buildingSMART Forums

Initiative "IFC4-Translation" (English -> Local Language): Call for bS Chapter Support

#1

Dear Chapter Leaders and Representatives,

in 2018, the German Chapter in a close cooperation and direct support of bS Austria and bS Switzerland initiated an inter-Chapter Project “IFC4-Translation”. English page is coming soon!

During the bSI Summit in October 2018 in Tokio @klaus.aengenvoort presented the first intermediate results. Based on resolutions taken during the meeting, an Activity Proposal has been formed and later on submitted to review.

The SCE reviewed the comments from the Steering Committee (only containing 8 responses!) that was mainly dismissive due to lack of formal support from other Chapters and some other missing points…

Currently the Team of this Initiative (Project Leaders (@klaus.aengenvoort @TLiebich , bSI Technical Director @berlotti , Product Room Leader @rgrant, Coordinators bSDE @mirbek.bekboliev, an Expert for IFC4-Navigator @jkasper as well as Chapter Leader bSDE @Gunther.Woelfle bSAT @alfred.waschl bSCH @b.schock and many supporters (in particular END-USERS of IFC) within the mentioned chapters) is about to re-submitt the Activity Proposal. This time with the support form other interested buildingSMART Chapters. The activity proposal is under revision and improvement. So far bS Spain and bS Russia have been implementing the same scheme for their local translations.
In this context we would like to collect a Formal Support for this Initiative from all Interested Chapters.
For more details please contact us or simply express your interest by commenting here (Chapter, Organisation and corresponding contact details).
Please find attached short presentation from bSI Autumn Summit in Tokio 2018: https://buildingsmartgermany.sharefile.eu/d-sf219e79adb545fba

Thank you in advance!

Best regards,
Mirbek, on behalf of buildingSMART-Germany Team

P.S. As soon as you join, you will be added into the Activity Proposal. Please make sure that your Chapter would vote positively :wink:

2 Likes
#4
#5

is bsdd ready for this task of the localisation of ifc entity names?

#6

What I see all projects are from European countries, so someone knows North America, the USA and Canada have any project in buildingSMART?

Does the USA support the approach to develop the schema based on XML (XMI)?

I know that the majority of invaluable schemas in the industry are XML(XMI)-based, but do you think XML(XMI) is good enough for today and tomorrow?

#7

Hi @gester
thanks for your response.
The base is there. But so far only Definitions were translated and not even all of them. See example screenshot:

image
image.png1866×826 109 KB

As we can see German, Norwegian, French translation, yet without description, without translated Enumerations and properties etc.
The goal of this initiative to translate not only definitions but also the rest…
Best regards,
Mirbek

#8

Hi @ReD_CoDE,
thanks for your comment.
However I am not so sure if that is relevant for this discussion.
Maybe you should address your question with the separate topic in general channel?
Regards,
Mirbek

#9

@mirbek.bekboliev
hi, i’m actually amazed that this might be any priority to have ifc entities in the native language.

we still miss the whole geospace converted to the ifc, and the stable editable mvd of the format in order to serve the bim level 3. i hope those latter issues are not in any way affected by this movement you present.
cheers,
rob

#10

Hi, well, not at all. I also agree that schema should be improved.
In UK or US maybe that won’t be a question to leave it as it is…however in Germany that would be for sure a big deal. We and most likely other Non-English Speaking Chapters need a native translation for several reasons:
Not every End-User (Architect, Engineer etc.) speaks English, moreover technical English!
If one deals with tenders (private or private projects), that person should fill all related information in local language, understandable to the client.
There are Norms in each country. We have to comply with that Norms. Thus in our case, DIN is also supporting this initiative to get uniform translation of all definitions and their descriptions.
Kind regards,
Mirbek

#11

It’s good idea to translate them to different languages, but have you built an stable IFD, IFC, IDM and MVD?

Have you solved the existing and future issues?

You insist that IFC is an open standard, or DIN says this, other standard says that, but standards can’t be wrong?

In standard organizations we can’t see some “general” people with even Prof. degree?

Do you think IFC will be efficient for BIM Level 3 or Digital Twin(s)?

Companies won’t wait for any standard

#12

the specifics of the german bim (and not only this) way is that they don’t start anything before all standards are set. it’s good, but otoh…

#13

Our response why we need #users:IFC-Translation, I would like to attach this Pic: Map of percentage of population that can speak English

Map of percentage of population that can speak English
Map of percentage of population that can speak English1280×661 240 KB