Building Information Modelling (BIM) standardization

BIM, short for Building Information Modelling, is a digital tool disrupting the construction industry as a platform for central integrated design, modelling, asset planning running and cooperation. It provides all stakeholders with a digital representation of a building's characteristics in its whole life-cycle and thereby holds out the promise of large efficiency gains. One particular area where standardisation on BIM is needed is the exchange of information between software applications used in the construction industry. The leading organisation in this domain is buldingSMART which has developed and maintains Industry Foundation Classes (IFCs) as a neutral and open specification for BIM data model. Other standardisation work include data dictionaries (International Framework for Dictionaries Libraries) and processes (data delivery manuals). ISO/TC 59/SC 13 "Organization of information about construction works", a subcommittee of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) on the worldwide and CEN/TC 442 "Building Information Modelling", a technical committee of European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) on the European level develop and maintain standards in the BIM domain. Liaisons with a plethora of different institutions ensure the completeness and inclusiveness of the process as well as the smooth acceptance of adopted standards. Although BIM was originally devised for buildings the benefits such as less rework, fewer errors, enhanced collaboration, and design data that can ultimately be used to support operations, maintenance, and asset management mad it an attractive option also for infrastructure projects. As geographic information system (GIS) is a key element in any infrastructure project there is the need to integrate BIM and GIS. Both technologies use standard and open data formats, but they are different and presently there is no direct translation.JRC.E.4-Safety and Security of Building

Support for energy-oriented design in the Australian context

There is a need for decision support tools that integrate energy simulation into early design in the context of Australian practice. Despite the proliferation of simulation programs in the last decade, there are no ready-to-use applications that cater specifically for the Australian climate and regulations. Furthermore, the majority of existing tools focus on achieving interaction with the design domain through model-based interoperability, and largely overlook the issue of process integration. This paper proposes an energy-oriented design environment that both accommodates the Australian context and provides interactive and iterative information exchanges that facilitate feedback between domains. It then presents the structure for DEEPA, an openly customisable system that couples parametric modelling and energy simulation software as a means of developing a decision support tool to allow designers to rapidly and flexibly assess the performance of early design alternatives. Finally, it discusses the benefits of developing a dynamic and concurrent performance evaluation process that parallels the characteristics and relationships of the design process

Closing the loop of design and analysis: Parametric modelling tools for early decision support

There is a growing need for parametric design software that communicates building performance feedback in early architectural exploration to support decision-making. This paper examines how the circuit of design and analysis process can be closed to provide active and concurrent feedback between architecture and services engineering domains. It presents the structure for an openly customisable design system that couples parametric modelling and energy analysis software to allow designers to assess the performance of early design iterations quickly. Finally, it discusses how user interactions with the system foster information exchanges that facilitate the sharing of design intelligence across disciplines

A Static Verification Framework for Secure Peer-to-Peer Applications

In this paper we present a static verification framework to support the design and verification of secure peer-to-peer applications. The framework supports the specification, modeling, and analysis of security aspects together with the general characteristics of the system, during early stages of the development life-cycle. The approach avoids security issues to be taken into consideration as a separate layer that is added to the system as an afterthought by the use of security protocols. The main functionality supported by the framework are concerned with the modeling of the system together with its security aspects by using an extension of UML, modeling of abuse cases to represent scenarios of attackers and assist with the identification of properties to be verified, specification of properties to be verified in a graphical template language, verification of the models against the properties, and visualization of the results of the verification process

The Cost of Rational Agency

The rational agency assumption limits systems to domains of application that have never been observed. Moreover, representing agents as being rational in the sense of maximising utility subject to some well specified constraints renders software systems virtually unscalable. These properties of the rational agency assumption are shown to be unnecessary in representations or analogies of markets. The demonstration starts with an analysis of how the rational agency assumption limits the applicability and scalability of the IBM information filetering economy. An unrestricted specification of the information filtering economy is developed from an analysis of the properties of markets as systems and the implementation of a model based on intelligent agents. This extended information filtering economy modelis used to test the analytical results on the scope for agents to act as intermediaries between human users and information sources

Development of Hole Recognition System Using Rule-Based Technique

The effective integration of CAD/CAM (Computer Aided Design/Computer Aided Manufacturing) is a cornerstone of automation progress. The 'islands of automation' such as CAD, CAPP (Computer Aided Process Planning) and CAM are facing the ineffective communication problem. The CAM cannot be integrated directly into CAD due to the lower level geometrical data in CAD and the higher level manufacturing data in CAM. It is important that each 'island of automation' be linked together in order to achieve the goal of integrated CAD/CAM systems. For the past decades, feature-based representation has become a basic part of research in the CAD/CAM integration. The work on feature-based modelling has developed two main approaches, namely, design by features and feature recognition. The feature recognition approach is developed to extract the manufacturing information that is recognized from the CAD database into the CAM database. The features can be used to subtract higher level manufacturing data from lower level or geometrical computer aided data. The Hole Recognition System is developed to solve the communication problem between CAD and CAM. Kappa-PC expert system is used in developing the rule of holes. In this work, the Hole Recognition System is retrieves the geometrical data from the UniGraphics (UG) CAD/CAM system indirectly. The Hole Recognition System is designed to generalise and recognise the feature from neutral format file such as Data Exchange File (DXF), Initial Graphics Exchange Specification (IGES) and Standard for the Exchange of Product Model Data (STEP). The neutral format file can be created hy CAD/CAM system such as UG, CATIA, ProEngineer, etc. For this work, the neutral data transfer standards, namely STEP is used. The STEP file is post processed by UG CAD/CAM system after the solid model has been created. A filtering program is developed to extract the geometrical data feature recognition process. The filtering program has been developed because the Kappa-PC expert system cannot read the STEP file directly. The output from the filtering program is fed to the Hole Recognition System. The rule-based technique is applied to recognise holes. There are two features, namely, blind hole and through hole to be considered. The work presented in this thesis and the Hole Recognition System developed is able to overcome the communication problem in CAD/CAM. The output from the Hole Recognition System is useful for multiple downstream manufacturing activities such as machine tool selection and cutting tool selection

A design model for Open Distributed Processing systems

This paper proposes design concepts that allow the conception, understanding and development of complex technical structures for open distributed systems. The proposed concepts are related to, and partially motivated by, the present work on Open Distributed Processing (ODP). As opposed to the current ODP approach, the concepts are aimed at supporting a design trajectory with several, related abstraction levels. Simple examples are used to illustrate the proposed concepts