Hi Jenny,
Just to add to Fei’s answer here. As construction and asset classification systems are much more advanced for buildings than they are for infrastructure (and generally has enough classification elements to enable civil structure classification) we are yet to implement a specific “infrastructure only” classification system for eToolLCD.
Classification in general in eToolLCD does need an overhaul. At present we are a little constrained with the construction categories we present to users due to maintaining compliance with IMPACT. Indeed, the IMPACT compliance has led to a mix of classification systems being introduced in eToolLCD. We previously used COBie, and the IMPACT standard required us to implement RICS NEM classificaitons in some areas of the app and Uniclass in others. Ideally what we would like for any users not using the IMPACT datasets is to enable the users to specify which classification system they would like to use (including an infrastructure specific one). The main blocker for this is that we would like to maintain availability of our library templates across all classifications systems which would require either:
- Automatic mapping between classification systems. This is user friendly but hard to implement as there is often a many to many relationship between the classes in different systems
- Each template to be classified across all classification systems. This is easy to implement but really painful for users
Watch this space, the use of LCA and eToolLCD subscriber numbers are growing very strongly which enables us to put more resources into the software development. This will enable us to tackle challenges like classification.
For now, as Fei suggests, finding the “best fit” classification is the way to go.
Rich
