COBieLite Release Candidate 2 "Slim BIM" (UNCLASSIFIED)

To augment our BIM discussion I’d like to share that the release candidate 2 version of COBieLite is now available at http://buildingsmartalliance.org/index.php/projects/cobielite/

The COBieLite schema is designed as an alternative to the spreadsheetXML format (or Excel) that COBie documents are typically delivered. Also, several sub-schema will be defined (there is one example on the Website) to represent information exchanges that occur throughout the entire building life-cycle. The sub-schema are very important b/c they abstract a lot of complexity away from application developers and keep data transactions as slim as possible. So, for example, if I were developing a mobile application to help equipment installers enter serial numbers, barcodes, and installation photos, I only need to know the location of the equipment, its manufacturer, where to find the installation guide (URL), and maybe a few other bits of info – likewise, the BIMServer only cares about digesting the fields that are allowed to be modified during this product installation data exchange. The lifecycle phases have been enumerated by the Life Cycle Information Exchange project and we should have sub-schema for them by end of summer.

All of this may be overkill for our BIM+oBIX discussion, but it is good background nonetheless. Also it may be the easiest entry point for non-BIM folks to understand the sort of information available in an IFC/COBie based BIM Server.

Chris Bogen, Ph.D.

Computer Scientist

US Army Corps of Engineers

Engineer Research Development Center

Vicksburg, MS

601-634-4624

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