Object-Oriented Database for Managing Building Modeling Components and Metadata: Preprint Page: 3 of 9
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AN OBJECT-ORIENTED DATABASE FOR MANAGING BUILDING MODELING
COMPONENTS AND METADATA
Nicholas Long, Katherine Fleming, and Larry Brackney
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO USAABSTRACT
Building simulation enables users to explore and
evaluate multiple building designs. When tools for
optimization, parametrics, and uncertainty analysis are
combined with analysis engines, the sheer number of
discrete simulation datasets makes it difficult to keep
track of the inputs. The integrity of the input data is
critical to designers, engineers, and researchers for
code compliance, validation, and building
commissioning long after the simulations are finished.
This paper discusses an application that stores inputs
needed for building energy modeling in a searchable,
indexable, flexible, and scalable database to help
address the problem of managing simulation input data.
INTRODUCTION
Over the past decade, traditional relational database
management systems (RDBMS) have shown their
limitations in a Web-based world where scalability and
redundancy across multiple servers are of interest.
These simulation databases will be easier to implement,
maintain, and update if they are designed with a
flexible object-oriented database model that stores data
in a single collection rather than across multiple tables
and rows. Nonrelational database structures are more
agile; however, they lack the well-known table-join
structure of the conventional relational databases.
Although not ideal for all solutions (such as heavily
transaction-dependent accounting applications where
the timing and completion of data manipulation are
critical), nonrelational database systems are well-suited
for handling the size and complex relationships
associated with building data. We discuss the benefits
and difficulties of implementing a nonrelational
database management system to index several hundred
thousand simulation components in a Web-based
framework.
The Building Component Library (BCL) is a new Web
resource and database being developed at the National
Renewable Energy Laboratory. It addresses issues
associated with reliable storage and retrieval of data
required for building energy modeling (BEM) and will
be an online repository for building component
metadata and associated raw data that are generally
required to build and execute building energy models.The library will include window and wall
constructions, heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning
(HVAC) components, plug loads, weather data, code-
compliant components, utility rate data, energy
conservation measures, complete subsystems, and even
whole buildings. BCL metadata include data
conformant to a component taxonomy that enables
searching and a flexible and extensible set of attributes.
These attributes include length, width, weight, cost, U-
factor, data provenance, and supporting video or
images, along with other attributes that further define
components. Model input can be stored in multiple
formats, including OpenStudio (NREL 2011),
EnergyPlus (Crawley et al. 2008), DOE-2 (York and
Cappiello 1981) input, and various weather file
formats.
BACKGROUND
For years, organizations, researchers, and companies
have sought a solution for storing all the data needed to
design, model, construct, operate, and evaluate a
building. This concept is termed building information
modeling (BIM) and is the digital representation of the
building in the form of building objects along with their
attributes, properties, and relationships with other
building objects (Eastment 2009).
The United States spends an estimated $15.8 billion per
year on issues related to interoperability (Gallaher et al.
2004). Several companies have implemented the BIM
concept in different ways but with essentially the same
goal (unifying building data into a single model). These
entities have started developing online data repositories
to store individual components and objects for their
BIM offerings.
Autodesk released Autodesk Seek as a beta application
in 2008 (Donn et al. 2009), which continues to be
extended with product specifications and geometric
representations for various computer-aided design
(CAD) packages. The components on Seek contain
several files, including the CAD file, and occasionally
performance data (such as the IES file for lighting)
(Autodesk 2011).
SmartBM was created in 2010 by Reed Construction
Data and Source2, which recently merged with
ecoScorecard (SmartBJM 2011). SmartBJM's online1
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Long, N.; Fleming, K. & Brackney, L. Object-Oriented Database for Managing Building Modeling Components and Metadata: Preprint, article, December 1, 2011; Golden, Colorado. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc840815/m1/3/: accessed May 6, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.