Visualization of structural steel product models

SUBMITTED: July 2002
REVISED: January 2003
PUBLISHED: May 2003
EDITOR: Kahkonen K

Robert R. Lipman
National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA
email: robert.lipman@nist.gov, http://cic.nist.gov/

Kent A. Reed
National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA
email: kent.reed@nist.gov, http://cic.nist.gov/

SUMMARY:A visual interface has been developed to provide a means for users to visualize the steel structure represented by a CIMsteel Integration Standards Release 2 (CIS/2) file. A CIS/2 file provides for the electronic exchange of data directly between various steel CAD software applications. Using a web-accessible translator, objects in a user’s CIS/2 file are mapped to application-specific VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) nodes in an VRML file that can be interactively navigated in 3D using freely available VRML browsers. Salient features of the web-base user interface and application-specific VRML nodes related to CIS/2 are described with several examples. The interface has proved useful to both software application developers and end-users.

KEYWORDS: product models, steel construction, visualization, VRML, CIMsteel Integration Standards, CIS/2

FULL TEXT: file.pdf (930,607 bytes)

CITATION:

Lipman R, Reed K A (2003) Visualization of structural steel product models, ITcon Vol. 8, Special Issue Virtual Reality Technology in Architecture and Construction , pg. 51-64, http://www.itcon.org/2003/5