Harnessing BIM Technology and Integrated Project Delivery for Sustainable Design
May 14 - Track C - Archiving of Digital Design Data
Kristine Fallon, FAIA, Kristine Fallon Associates
Jill Rothenburg, Assoc. AIA, ADD Inc.
MacKenzie Smith, MIT Libraries
Nora Zaldivar ADD Inc.
I'm starting a discussion on archiving of digital design data - BIMs and other types of data. Please join in!
will STEP and IFCs "talk"? MIT has not gone there yet.
Best Practices:
Save original model and original software.
Export data to one of the standard formats - IFC, STEP or maybe both
Export to standard shape file format (IGES, VRML)
Export to a web-based presentation format (Adobe 3D PDF, Flash)
Adopt Christine's recommendations for 2D archiving - PDFs, TIFFs for images, Video in MPEG-4, ASCII for e:mail archives
What do you do with data in ePM tools (Buzzsaw, ConstructWare etc.)?
The speakers all admit this is a very dry subject. However, it is a very important one, especially for anyone with a long perspective of the buildings we design, construct and manage. As a facility owner, we keep building HUNDREDS of years. Imagine trying to open a BIM two hundred years from now...
ADD is discussing weeding and sorting of the data, along with use of their electronic archiving tool, CD Winder (?) This is more sophisticated than I would have thought.
An interesting strategy is that they have gone back and updated all archived models in current versions of the softwares, so that an easily searchable (thumbnail based) database is developed.
What are the best formats in which to archive digital data? PDFs, DWGs, native files? An example is being shown where a search can be done across multiple DWF files, spanning multiple projects.
Chapters 10.3 and 10.5 of the new AIA Handbook are being reference as good places to start for archiving "best practices".
Christine is presenting the FIATECH "General Buildings Handover Guide". This looks like another good source to go to. She is showing Information Strategies for different perspectives. In her view the process industry has a much longer view than other owners. I beg to differ, but then again GSA is not the typical owner.
Actually, she is now giving GSA some credit - referencing our BIM guides.
A good graph is being shown dealing with stuctured vs. unstructured data, and open versus proprietary data. In her matrix, structured (searchable), open data is preferred.
MacKenzie Smith with MIT is now presenting their "MIT FACADE" Project. THey are working on long term strategies for managing models, including models by Gehrie, Morphosis and Safdie. They also work with Heritage projects (Pisa for example) and reconstructions (World Trade Center as an example).
She is going through the Stata Center project - Frank Gehrie's job. 14 GB of data is being archived, with over 60 file formats. This represents one tenth of the total data generated on the job.
In Safdie's U.S. Institute of Peace, they used Revit, Catia, Rhino, and many other modeling tools. Understanding how all these tools work is shrouded in secrecy by the software companies. Getting to a neutral, open standard is essential to archiving. The STEP (ISO 10303) standard, supported by the aircraft industry (CATIA) is being presented. Parametric models can be translated into STEP with the parametric intent preserved.
Change the World Attendees: Are you there? Please feel free to join in! Just don't chat all at once!!
Ian with NewForma (sp?) is discussing the problem with even having the hardware to run these archived software packages in the future. How many of us can run a 5 1/4" floppy these days? (one gentleman here actually can!).
I brought up the archiving system GSA uses - Documentum. The presenters categorized it as the system that was state of the art 25 years ago! We just started using it! The D Space system (open source, designed by MIT and HP) was presented as a better choice.
Ian mentioned that no system will be effective without good metadata do search by. Most systems fail due to the difficulty and added overhead with adding enough metadata.
Good presentation on what I thought would be a booooooring topic!
Jill Rothenburg, Assoc. AIA, ADD Inc.
MacKenzie Smith, MIT Libraries
Nora Zaldivar ADD Inc.
I'm starting a discussion on archiving of digital design data - BIMs and other types of data. Please join in!
will STEP and IFCs "talk"? MIT has not gone there yet.
Best Practices:
Save original model and original software.
Export data to one of the standard formats - IFC, STEP or maybe both
Export to standard shape file format (IGES, VRML)
Export to a web-based presentation format (Adobe 3D PDF, Flash)
Adopt Christine's recommendations for 2D archiving - PDFs, TIFFs for images, Video in MPEG-4, ASCII for e:mail archives
What do you do with data in ePM tools (Buzzsaw, ConstructWare etc.)?
The speakers all admit this is a very dry subject. However, it is a very important one, especially for anyone with a long perspective of the buildings we design, construct and manage. As a facility owner, we keep building HUNDREDS of years. Imagine trying to open a BIM two hundred years from now...
ADD is discussing weeding and sorting of the data, along with use of their electronic archiving tool, CD Winder (?) This is more sophisticated than I would have thought.
An interesting strategy is that they have gone back and updated all archived models in current versions of the softwares, so that an easily searchable (thumbnail based) database is developed.
What are the best formats in which to archive digital data? PDFs, DWGs, native files? An example is being shown where a search can be done across multiple DWF files, spanning multiple projects.
Chapters 10.3 and 10.5 of the new AIA Handbook are being reference as good places to start for archiving "best practices".
Christine is presenting the FIATECH "General Buildings Handover Guide". This looks like another good source to go to. She is showing Information Strategies for different perspectives. In her view the process industry has a much longer view than other owners. I beg to differ, but then again GSA is not the typical owner.
Actually, she is now giving GSA some credit - referencing our BIM guides.
A good graph is being shown dealing with stuctured vs. unstructured data, and open versus proprietary data. In her matrix, structured (searchable), open data is preferred.
MacKenzie Smith with MIT is now presenting their "MIT FACADE" Project. THey are working on long term strategies for managing models, including models by Gehrie, Morphosis and Safdie. They also work with Heritage projects (Pisa for example) and reconstructions (World Trade Center as an example).
She is going through the Stata Center project - Frank Gehrie's job. 14 GB of data is being archived, with over 60 file formats. This represents one tenth of the total data generated on the job.
In Safdie's U.S. Institute of Peace, they used Revit, Catia, Rhino, and many other modeling tools. Understanding how all these tools work is shrouded in secrecy by the software companies. Getting to a neutral, open standard is essential to archiving. The STEP (ISO 10303) standard, supported by the aircraft industry (CATIA) is being presented. Parametric models can be translated into STEP with the parametric intent preserved.
Change the World Attendees: Are you there? Please feel free to join in! Just don't chat all at once!!
Ian with NewForma (sp?) is discussing the problem with even having the hardware to run these archived software packages in the future. How many of us can run a 5 1/4" floppy these days? (one gentleman here actually can!).
I brought up the archiving system GSA uses - Documentum. The presenters categorized it as the system that was state of the art 25 years ago! We just started using it! The D Space system (open source, designed by MIT and HP) was presented as a better choice.
Ian mentioned that no system will be effective without good metadata do search by. Most systems fail due to the difficulty and added overhead with adding enough metadata.
Good presentation on what I thought would be a booooooring topic!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Brian Frels / RTKL on -
It's not really achieving...but I've been discussing with the marketing firm the possibility of uploading significant past and current projects to Google Earth. I think viewing RTKL projects while flying around the world would be a cool marketing.
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Permalink Reply by Nora Zaldivar on -
Brian have you seen the Boston Streets Project? Take a look. There is so much potential in tying architecture-history-archival records and maps together.
http://dca.tufts.edu/features/bostonstreets/people/index.html
Now all we need is money! ;-)
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Permalink Reply by Robert P. Smith, AIA, LEED AP on -
Brian: Like you, I felt this might be a deadly subject ... I joked to Jill that she was doubly fortunate to be allotted the dreaded "after lunch" timeslot. Nevertheless, it turned out to be both an interesting and incredibly useful session.
Going forward, I believe that what we historically have called our "instruments of service" will need to be infused with a vitality and extended life unlike anything we've ever experienced before. Done correctly, digital models of our projects will need to remain useful and accessible well beyond the certificate of occupancy.
For most of us, the effort required to actually keep these models readily available for use is not something we're adequately considering as a business or professional challenge. We'll all need to invest some considerable thought, some considerable time and some considerable resources to protect and preserve this valuable pool of information so it can be used effectively downstream.
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