Wayland, MA, May 5, 2009. The OGC announced completion of the AECOO-1 (Architecture, Engineering, Construction, Owner and Operator) Phase 1 Testbed, a 9-month effort to increase interoperability among software used by architects, construction companies, cost estimators and building energy analysts. On Thursday, May 28, 2009, from 12:00 – 2:00 p.m. EDT, the buildingSMART allianceTM (bSa), the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC®) and sponsors and participants of the AECOO-1 Testbed will conduct a free webinar demonstrating results from the Testbed.
Effective management of buildings and other capital facilities increasingly requires information exchange among all disciplines and professions that have a stake in the design, construction and operation of those facilities. The AECOO-1 Testbed exchanged building information using Industry Foundation Class (IFC) standards to analyze tradeoffs between construction cost and energy efficiency. This work was preliminary to possible future development of open standards for Web service interfaces. Results will be submitted for consideration by bSa's National Building Information Modeling Standard (NBIMS) Project Committee.
For more information and to register for the free webinar, go to:
http://www.opengeospatial.org/projects/initiatives/aecoo-1
AECOO-1 was a broad international effort in which participants cooperated in solving a discrete set of AECOO community problems defined by the sponsors. The testbed also facilitated cooperation among AECOO standards bodies to achieve results no group could achieve alone. AECOO-1 focused on two important aspects of building design and construction: 1) building performance and energy analysis and 2) quantity take-offs. These topics were explored within the framework of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Integrated Delivery Process and addressed interoperability involving intelligent building models with 3D geometric capabilities.
The AECOO-1 Testbed looked at streamlining communications between building stakeholders during the conceptual design phase to get an early understanding of the tradeoffs between construction cost and energy efficiency. To that end, the project documented in Information Delivery Manuals (IDMs) requirements for quantity takeoffs and energy analysis needs, and used these to define Model View Definitions (MVDs) – specific subsets of Industry Foundation Classes (IFCs) – which are needed to integrate requirements into software used during business workflows. AECOO-1 also worked on a mapping of the IDM and MVD requirements to the NBIMS capability maturity model in order to identify building project information that can improve process management and decision making.
The demonstration webcast will show:
1. How the use of standards-based, interoperable technology can make Integrated Project Delivery faster, cheaper, and more flexible in the future
2. Achievements involving data exchange between various building information model software applications and EnergyPlus energy analysis software, and
3. Creation of alternative quantity take off and cost estimates for a moderately complex building where the scenario involves evaluating a number of different energy conservation approaches that may improve energy performance and life cycle cost.
AECOO-1 sponsors include: buildingSMART alliance, Associated General Contractors of America, American Institute of Architects, Burt Hill, Ellerbe Becket, Gilbane Development Corporation, HOK, Large Firm Round Table, NIST, Statsbygg (Norway), US General Services Administration, and Webcor Builders.
Participants in the demonstration include: Bentley Systems, Digital Alchemy, Faithful & Gould, Graphisoft, LBNL, PhiCubed/Sofi, Nemetscheck NA, NIST, and Tokmo Solutions.
The buildingSMART allianceTM is a council of the National Institute of Building Sciences. The Alliance is the umbrella organization for two permanent projects: the National CAD Standard and the National Building Information Modeling Standard. The Alliance was established to 1) coordinate the profound constructive changes coming to the fragmented real property industry in North America; 2) be the coordination point for fund raising and uniform marketing of member programs; and 3) provide a centralized process for strategic planning, resource allocation and decision making for the member programs. Its collective goal is open interoperability and full lifecycle implementation of building information models. The focus is to guarantee lowest overall cost, optimum sustainability, energy conservation and environmental stewardship to protect the Earth's ecosystem. Visit the buildingSMART alliance website at http://www.buildingsmartalliance.org.
The OGC® is an international consortium of more than 380 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OpenGIS® Standards support interoperable solutions that “geo-enable” the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. OGC Standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org/.
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