Design knowledge modeling and software implementation for building code compliance checking

Design knowledge formalization and design information modeling are critical issues in the development of building design support systems such as automated building code checking systems. This paper presents an object-based building modeling approach and its J2EE (Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition) implementation in a distributed system to facilitate the automated online code-checking process. It examines the issues of object-based representation of code provisions Industry Foundation Class (IFC)-compliant object model for building designs; Java-based rule inference and IFC-based geometric reasoning; and software prototype implementation on the J2EE platform. Application scenarios and online services of the prototype demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach and the system for building design conformance checking in a distributed environment. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.