Current State of Data Exchange Between Architectural and Structural Analysis Models - A Critical Review

Abstract

Open format data exchange is currently the most applicable and promising way of exchanging building data between architectural and structural analysis BIM models. Industry foundation classes (IFC) building data model is the only open and neutral data format supported by all leading software products for these two disciplines in the construction industry. However, numerous interoperability issues will have to be overcome before seamless data exchange is achieved. buildingSMART International as the organisation responsible for the development of this data model is at the forefront of developing standards related to the data exchange and to the schema itself. Additionally, the organisation certifies software solutions that support the export and/or import of data with IFC schema. All these parameters are closely analysed as actors and processes that influence the data exchange. The case study on which this research is based, demonstrates how interoperability problems occur regularly across all the certified software tools. In order to pinpoint the origin of these data exchange problems, they are located within the described interoperability parameters. In that way all difficulties arising in the process of implementing open exchange format before reaching the end user are documented.