Testing Semantic Interoperability
Homan Ma, Kwan Mei Elsa Ha, Chun Kit Jackie Chung, Robert Amor · 2006
With standardised semantic representations of construction objects able to be transferred between major CAD systems, and other design tools, there is an expectation, supported by compliance testing, that semantically consistent data will flow across the project team. This assumption is questioned due to the known difficulties in mapping consistently and completely between two distinct representations of an artifact. To test the ability of CAD, and design tools, a number of buildings, described in a standard format, are loaded and then saved directly back out of these tools and then checked for differences. A range of potential differences has been postulated, and experiments show the existence of most categories of differences when data files are examined.