Data integration between Software tools - a new Approach?

At the beginning of February, we attended the AEC Hackathon (Zürich Edition) together with Penzel Valier AG and presented our challenge, called IFC Data Bus, to an international community of hackers and industry experts. Our goal? Addressing one of the biggest digital challenges facing the construction industry: seamless, bi-directional data integration between software tools.

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The challenge

Architects and planners work with numerous software tools such as Archicad, Grasshopper or vyzn. But lack of interoperability leads to inefficient workflows:

• In practice, the open data format IFC is a one-way street: Exporting is possible, but re-integrating data into CAD & CDE systems is complex and prone to errors
• Since no near-real-time data exchange is possible, data is transferred manually across numerous software tools
• Data ownership, who is responsible for which data and can make changes, is unresolved
• Open BIM standards and technologies do not currently offer any solutions to this challenge

‍Our Approach

An open, decentralized protocol based on OpenBIM standards (IFC, IDS, bSDD), which propagates model and data changes in near real time across various software tools. A protocol is a common language for computer systems - comparable to HTTP/HTTPS, which defines how data is retrieved on the web. The protocol is intended to seamlessly exchange component and material data between various software tools (such as Archicad and other web applications).

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Successful Proof of Concept (PoC)

Together with an international team consisting of various first-class hackers and industry experts, we have developed a first POC - the first executable draft of the 'IFC Data Bus'. We were able to inspire the community as well as the jury and won the “Best Mashup Project” award at the AEC Hackathon! 🎉

How does it work?

• Not a centralized system with absolute data sovereignty but a completely new approach: distributed systems and a shared bus that reliably distributes messages
• Any software tool can dock to the IFC Data Bus and publish and subscribe to model changes there (publish & subscribe)
• Model changes are each encoded as IFCJSON data sets, which significantly simplifies writing and reading data with a wide variety of technology stacks, at the expense of performance
• The transport of data to all participating software tools is achieved using MQTT (NanoMQ), a lightweight and robust standard from the Internet of Things (IoT) environment
• Any change conflicts that arise are automatically identified and resolved decentrally using CRDT (conflict-free replicated data type); in the PoC, we have tested a 'last-write-wins' conflict resolution strategy
• Automated, bi-directional synchronization of components, materials, classifications, and building properties across six systems: Archicad, Grasshopper, Blender, Webclient, Libal CDE, IFC Bus Client

The next steps

Our PoC has shown that decentralized, networked collaboration in the industry is possible and the basic technologies are ready. But of course, further steps are needed:

• More robust & high-performance implementation of our protocol, particularly for extensive geometric data
• Fine-grained change tracking for more accurate data updates
• Integration of conflict resolution strategies (CRDTs) for conflict resolution
• Alignment with IFC5 and OpenCDE development for seamless future compatibility

Conclusion

We are convinced that IFC is the HTML of the construction industry. In the revolution of the World Wide Web, technically inadequate data formats such as HTML have celebrated an unprecedented victory, not because of technological superiority, but because they represent the best common denominator. Over the years, technical deficiencies have been made up for and compensated for. The same will happen in the construction industry: IFC is not technically perfect, but it can be upgraded step by step. What is missing in particular is the option for decentralized and bi-directional data exchange, and we believe that the IFC Data Bus can make a significant contribution right here.

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💬 If you would like to learn more, get involved or give us suggestions for improvement, feel free to contact us!

Thanks to our colleagues from Penzel Valier as well as our incredible team of hackers from companies like Ergon Informatik AG, LIBAL, idpartners, COMPAS Association and many more...

Thank you for organizing the AEC Hackathon: opensource.construction, ZHAW, Bern University of Applied Sciences BFH and Bauen digital Schweiz/ buildingSMART Switzerland.