BARBi Bygg og Anlegg Referanse Bibliotek Building and Construction Reference Data Library IAI International Technical Summit #22 Helsinki – 22/23-April-2002 Lars Bjørkhaug Norwegian Building Research Institute

Who is BARBi ? BARBi is a joint initiative for the Norwegian building industry with members from Norwegian council for building standardisation, Norwegian building research institute, associations for Engineers, Architects, Owners and Contractors. Associations producers of materials, building products and product catalogues. BARBi cooperate internationally with STABU Nederland, Building Research Establishment BRE, International Construction Information Society (ICIS), International Alliance for Interoperability (IAI) and EPISTLE

The BARBi project – timeline – January 1998 – August 1998 Study of the ”state of the art” in product modelling in the building industry September 1998 – January 1999 Test of EPISTLE snapshot E (POSC/CAESAR) ”the Wall test case” February 1999 – May 1999 New evaluation based upon the results of the test case May 1999 – October 1999 Establishing a subset of EPISTLE v.3.1 for the building industry. November 1999 – October 2000 Participating in the development of ISO/PAS 12006-3 and Ifc 2x October 2000 – February 2001 Establishing a test version of BARBi. March 2001 – December 2001 Development of tools and establishing founding for further projects. Test of compatibility with EPISTLE snapshot E-, and LexiCon content. March 2002 – > Full scale test of the library. Connecting briefing, calculation and specification applications with knowledge bases, building codes and product catalogues.

What is BARBi ? A conceptual... object oriented ... language neutral ... reference data library The Norwegian version of a common Reference Data Library based upon the framework of ISO/PAS 12006-3

What is BARBi ? Conceptual ..because BARBi describes objects from what they are, independent of use and time, and not from what they are named or classified as. ”Building product catalogue” NS 3420 ”Building specifications” NS 3451 ”Building parts” building, outer wall, inner wall, door, outer door, inner door, sliding door, cladding, outer cladding, inner cladding, surface, inner surface, outer surface, inner surface, artefact, interior...

What is BARBi ? Object oriented ..because it puts the object (concept) in the centre and study its properties and relations to other objects. inner door door building product fire door fire escape route escape route door leaf door frame door sill doorway opening in wall horizontal light-opening for door with of escape route outer door sliding door rotating door strongroom door sliding door leaf sliding door frame can be is a type of is part of consists_of relates to consists of

What is BARBi ? Language neutral ..because one object can have several names in the same language beam truss balk ligger bjelke

What is BARBi ? Language neutral .. because one name can refer to several objects function a pump in a functional description pump physical object a mounted pump in a plant activity/prosess to pump something

What is BARBi ? Language neutral .. because what a dictionary gives as a translation of a word in one language not necessarily refers to the same object in another language. dør door door-set door dørblad

What is BARBi ? Reference Data Library Linking standards, classification systems and their definitions. Having globally unique ID’s for every concept in the library. Providing multiple classification- and specialisation hierarchies for any concept ISO/PAS Eng, tool Economy tools Proj. library Civil engineer User Contractor Owner Sub- contractor FM El. engineer Common Project Model Eng. tool Knowledge base Price catalogue Building texts Product- catalogue Specification tool CAD tools Architect

Key principles for population of BARBi Every object shall be self-contained (consistent and computer sensible) All properties are directly associated to the object (concept) Properties shall have meaningful names A supertype concept might represent any of it’s first level subtypes. All concept shall be class level concepts All concepts shall be public domain

What can BARBi do for the building industry? Give precise and exact definitions of objects, properties and relationships. I.e. What do we mean by ”width” and ”height” for a door? depends on who is using the concept, and in which context it is used. depends on when, in an object’s lifetime, the concept is used. depends on which classification we refer to.

What can BARBi do for the building industry? Give precise and exact definitions of objects, properties and relationships. in BARBi you will find: all known properties for objects with explicit names several types of relationships between objects, properties, activities, units and references. references to known standards and classification systems a global unique ID and a set of language-dependent names and definitions, for every concept in the library

Ongoing full scale test project Objects and object templates using ISO/PAS 12006-3 Proffzone (LA Lund, Computer Associates CA) Briefing, specification tool for master builders Cost, calculation, purchases and tender. Norwegian building research Institute (NBI) Knowledge bases Product certification Environment data Best solutions Norwegian council for building standardisation (NBR) Standards, regulations Norwegian building product catalogue (Norsk Varedata AS) Product, price and manufacturer information ISO/PAS 12006-3 Reference Data Library Knowledge bases Example of types of information flow between applications and different sources of information. An RDL Object is a language neutral object with unique ID’s for all properties and relationships independent of use and time. Briefing document / Specification Laws / Regulations / Standards Briefing template(s)… Xxx xxxx xxxx xxx Calculation / purchasing / logistics CAD & Object libraries IFC/GDL template(s)… Xxx xxxx xxxx xxx CAD / Engineering Product libraries Product template(s) Xxx xxxx xxxx xxx Facility management / demolition FM template(s)… Xxx xxxx xxxx xxx Templates is used to present an RDL Object in different ways for different users. Templates also provide mapping between RDL Objects, applications and external sources of information.

Ongoing full scale test project The four layers of the reference library ISO/PAS 12006-3 Framework for object oriented data exchange. EXPRESS data model giving the framework for reference libraries. Rules for population of Reference Data Libraries based upon ISO/PAS 12006-3 I.e EXPRESS rule schema Reference Data Libraries Language independent reference objects (RDL object) and relationships with unique ID’s. BARBi LexiCon … BARBi LexiCon … Norwegian names and descriptions Dutch names and descriptions Names and descriptions in other languages Template generators, APIs for storing / reading RDL objects Templates (mapping) Provide mapping between neutral objects and different ways to represent/present them Ifc template Ifc-RDL mapping Product template Product properties.. Search template Advanced search, etc. Ifc template Ifc-RDL mapping Product template Product properties.. Search template Advanced search, etc. APIs for query / update data according to templates and external formats (nnXML, P21…) External libraries Knowd.lib Product libraries Project libraries Sources of information based on RDL objects or existing structures mapped to RDL objects trough templates Ifc template Ifc-RDL mapping Product template Product properties.. Search template Advanced search, etc. Knowledge libraries, standards… GDL, object lib, picedb.. Briefing, FM, program…

Products and outcome from the project http://www.barbi.no Open website for users and partners containing: Documentation of all relevant information about the project. Description of tools and products Own pages for ongoing projects Demo version of the BARBi browser Issue log and user forum The BARBi browser Implementation of ISO/PAS 12006-3 v1 Implemented in Java Server Pages on top of EXPRESS Data Manager ™ database Tested on data from LexiCon and EPISTLE with positive results. Only ISO/PAS version 1 data available for the moment Will soon be updated according to ISO/PAS 12006-3 version 2

Tools for library maintenance BARBi library tool Windows based application: Full implementation of ISO/PAS 12006-3 Easy to build relationships using drag & drop Check routines for data integrity (EXPRESS rule schema) Reads and writes Part 21 and 28 Stores data in an EXPRESS database Excel and Access data acquisition tools Tools to populate EXPRESS databases from MS Office applications. Uses a standard VB API to the EXPRESS database. Can convert EPISTLE and LexiCon data to ISO/PAS 12006-3 format. Good for populating object types, bad for relationship Similar to POSC/CAESAR spreadsheet and db.

Possible scenarios for the use of ISO/PAS 12006-3? In connection with classification systems and paper standards Automatic translation of classification systems Providing navigation (query and update) in reference data through established hierarchies Translation of ISO/PAS 12006-3 objects to classification codes and vice versa. Mapping between classification systems in different countries

Possible scenarios for the use of ISO/PAS 12006-3? For product and object catalogues Offering complete conceptual object definitions for any building product independent of time and use Automatic translation of product catalogues between different languages Give standard input/output interfaces (views/templates) for queries in product catalogues

Possible scenarios for the use of ISO/PAS 12006-3? In connection with knowledge databases and best practise systems Offering neutral ways of structuring knowledge Using conceptual objects to interface knowledge databases.

Possible scenarios for the use of ISO/PAS 12006-3? In connection with IAI and IFC ISO/PAS 12006-3 provides a solution for continuing standardisation beyond the international level (IAI) Multi-lingual support for IFC concepts (object types and property sets) Offer templates for creation of IFC property sets Supplying language neutral IFC property sets from ISO/PAS compatible product and object catalogues. Offer mapping between IFC and national classification systems

Example “Sawn timber” wood quality NS 3079 Timber Dimensions Pressure impregnated pine Size 48x98 Sorting T0 Shape tolerances Strength C24

Example “Sawn timber” Physical object Artefact Class of Class NS Standard Planks Types of sawn timber according to production and dimension Sawn timber Adjusted sawn timber Class_ classification CoC Material Substance Aggregate Timber commodities NS 3079 Timber Dimensions (Incl. tol) Sp_INfoC Reference humidity 20% NS EN 1309-1 Measuring methods Width<100, -1mm- +4 mm NS 3080 Softwood quality description shape Rectangular crossection 48x98 CHC characteristic_possession Profile POB Typification_basis_ POB_cl_member Info_basis_for_ class_member cha_class_specialisation Wood .Spruce ..Pica .Pine Sawn timber commodities POB_class_ specialisation Comp_basis_ for_ member Activity Manufacturing method ....Adjusted Visual sorted according (NS-INSTA 142) Visual mechanical sorting Strength class NS EN-338 (tidl. EN 519) Char_basis_ for_POB_cl_ Treatment .Untreated .Pressure impregnated Product_basis_ ACT Visual sorted T0 according NS-INSTA 142 Product_basis_for_ Char basis_ for_POB_ cl_member (Shape tolerances that applies to the com.class) Char basis_for_ (Quality) T0 sorting NS-INSTA 142 C18 Strength NS EN-338 Cha_cl_basis_ for_act_cl_ Typification_ basis_ POB_cl_ T0 C18 cha_class_ NS 3079 shape tolerances TPO NS 3080 wood quality Adjusted sawn timber 48x98 NS 3079, untreated, Spruce, T0, C18 NS EN-338 Untreated 48x98 Adjusted T0 (Wood) NS-INSTA 142 C18(Wood) NS EN-338 Spruce POB Crossection Type of Wood Sorting class Strength Manufacturing NS 3079 and NS EN 1309-1 (Wood) NS 3080 Quality requirements Treatment Wood dim/ tolerances

… Any questions? Q