CAPE construction application protocol for data transfer : a building data model

Che Wan Putra, CWF

Abstract

Construction is a process, which involves diverse parties having different
professional skills and interest. At present, the co-operation and information exchange
between parties involved in any construction has not yet been attained. During a project
life cycle, the amount of information generated and exchanged is enormous even for a
small-size construction project. Current process of managing information flow in
construction still lags behind other industries such as manufacturing.
In the era of information age, information technology (IT) becomes a vital tool for
managing information. It allows a user/manager to store and retrieve information
easily, quickly, produce complete and accurate response, and be better informed of the
relevant issues. However, the progress of IT in the construction industry relies on the
ability of the project participants to exchange and share information among themselves.
Inevitably, there is a need for common standards and approaches due to the lack of
compatibility of the information exchange.
The complexity and vast amount of information involved in any construction
project and the lack of standards have made the process of producing an integrated
environment very difficult. A framework for establishing an Integrated Construction
Environment (ICE) has been proposed with the aim of co-ordinating the integration
process between the various construction applications. SPACE (Simultaneous
Prototyping in An integrated Construction Environment) has been developed which
aims to integrate design and construction throughout the project's life cycle via a single
database. The implementation of this framework has led to the development of a modularised
central core whereby each application has its own data module. CAPE (Construction
Application Protocol for data transfEr) is a design application, which has been
developed as part of data module in SPACE. It represents a building elements data
module and the object interpreter engine. It aims is to improve the flow of information
between project's participants, particularly those related to the design stage.
The development of CAPE data module has resulted in the implementation of a
system, which capture most of the design elements in CAD (AutoCAD/AEC Tm), the
study of their properties such as co-ordination and dimension and populates it into the
object-oriented database systems to serve other application modules in the project
model, i.e. SPACE. CAPE data module also provides several benefits. It provides
essential support for the integration of design and construction, a generic set of building
element classes, defines building elements with the necessary information at run-time,
and a dynamic and an independent environment for all graphical packages such as
CAD and YR.

Citation

Che Wan Putra, C. CAPE construction application protocol for data transfer : a building data model. (Thesis). University of Salford

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Sep 22, 2011
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 22, 2011
• Award Date: Jan 1, 1998