Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Data Interchange


            After reading the third chapter in the BIM handbook, I was surprised at the importance of language for computers to communicate with one another. I understood the basics, that different programs saved the files in various ways, however the implications did not register. In the past two weeks, we investigated the different BIM programs, including their strengths and weaknesses. If these programs were able to save to the same file type, there would be no issues with going from one program to another. A user friendly program could be the first step to making a structure, where laying down the simple plans were the main priorities. Once this task was completed, a more in depth program could be incorporated to display the complex curves and other more difficult objects. It is a shame that these different languages must exist, had no language gap existed, the full potential of each program could be utilized and there wouldn’t be any need to settle for one program. 

            What was interesting in the second article I read, Electronic Data Interchange And Paperless Processing: Issues and Challenges, was that this data interchange issue was prevalent in many other instances outside of the BIM field. For example, in the medical field, a standard issue medical form type does not exist. It is common for doctors to be lacking information because they are unable to access it due to its file type, computer language, or even if it’s a physical document not at that healthcare facility. Similarly to this, as was mentioned in the initial article, if someone is unable to view all of the documents in a construction project, he may accidentally and unknowingly make a mistake. This could be possible if a HVAC engineer placed duct work through a structural column because that column did not appear on his original drawings. In addition, the article mentioned the importance of a standard of technology for programs to communicate with each other and how it may limit or allow the program’s ultimate success. This was the case with the “quad-stereo” which was the more advanced technology in the past, but did not have the standardization necessary for it to be easily adapted to. I was surprised at the clear connection between healthcare and audio technologies to the many types of building information modeling software.
       
              The second article, The Importance of BIM in Structural Engineering, gave a good description of data interchange. It described this interchange as the ability of one relational database to talk with the others. This could take place between an architect’s database and one of the subcontractors database, a government entity’s database with a geotechnical engineer’s database and ultimately, any database in the set with any other database in the set. The primary issue commonly seen is having to smooth or simplify some of the data so that it is appropriate for another user of the database. For example, an HVAC engineer would need to know the location of many structural members, but not necessarily all of the details relating to them. While this information would not hurt the HVAC engineer, it would mean a significantly larger amount of data for his computer to process. This is even truer for larger structures such as high rise buildings and stadiums. The application of data interchange to the structural engineering field made this technological issue much more digestible.

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