The lack of interoperability in 2D design - A study in design offices in Brazil

A lack of interoperability represents a significant problem (not only in Brazil) in many productive sectors and is still not explored in building design. In order to investigate the problems relating to information exchange, principally data interoperability, a survey was conducted in design offices in the south of Brazil, to identify the problems and quantify the losses due to problem with the lack of interoperability. This survey indicated an average percentage of losses in the design process of approximately 22%. In order to generate information starting from Computer Aided Design (CAD), and as a way to improve the communication between the partners, a study on the use of the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) as a standard for transferring data between design modalities (architectural, structural, hydraulic and electric) was carried out. An application of syntactic conversion of attributes of the IFC to XML was then used as a way to assess the viability of technical integration and to transfer information to a web environment. The prototype demonstrates the viability of the technical integration of information in design to agents of design modalities involved in design processes.