ifcSpatialZone further Types

Activities & Projects IFC4.3 Building Room - Building Domain Review
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Dear IFC-Team,

I’m writing on behalf of bSI ifcSpatialZone WG in Building Room. We have reviewed comments on further important types related to Spatial Zones from chapters (Germany with Working Groups for Hospital Construction, Transportation, Laboratory Planning, Industrial Kitchen Planning (also supports bSI WG FM & openBIM); Norway; Japan) and our working group . Herewith we propose following additions:

Medical

The spatial zone is used to represent a medical purpose area (e.g. Surgery, Testing Center, Biohazardous Zone etc.)

Laboratory

The spatial zone is used to represent a laboratory specific zones (e.g. Lab Classes maybe Biological, Virologic, Nuclear etc.) or TecBox, a place folder for Lab Equipement, Experimental Stand)

Cultural / Architectural Heritage

The patial zone is used to represent Architectural or Cultural Heritage area, restricted to changes or modifications.

Cadaster (Surveying)

The spatial zone is used to represent surveying area

TFA – Treated Floor Area

(e.g. for Building Energy Simulations)
[unless goes as type under Thermal]

Catering/Industrial Kitchen

The spatial zone is used to represent a Catering and Industrial Kitchen areas or Placeholder for Kitchen Equipment

Military and Gov. Restricted Access Zones

[unless if it goes under Security]

Customs / Toll Collection

[unless goes as type under Transpot]

Speed Limit Zones

[unless goes as type under Transpot]

Dimension restriction Zones for Vehicles

[unless goes as type under Transpot]

Greetings on behalf of the WG.

Mirbek Bekboliev, bSI BRSC

P.S. Like it was requested I have tried to extend that over GitHub and here is a Link Update IfcSpatialZoneTypeEnum.md by mirbekbekboliev · Pull Request #362 · buildingSMART/IFC4.3.x-development · GitHub

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x2 More types might be also useful for Landscape planning.

Flora

and

Fauna

That was also mentioned in our class and object catalogue of the WG Transportation Routes by buildingSMART Germany.

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Interesting work!

I would just like to inform that the Norwegian National Standards Committee “SN/K 518” is currently working on a national standard for zone types (will probably emerge as NS 3457-6).

This standard has a table (informal) for mapping of the zone types to IFC4, using the IfcSpatialZone entity with the ObjectType attribute for naming of userdefines types, and the IfcSpatialZoneEnum Predefined types (many of them have to be USERDEFINED as the IFC 4 defined predefined types are scarce).

This is still “Work in Progress”, but the current (draft) main categories are:

A. Cadastral Zones
B. [no] Zones for public area planning, zoning, legal utilization and formal restrictions
C. Ownership zones
D. Zones for area an volumes types
E. [no] Zones for use types
F. [no] Zones for registration of use for specific purposes
G. Temporary zones for use in design and construction
H. Technical zones
J. Protection zones
K. Access and lock zones
L. Zones for the safeguarding of information security
M. Logistics Zones
N. FM and Operations Zones

Those marked with [no] are considered to be specific to Norwegian conditions. Chairman of the SN/K 518 committee ( SN/K 518 (standard.no)) is Mr Kjell Ivar Bakkmoen (mailto:kib@digitalmedbim.no). I am also a member of the committee.

FYI: A small snippet of a draft for the Category A here.

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Dear @fmohus ,

thank you for your response.

The list we have consolidated with Mr. Bakkmoen, who has joined one of the ifcSpatialZone WG Sessions. The list we have revised one more time, which will be published along with the technical report. We took into account some of above mentioned items. Yet bSI Community should decide on its outcome. We will list those only as a recommendation for extension so far.

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Dear openBIM Community and ifcSpatialZone Project Team,

On behalf of the German working group for openBIM in factory planning, I am reaching out to discuss our current initiative. We are developing a bsDD dictionary domain for what we term in German as “Funktionseinheit” (functional unit) of a factory.

Historically, we have utilized ifcSpatialZone for mapping this class. Our team, composed of domain experts in manufacturing and factory planning, suggests the incorporation of a new predefined type named “Manufacturing.” This type would serve as a placeholder, reserving space for various manufacturing activities during the initial phases of factory planning. Unfortunately, the existing IFCbuildingElementProxy predefined type, ProvisionForSpace, does not fulfill our specific needs.

We eagerly anticipate that both the Project Team and the IFC Development Team will consider integrating our proposal.

Best regards,
Fabian Bermpohl

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@fabian.bermpohl Hi! As you most likely already checked, the IFC Spatial Zone Technical Report discusses the use of use case clusters as the primary predefined types for IfcSpatialZone in IFC 4.3 and higher schemas. These clusters represent broad categories of spatial zone usage, including:

  • RESERVATION
  • DECLARATION
  • VALIDATION
  • INFORMATION
  • ANALYSIS

However, it’s important to note that these clusters may not encompass all possible domain-specific or regional requirements for spatial zone types.

Alternative Methods for Custom Spatial Zone Types

The report outlines several ways to add customized spatial zone types beyond the predefined clusters:

  1. IfcObject.ObjectType with PredefinedType = USERDEFINED:
    This method allows users to define custom spatial zone types by setting the ObjectType property to a specific value. For example, in IFC 4, you could set ObjectType to “MANUFACTURING” to represent a spatial zone for manufacturing activities.
  2. Pset_SpatialZoneCommon.Reference:
    This property set can store any domain-specific, local, or regional user-defined spatial zone types. For instance, you could use the Reference property to store a specific code or identifier for a regional zoning regulation.
  3. IfcClassification:
    This entity enables users to assign classifications to spatial zones, allowing for categorization based on specific criteria or standards. For example, you could categorize spatial zones based on their fire safety rating or accessibility features.
  4. Object Typing:
    This mechanism allows users to define new IfcSpatialZoneType objects and specify their names and other attributes. The report recommends using this approach alongside IFC type libraries (IfcProjectLibrary) for managing and sharing custom spatial zone types.

I feel personally more inclined to use it as an IfcClassificationReference.

Combining non-hierarchical spatial structures with hierarchical data classification can enhance the representation of spatial zones in your projects. By assigning IfcClassificationReference to IfcSpatialZone objects, you can leverage the flexibility of non-hierarchical spatial representation while benefiting from the organizational power of hierarchical data classification.

This method allows you to:

  • Represent “MANUFACTURING” zones that may overlap or have complex spatial relationships.
  • Categorize and organize these zones using a classification system that reflects the functional hierarchy within the factory.

Imagine a factory with overlapping “MANUFACTURING” zones for “ASSEMBLY” and “QUALITY CONTROL.” Using IfcClassification, you could:

  1. Define a classification system with “MANUFACTURING” as the parent category and “ASSEMBLY” and “QUALITY CONTROL” as sub-classifications.
  2. Create two IfcSpatialZone objects representing the physical areas of these zones.
  3. Assign the appropriate IfcClassificationReference to each spatial zone, linking them to their corresponding classification within the hierarchy.