The implementation of integrated environments using the Industry Foundation Classes standards and Web technologies

Abstract

Integrated Computer Environments have been the subject for research for many years. Among others, the issue of exchanging and sharing data between project participants has been their major concern. International initiatives have been set up for this purpose, mainly STEP and the IAI/IFCs. The latter aims to produce standard data models for the building industry to facilitate the exchange of data between all partners involved along the project life cycle. On the other hand, the large increase in the Web usage has made the large software vendors such as Microsoft, IBM, SUN, etc, produce standards for data communication for client-server applications. These attempts have resulted in the production of the CORBAORB (Object Request Broker Architecture - Object Request Broker) which has been recommended by the Object Management Group (OMG) and the Microsoft ActiveX. These standards have facilitated the development of distributed objects environments where users can exchange data from and to different servers without knowing where the objects are stored. This is an important concept if the implementation of integrated construction environment is to be successful. The aim of this paper is to report on the findings of a large research project which is being carried out, by the AIC (Automation and Integration in Construction) research group, at the University of Salford based on the Salford’s previous experience in the development of integrated environments, such as SPACE and OSCON. This project is adopting international standards in data models and communication protocols. The IFCs have been used as the core data model and has been implemented in a three-tier architecture using CORBA-ORB as its communication standards. The proposed environment adopts open standards and focuses on using existing Internet technology. The project aims to: • Test the state of the art technologies and recently emerging standards such as CORBA and IFC, • Define and select the necessary software components for the integrated environment • Develop an architecture of this environment which will be implemented with the selected software components, • Develop a number of use-cases and scenarios to gain an insight on how such an environment can be used by the Construction Industry professionals.

Keywords: STEP, IAI, IFC, integration, Internet, data exchange.