2006-12-22 : Stockholm, September 11-12, 2006 official kick-off of the European integrated project InPro
InPro is an Integrated Project co-financed by the European Commission focusing on Information and Processes within the early design phases of construction projects. It is set to achieve the development and deployment of an Open Information Environment that enables the various stakeholders in early design to collaborate based on the building information modeling principle. AEC3 has been chosen as full partner in the project in recognition of its outstanding competence in specifying and developing buildingSMART interoperable solutions and its longtime experience in driving industry standardization.
Read more under PROJECTS
2006-12-02 : CSC, CSI, buildingSMART Norway and STABU sign letter of intent
Throughout the summer, AEC3 Director Jeffrey Wix has been working with a joint Construction Specifications Canada (CSC) and Construction Specifications Institute CSI (USA) Terminology Task Team to develop technical and business requirements for dictionary development.
At the buildingSMART Day in Washington, D.C. on November 1st, CSC and CSI signed a letter of intent with buildingSMART Norway and STABU Foundation (the Netherlands) to share development of a controlled dictionary of construction terminology. For CSC, the letter of intent was signed by David Watson of Digicon and for CSI by Technical Director Roger Grant.
See also attached press release from STABU
2006-11-28 : ICC Unveils Interoperability Project
From the International Code Council (ICC), Government Relations Senior Advisor Dave Conover led a presentation on SMARTcodes at the buildingSMART Day in Washington, D.C. on November 1st. With development led by Conover and supported by Nick Nisbet of AEC3, SMARTcodes is ICC's cutting-edge system to provide automated code compliance checking.
Conover demonstrated a real building plan being automatically checked for code compliance to the 2006 International Energy Conservation Code. ICC is developing SMARTcodes in coordination with the buildingSMART initiative led by the International Alliance for Interoperability North America, a Council of the National Institute for Building Sciences.
www.iccsafe.org/SMARTcodes
Video of the November 1, 2006 demonstration of SMARTcodes at buildingSMART day in Washington
2006-11-20 : Jeffrey Wix is one of the first-ever recipients of the annual buildingSMART Award
WASHINGTON, DC : A gala evening reception in the Great Hall of the National Building Museum, welcoming International Alliance for Interoperability members and guests from around the world to the IAI's buildingSMART Week, also served to honor the five, first-ever recipients of the annual buildingSMART Awards, selected and presented by the Board of Direction of the IAI North America Chapter, a Council of the National Institute of Building Sciences.
Jeffrey Wix was honoured with the buildingSMART Recognition Award for project management for IFC2x and IFC2x2.
Ceremony attendees stood to applaud AEC3 consultant Jeff Wix of the IAI UK Chapter for his 20 year-plus contribution of technical expertise and vision in defining the IAI's Industry Foundation Classes (IFCs) as a single, global building model base for interoperability. Wix project-managed the IFC2x platform and subsequent IFC2x2 and IFC2x3 enhancement releases, and has consulted in such implementations as ifcBomb in the UK, ePlan Check in Singapore, IDM in Norway, and the Norwegian-led IFD initiative.
More information under www.iai-na.org
2006-09-01 : Thomas Liebich Consulting [TLC] has been changed to AEC3 Deutschland GmbH
From September 1st Thomas Liebich Consulting is operating under the name of AEC3 Deutschland GmbH. As a limited by guarantee company
AEC3 Deutschland GmbH provides the legal structure for continuous development and growth of the consulting business. Other than the name and the legal stutus, nothing else changes. Same people, same address, same telephone numbers.
Our UK colleagues at Jeffrey Wix Consulting had already changed to AEC3 UK Ltd.
The names are changing to reflect the growing collaboration between the companies and the continuing success of our international
project work under the AEC3 name. By moving to the AEC3 brand, we will be able to build on these and establish consistent development,
marketing and reporting methods.
2006-05-02 : AEC3 appointed to assist International Code Council to develop intelligent building codes for US
The International Code Council, a membership association dedicated to building safety and fire prevention, develops
the codes used to construct residential and commercial buildings, including homes and schools in the United States.
Most U.S. cities, counties and states that adopt codes choose the International Codes developed by the International Code Council.
In 2005, the International Code Council concluded that a fully automated building review and approval process is an achievable
vision that will depend primarily on the "interoperability" of all building-related plans, drawings, specifications, manufacturer’s data,
etc. and the building regulatory criteria governing buildings.
They further concluded that a business opportunity exists for ICC to develop, market and support products and services focused on making
automated building review and approval vision a reality in the United States. Based on their experience in assisting automated code
development projects in Singapore and Norway and their knowledge of the IFC model, AEC3 have been appointed to assist in bringing this vision to reality.
The project will work to make the ICC codes intelligent by providing IFC based tagging of key concepts throughout.
This will enable code sections relevant to particular topics to be isolated into "minicodes" containing only those provisions with which
compliance is required. Tags will also be used to drive IFC based "code pattern" property sets that can be used for automated comparison and
checking.
Development of automated codes by the International Code Council is part of the creation of a National Building Information Modelling
Standard for the U.S. using buildingSMART technologies.
More information about the International Code Council under www.iccsafe.org
For further information on AEC3 contributions to automated code development contact info@aec3.com
2006-04-12 : AEC3 on the second buildingSMART International Conference 2006
The second buildingSMART International Conference 2006 took place on 5th April 2006 in Munich.
More than 300 participants from all over the world - representatives of public authorities, from ministries, project developers,
construction industry enterprises, architects, engineers and software developers - had followed the invitation of the IAI.
The conference focussed on forward-looking integration strategies, on integrated information management in planning and construction,
and on the practical exchange of building information model between all project participants.
Leading international experts demonstrated their achievements within already realized and ongoing construction projects, design work
and presented far-reaching reseach and development work.
All speakers agreed: the use of building information models (BIM) is a precursor for better collaboration during design, construction and operation phases. All participants in a project could benefit from a neutral platform like IFC.
AEC3 has been actively supporting the organization of the event and Thomas Liebich was one of the selected speakers. In his presentation he focussed on the integration of construction processes through interoperable software. The achievements of the German IAI domain groups, the other topic of the talk,
also reflect work by AEC3 with Thomas being the technical coordinator of the IAI German Speaking Chapter.
www.buildingsmart.de
Conference Paper [PDF 2240 KB]
2006-04-04 : BIM/IFC User Guide Book
Better usage of interoperable software and better coordination of design, construction and facility management processes doesn't just happen,
when new software with better features arrives.
Particularly the new methodology of building information modelling and exchanging virtual building models requires good understanding of the process,
the tools and practical knowledge on how to apply the tools and new features.
AEC3 has help the IAI German Speaking Chapter to publish the world's first BIM/IFC user guide.
Currently still in German (but English translations are in the pipeline) it comprises
- the reasons to change
- the advantages of using BIM
- the basics of IFC
- the necessary committments in a project of minimum exchange sets, and
- a practical guide on how to use the IFC features of major CAD packages, including ArchCAD, ADT, ALLPLAN, Bentley Architecture, and Revit for the architectural side and Data Design System, elcoSystem and Rocad on the building service and electrical side.
2006-03-18 : Nicholas Nisbet
As of Feb 2006, Nicholas Nisbet has joint AEC3 as a director focussing particularly on the software engineering and development side.
He has many years of experience with developing advanced building specific software solutions and has played already an active part in AEC UK.
2006-01-09 : Inteligrid
Inteligrid is an European Research and Development project founded by the European Community under the Information Society Technologies programme [IST-2004-004664].
The goal of InteliGrid project is to provide a grid-based integration and interoperability infrastructure to complex
industries such as construction, automotive and aerospace. The Inteligrid vision of future engineering is a flexible, secure, robust,
ambient accessible, interoperable, pay-per demand access to information, communication and processing resources.
One work item within Inteligrid is the definition of a construction ontology.
The ontology should be based on an integrated approach to process, product data and business object requirement definitions. Expected results are a ontology specification and an information delivery specification.
AEC3 participated in the open tender issued by the Inteligrid consortium and won the contract. Work will be executed mainly in 2006.
For more information see www.inteligrid.com
2006-01-01 : Jeffrey Wix Consulting Ltd change to trading as AEC3 UK
From January 1st, Jeffrey Wix Consulting Ltd has a new name. We are now AEC3 UK Ltd.
Other than our name, nothing else changes. Same people, same address, same telephone numbers. We have an enhanced web site
and we are moving to using new aec3.com email addresses. But our old email addresses will remain operational.
In parallel, our German colleagues at Thomas Liebich Consulting, are in the process of changing to AEC3 Deutschland GmbH.
Why are we changing? - The names are changing to reflect the growing collaboration between the companies and the continuing success of our international
project work under the AEC3 name. By moving to the AEC3 brand, we will be able to build on these and establish consistent development,
marketing and reporting methods.