[August 09, 2000] "The Green Building XML Schema is designed to be the best solution for architects, building designers, CAD developers, and product manufacturers who want to incorporate green building principles in their designs, tools, and products. The objective of this schema is to facilitate interoperability between the various building design and facilities management software tools in use today as well as those that will be available in the future. With a minimum of training, advanced tools using the schema will allow users to conduct complex analyses with the simplicity of a click of the mouse. The first major implementation of this schema will be with GeoPraxis' Energy Analysis Module (EAM). The EAM will provide architects and building designers with energy and resource use values for their buildings at the conceptual stage of design. We encourage others to adopt the schema to ensure the entire building life cycle can benefit from green building design."
EAM - "The Energy Analysis Module will be designed with an open and public interface specification, allowing it to be integrated with other 3D CAD tools and future energy simulation engines offered by other vendors. This will ensure that CEC funding does not produce a tool that is bound to a single proprietary 3D program. Why? Building designers want the ability to easily and inexpensively understand the energy performance of a building while it is still in the schematic phase of design. And their clients, building owners, want more accurate estimates of what it will cost to operate their new building. With the support of the California Energy Commission's Public Interest Energy Research (PIER ) Program, and CAD developer Artifice, Inc., the resource engineering firm GeoPraxis Inc. has begun developing an easy-to-use, energy analysis software module that will be integrated with an existing 3-D CAD software tool. The module will use the recently developed Green Building XML Schema (gbXML) to seamlessly receive data from any 3D-CAD tool supporting it. The module then automatically translates a user's building data into a clean input file for conducting a DOE-2 simulation. The tool's what-if analysis capabilities will allow users to understand and test the energy-related impacts of their designs, including fuel and materials choices, system types, orientation, fenestration layout and other key decisions. If successful, these new capabilities will transform how architects and designers think about energy and pollution prevention in new construction."
References:
"GeoPraxis Publishes First XML Schema for Building Energy and Environmental Performance Analysis." - "Keeping to a schedule set last month, GeoPraxis, Inc., a leading provider of XML-based energy and environmental analysis software today published an open XML schema that will greatly facilitate the analysis of building energy and environmental performance by architects, engineers, and others who design and build buildings. The new schema, Green Building XML (gbXML), will facilitate the transfer of building product characteristics and equipment performance data between manufacturer's databases, CAD applications, and energy simulation engines. The gbXML schema is poised to become the interoperability standard for sharing data between programs of this type. Improved data interoperability between the desktop and web-based tools currently used in the architecture, engineering, and construction (A/E/C) industry will greatly reduce the time and cost of designing high performance, energy and resource efficient buildings. John Kennedy, Principal and head of software development at GeoPraxis, said, 'After public review by 45 representatives from industry, research, and media organizations, V1.0 of the schema has been completed and submitted to the BizTalk and IAI/aecXML organizations. We are thankful for the many comments and words of encouragement we received during the review process and look forward to working with many of these parties to make the vision of truly useful building performance analysis tools become a reality.' Mr. Kennedy has been invited to discuss the schema and demonstrate it in action at three upcoming venues: a workshop at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (June 16), the International Alliance for Interoperability's aecXML/IFC meeting held in conjunction with the Construction Specifications Institute annual convention in Atlanta (June 23), and the International Building Performance Simulation Association (IBPSA) semiannual meeting in Minneapolis (June 24). 'Building performance analysis is a hot topic right now and gbXML appears to be the best way to get powerful building performance simulation capabilities into the hands of new users as quickly as possible", said Duane Barrett, Product Manager, HVAC Applications at Bentley Systems, Incorporated. GbXML V1.0 is fully compatible with the most recent revisions of the aecXML guidelines and the BizTalk framework." [cache]
"GeoPraxis Announces the First Comprehensive XML Schema for Building Energy and Environmental Performance Analysis." - "Today pioneering energy analysis solutions provider GeoPraxis, Inc. announced the publication of an open XML schema that will greatly facilitate the analysis of building energy and environmental performance. Soon architects, engineers, and others who design and build buildings in CAD will be able to predict how much energy their buildings will use and how much pollution they will produce with drag-and-drop simplicity. The new schema, Green Building XML (gbXML), will greatly simplify and popularize the use of powerful but traditionally hard to use building energy simulation software. Presently this type of software is only used for research or on the largest construction projects that can afford to hire specially trained engineers. The gbXML schema will facilitate the transfer of building information including product characteristics and equipment performance data between manufacturer's databases, CAD applications, and energy simulation engines. Improved data interoperability between the tools currently used in the architecture, engineering, and construction (A/E/C) industry will greatly reduce the time and cost of designing high performance, energy and resource efficient buildings. John Kennedy, head of software development at GeoPraxis, made the announcement. 'After six months of dedicated effort by our simulation tool development team, the preliminary gbXML specification is now ready for industry review and comment. GeoPraxis is actively seeking cooperation with other interested parties before submission to BizTalk.Org and XML.Org later this month. The next generation of gbXML-enabled CAD tools will allow architects to estimate energy consumption and associated environmental impacts as soon as their schematic designs are entered into CAD. Engineers, Construction Managers, and other design team members see the benefits too since they will be able to refine the CAD files and re-perform the analyses without having to re-enter the data into another program.' Kennedy added, "For building product manufacturers, CAD software vendors, and A/E/C project extranets, the best news in this announcement is that this schema is much more than a simple template to guide future schema and tool development. In fact, the schema has already been integrated into the powerful IDEA Server web-based energy analysis application that is available right now. And the benefits of the schema will be available to the users of the popular 3D CAD modeling software DesignWorkshop. by the end of the year." Kennedy said he expects the schema will ultimately be adopted by the International Alliance for Interoperability (IAI), the organization that has been advocating data interoperability in the A/E/C industry for the past six years. The long elusive goal of interoperability received a big boost when Bentley announced the publication of their aecXML standard last fall. Since then, GeoPraxis has been closely following aecXML developments." [cache]
Contact: info@geopraxis.com
