seminar entitled "Product Data Exchange in Construction - For Real". It featured demonstrations of practical data exchange of engineering information by AP225 (W Haas) and AP230 (A Watson), with accompanying presentations from Salford University (G Aouad) and IAI (J Wix / T Lieblich). The meeting was attended by around 70 people, drawn from STEP (AEC and other industries) and also industry visitors. The meeting was chaired by Graham Storer.
Wolfgang Haas presented the <live> exchange of a building model with AP225. The example building was the new Institute for Anatomy of the University of Munich. The Sending system was RIBCON of system vendor RIB.
Parts of the first floor and the complete foundation were exported as AP225 exchange files. These files were then imported into Nemetschek's CAD-system ALLPLAN. The first floor building elements were imported and added to already existing elements of the first floor, thereby demonstrating incremental data exchange. Next, the foundation was added to the building model.
It was demonstrated that walls and columns remained walls and columns in the receiving CAD-System ALLPLAN, in its internal parametric form. This was by no means trivial, since both systems have quite different approaches to the parameterising of building elements.
Finally, the exchange file was visualised as VRML file. There is a tool which converts AP225 files to VRML format. Visualization was achieved with the VRML browser VREALM.
The live CIMsteel demonstration followed, featuring 4 software applications exchanging information according to the most recent CIS specification (AP230). The software involved was Frameworks from Intergraph, Space from QSE, StruCAD from AceCad, and SSC from Godata. All four system vendors participated in the downstream exchange of data between steel layout, design, detailing and costing activities. Feedback was demonstrated, involving a late design change being fed up-stream. The CIMsteel press release which follows provides background information and further details. Alastair Watson played a continuity role, using Powerpoint slides to illustrate the demonstration stages.
Concluding the afternoon, Jeff Wix and Thomas Lieblich outlined the stage at which work had advanced in IAI, in particular describing the contents of Release 1.5 of the IFC's (due for release in next couple of months, and the envisaged Release 2.0 (November). As a visual impression of how product models will impact practitioners, Ghassan Aouad of Salford University demonstrated the way in which participants in projects in the future would be able to view and interrogate building models using VRML.
The afternoon was appreciated by those who attended, and the participating vendors were thanked for their efforts in preparation for the demonstration, but also for their commitment to the important issue of open data exchange.
For your information, a Press Release put out by CIMsteel project relating to the Chester demonstration:
An innovative technology is being developed to allow the different engineering software used in the construction industry to 'speak the same language'.With the capability to be standardised across all areas of construction, it overcomes the problems previously associated with transferring data from one programme to another - both within and between organisations.The Computer Aided Engineering Group from the University of Leeds' Civil Engineering Department is among the collaborators developing this new technology to allow "open" data exchange within the construction sector.
This technology was demonstrated at a seminar attended by delegates to the International Standards Organisation (ISO) meeting at Chester on 4 March. Information relating to a structural steel work building frame was shown passing between various applications, each of which dealt with a different aspect of the life-cycle of a steel structure, in this case analysis, design, detailing and cost estimating.
The fifty collaborators in the Eureka CIMsteel (Computer Integrated Manufacture of Constructional Steelwork) Project include research institutions, universities, construction companies, software houses and consulting engineers. At this meeting of ISO 10303 (better known as STEP), the Building Construction sub-group staged a seminar entitled "Product Data Exchange in Construction - For Real". It demonstrated the exchange of engineering information between four applications: Frameworks from Intergraph, Space from QSE, StruCAD from AceCad, and SSC from Godata.
In common with a growing number of vendors of structural steelwork-related applications software, vendors of these applications have implemented data exchange translators which comply with the CIMsteel Integration Standards (CIS). These standards, based on STEP, have been developed by the CIMsteel Project for international deployment. The specifications are available now, have been commercially implemented, and are currently entering world-wide industrial deployment. The data exchange translators map their native data structures onto a neutral product model, enabling information to be transferred in the form of data exchange files. The format of these files conforms with Part ISO 10303 Part 21.
The Computer Aided-Engineering Group, within the Civil Engineering Department at The University of Leeds, has played a leading role within the CIMsteel Project in developing the CIS. Dr Alastair Watson heads this group and is also project leader for AP230, the formal STEP Application Protocol "Building Structure Frame: Steelwork", which, as a formal ISO standard, will provide industry with a longer-term solution.
After 3 and a half years of chairing the B-C group, Graham Storer was stepping down. He would still be involved in STEP and would want to continue to support the work there. He thanked all those who had done the real work and was pleased with the demonstration on the Tuesday that things had moved forward very encouragingly since October 1993. There were names in the frame for taking on the leadership - watch this space!
Minutes Graham Storer
This page is maintained by M A Ward
Last updated 21 April 1997
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