ANSI to Adopt OMNICLASS as a Global Standard

[Aaron Bourgoin]

I gather that ANSI will work to promote OMNICLASS as a global standard, extending its work and reach beyond what has up to now seemed like a North American effort to integrate and interrelate a number of competing standards.

The work to get this implemented will take another 9-12 months. I take that as something that defines a window of opportunity and am issuing a challenge to try and get this done beforehand.

As I look at the USA Template file, I would suggest that it needs to more clearly adopt OMNICLASS and use it more efficiently. Currently I see Attributes and Libraries being organized around OMNICLASS without consideration of what the different tables mean and the roles they take on as it relates to LOD categories. Like so much else in the world of BIM, the trend is toward inter-relations between things and processes.

A typical large project will evolve from defining elements in a BIM model from their "Elemental" categories to others that more clearly define "Work Results". A similar strategy should be built into the Templates, their Attributes and Libraries as well as the tools available to create, organize and manage them. From there, the features of ArchiCAD used to create documentation and extract information from the project dataset need to be refined to help the user discern a process. Adding a field for an Index Number in the Building Materials dialog was a great first step, but not being able to easily (intuitively?) edit the XML catalogue of Building Materials is frustrating.

It may be too much to ask to completely reorganize the USA Library to deal with LOD, but via IFC Data Mapping, we may have an easier time of working on the dataset over the conception, articulation and execution of projects.

This issue also applies to individual types of Attributes as well as their use in combinations - Building Materials, Composites, etc.

An example of this: IFC Data Mapping does away with the need to define hundreds of Zone Categories at the Attribute Level and so the basic set of Categories should be reconsidered and documentation included to make sure a user knows how to work with IFC in the creation of Zones.

I've scoured the IFC Guide and think it needs some more work to assist users in harnessing it's potential. In particular, I can find no reference in the manuals about creating lists of data for selection and re-use. An example of this might be akin to Tim Ball's specification which identifies a "Trade". I'd like to craft one of these from an OMNICLASS table(s), rather than from CAWS, and don't know how to do this. cf. https://youtu.be/n_BAeQK7ESc