A survey on 3D CAD model quality assurance and testing

[EN] A new taxonomy of issues related to CAD model quality is presented, which distinguishes between explicit and procedural models. For each type of model, morphologic, syntactic, and semantic errors are characterized. The taxonomy was validated successfully when used to classify quality testing tools, which are aimed at detecting and repairing data errors that may affect the simplification, interoperability, and reusability of CAD models. The study shows that low semantic level errors that hamper simplification are reasonably covered in explicit representations, although many CAD quality testers are still unaffordable for Small and Medium Enterprises, both in terms of cost and training time. Interoperability has been reasonably solved by standards like STEP AP 203 and AP214, but model reusability is not feasible in explicit representations. Procedural representations are promising, as interactive modeling editors automatically prevent most morphologic errors derived from unsuitable modeling strategies. Interoperability problems between procedural representations are expected to decrease dramatically with STEP AP242. Higher semantic aspects of quality such as assurance of design intent, however, are hardly supported by current CAD quality testers. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and the European Regional Development Fund, through the ANNOTA project (Ref. TIN2013-46036-C3-1-R).González-Lluch, C.; Company, P.; Contero, M.; Camba, J.; Plumed, R. (2017). A survey on 3D CAD model quality assurance and testing. Computer-Aided Design. 83:64-79. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cad.2016.10.003S64798

A state-of-the-art review on the integration of Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Geographic Information System (GIS)

The integration of Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Geographic Information System (GIS) has been identified as a promising but challenging topic to transform information towards the generation of knowledge and intelligence. Achievement of integrating these two concepts and enabling technologies will have a significant impact on solving problems in the civil, building and infrastructure sectors. However, since GIS and BIM were originally developed for different purposes, numerous challenges are being encountered for the integration. To better understand these two different domains, this paper reviews the development and dissimilarities of GIS and BIM, the existing integration methods, and investigates their potential in various applications. This study shows that the integration methods are developed for various reasons and aim to solve different problems. The parameters influencing the choice can be summarized and named as "EEEF" criteria: effectiveness, extensibility, effort, and flexibility. Compared with other methods, semantic web technologies provide a promising and generalized integration solution. However, the biggest challenges of this method are the large efforts required at early stage and the isolated development of ontologies within one particular domain. The isolation problem also applies to other methods. Therefore, openness is the key of the success of BIM and GIS integration

Information modelling for the development of sustainable construction (MINDOC)

In previous decades, controlling the environmental impact through lifecycle analysis has become a topical issue in the building sector. However, there are some problems when trying to exchange information between experts for conducting various studies like the environmental assessment of the building. There is also heterogeneity between construction product databases because they do not have the same characteristics and do not use the same basis to measure the environmental impact of each construction product. Moreover, there are still difficulties to exploit the full potential of linking BIM, SemanticWeb and databases of construction products because the idea of combining them is relatively recent. The goal of this thesis is to increase the flexibility needed to assess the building’s environmental impact in a timely manner. First, our research determines gaps in interoperability in the AEC (Architecture Engineering and Construction) domain. Then, we fill some of the shortcomings encountered in the formalization of building information and the generation of building data in Semantic Web formats. We further promote efficient use of BIM throughout the building life cycle by integrating and referencing environmental data on construction products into a BIM tool. Moreover, semantics has been improved by the enhancement of a well-known building-based ontology (namely ifcOWL for Industry Foundation Classes Web Ontology Language). Finally, we experience a case study of a small building for our methodology

3D City Models and urban information: Current issues and perspectives

Considering sustainable development of cities implies investigating cities in a holistic way taking into account many interrelations between various urban or environmental issues. 3D city models are increasingly used in different cities and countries for an intended wide range of applications beyond mere visualization. Could these 3D City models be used to integrate urban and environmental knowledge? How could they be improved to fulfill such role? We believe that enriching the semantics of current 3D city models, would extend their functionality and usability; therefore, they could serve as integration platforms of the knowledge related to urban and environmental issues allowing a huge and significant improvement of city sustainable management and development. But which elements need to be added to 3D city models? What are the most efficient ways to realize such improvement / enrichment? How to evaluate the usability of these improved 3D city models? These were the questions tackled by the COST Action TU0801 “Semantic enrichment of 3D city models for sustainable urban development”. This book gathers various materials developed all along the four year of the Action and the significant breakthroughs

Capturing design process information and rationale to support knowledge-based design and analysis integration

Issued as final reportUnited States. Dept. of Commerc

User driven modelling: Visualisation and systematic interaction for end-user programming with tree-based structures

This thesis addresses certain problems encountered by teams of engineers when modelling complex structures and processes subject to cost and other resource constraints. The cost of a structure or process may be ‘read off’ its specifying model, but the language in which the model is expressed (e.g. CAD) and the language in which resources may be modelled (e.g. spreadsheets) are not naturally compatible. This thesis demonstrates that a number of intermediate steps may be introduced which enable both meaningful translation from one conceptual view to another as well as meaningful collaboration between team members. The work adopts a diagrammatic modelling approach as a natural one in an engineering context when seeking to establish a shared understanding of problems.Thus, the research question to be answered in this thesis is: ‘To what extent is it possible to improve user-driven software development through interaction with diagrams and without requiring users to learn particular computer languages?’ The goal of the research is to improve collaborative software development through interaction with diagrams, thereby minimising the need for end-users to code directly. To achieve this aim a combination of the paradigms of End-User Programming, Process and Product Modelling and Decision Support, and Semantic Web are exploited and a methodology of User Driven Modelling and Programming (UDM/P) is developed, implemented, and tested as a means of demonstrating the efficacy of diagrammatic modelling.In greater detail, the research seeks to show that diagrammatic modelling eases problems of maintenance, extensibility, ease of use, and sharing of information. The methodology presented here to achieve this involves a three step translation from a visualised ontology, through a modelling tool, to output to interactive visualisations. An analysis of users groups them into categories of system creator, model builder, and model user. This categorisation corresponds well with the three-step translation process where users develop the ontology, modelling tool, and visualisations for their problem.This research establishes and exemplifies a novel paradigm of collaborative end-user programming by domain experts. The end-user programmers can use a visual interface where the visualisation of the software exactly matches the structure of the software itself, making translation between user and computer, and vice versa, much more direct and practical. The visualisation is based on an ontology that provides a representation of the software as a tree. The solution is based on translation from a source tree to a result tree, and visualisation of both. The result tree shows a structured representation of the model with a full visualisation of all parts that leads to the computed result.In conclusion, it is claimed that this direct representation of the structure enables an understanding of the program as an ontology and model that is then visualised, resulting in a more transparent shared understanding by all users. It is further argued that our diagrammatic modelling paradigm consequently eases problems of maintenance, extensibility, ease of use, and sharing of information. This method is applicable to any problem that lends itself to representation as a tree. This is considered a limitation of the method to be addressed in a future project