[OGC Press Release] (no subject)

[OGC Press Release]

Building Information Models (BIM) Demonstrated in OGC Testbed

PRESS ANNOUNCEMENT FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For information about this announcement, contact:

Sam Bacharach
Executive Director, Outreach and Community Adoption
Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc
tel: +1-703-352-3938
sbacharach at opengeospatial.org

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Wayland, MA, June 26, 2007 - On March 13, the National Institute of
Building Sciences (NIBS) Facility Information Council released the
first version of the National Building Information Modeling Standard
TM  (NBIMS)
[http://www.facilityinformationcouncil.org/bim/story_031307.php] for a
two month industry review period. The Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.
(OGC) has been helping to promote this standard through interoperable
web services using NBIMS and helping to ensure compatibility with the
geospatial industry's consensus based open standards for urban
modeling.

The OGC Web Services test bed (OWS-4) demonstration, held December
7-8, 2006 at an emergency response center in the New York metropolitan
area, showed how interoperability is possible among 3D geospatial
models, CityGML and Industry Foundation Classes (IFCs). CityGML
applies the OGC's Geography Markup Language (GML) for encoding
urban environments. IFCs are an International Alliance for
Interoperability (IAI) International standard and a common component
of Building Information Models. High level decision makers involved in
disaster management saw a live enactment of a fictional scenario in
which a "dirty bomb" explodes at a wharf, causing injuries
and releasing a plume of dangerous radioactivity. The demonstration
used a variety of Web-based geospatial information systems to show
evacuation management, find a building suitable to contain an
emergency decontamination and hospital unit, and track victims. The
geospatial and CAD technologies used at the demo event were mainly
commercial off-the-shelf systems employing the OGC's open
specifications for geospatial interfaces and encodings.

In the scenario, a temporary hospital and decontamination site had to
be found near the event but not in the path of the radioactive plume.
Building information models (BIM) were available for the area. The BIM
encoding used IFCs. Visual inspection and review of the integrated
IFC, CAD, and GIS data showed that one building in particular was well
suited to meet the special emergency hospital requirements. Thus, the
search took less than an hour, and preparation of the site and
transportation of patients could begin immediately.

An open standards approach to sharing of information and services
between AEC/CAD and geospatial technologies is critical for urban
planning, emergency response, homeland security, defense and
intelligence as well as many business and legal activities that
involve buildings and capital projects such as highways, bridges and
airports.

The OWS-4 demonstration relied on CityGML - an emerging OGC standard -
for sharing urban models. CityGML is the result of work in the German
North Rhineland Westphalia Sig3D organization. OWS-4 participants
demonstrated workflows that bridged the general framework for city
representation provided in CityGML with much more specific information
models for AEC developed by the IAI and BIM guidelines developed by
the United States General Services Administration. Participants in the
test bed's CAD-GIS-BIM thread extended the OGC specification for
Web Feature Service (WFS), creating a WFS-BIM that for the first time
integrates authoritative building data from AEC workflows with the
geospatial search, discovery and contextual layering capabilities
inherent in the OGC Open Web Services architecture.

A 12 minute OWS-4 video and interactive demo are available at
http://www.opengeospatial.org/pub/www/ows4/index.html.

The OGC will soon launch and manage a fifth OWS test bed activity to
advance the development of interoperability of BIM, GIS and 3-D
models. Contact George Percivall at gpercivall at opengeospatial.org for
details.

The OGC® is an international industry consortium of more than 335
companies, government agencies, research organizations, and
universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly
available interface specifications. OpenGIS® Specifications
support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web,
wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. The
specifications empower technology developers to make complex spatial
information and services accessible and useful with all kinds of
applications. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org.