Development of Open-Assistant Environment for Integrated Operation of 3D Bridge Model and Engineering Document Information

This study proposes a method for assistant environments to integrate 3D bridge model information and engineering document fragments. The engineering document content varies depending on the process. Therefore, we accept a loose coupling concept to support the independence of each information set instead of using a specific data model for effective integration. The engineering document is translated into an Extensible Markup Language (XML)-based structured format based on the explicit and apparent semantic structure of the document. An extended industry foundation classes (IFC) schema is proposed to manage the bridge information model, as well as document fragments. An information document (iMapDoc) is proposed to manage interim data to connect a 3D digital model, an IFC model, and engineering document fragments. Document fragments on a specific component in the 3D bridge model are retrieved to validate the developed integrated assistant module.