• How can I contribute to this FAQ?

• What does SABLE mean?
• What is the SABLE Project about?
• Why is the SABLE logo an hourglass?
• Tell us a bit about the history of the project.
• Who are the participants to the SABLE project?
• What is IAI?
• What is BLIS?
• Who owns the results of the SABLE project?
• Can I use the specifications of the SABLE project for my industrial project?

• contribute to the project?
• subscribe to the mailing list?

• What is EXPRESS?
• What is IFC?
• What object model will the SABLE application see (use), the IFC model, or a new "SABLE model" that in some way hide the underlying IFC model?
• Will the SABLE services (methods) be defined on entities (objects) in the IFC model?
• Will the "SABLE model" be views on the IFC model, i,e. will the SABLE methods update an "underlying IFC model database" such that the SABLE applications and/or other applications can use the IFC model to access the data manipulated by the SABLE methods?
• What is the role of the IFC model in the scope of SABLE?
• There will be no storage of "building data" in the SABLE server, the "building data" will only be stored in "IFC format in a product model server"?
• Hence, an update of the data through the IFC interface on the product model server will immediately be available through the SABLE server and vice versa?
• With other words, a SABLE method will always "start a transaction" on the "product model server"?

Register to the SABLE mailing list and propose your Q&A to the particpants of the project.

SABLE means Simple Access to the Building Lifecycle Exchange. The word simple is very important in the whole philosophy of this project.

In short SABLE is about harmonizing the access to IFC model servers and the access to the data that persists on these servers by defining a common low level API to IFC Model Servers and a set of high level domain specifics API to the IFC data model. More information can be found in the description of the project.

Well, this question has been long to come but it was expected ;)
The first reason is that "SABLE" is a french word that actually means "SAND" in english.
The second reason is .... well look at the following drawing, don't you see an hourglass?

The hourglass can be flipped when needed. When users put information into the model servers the hourglass is one way and when they get information from the model servers the hourglass is flipped upside down. Just think of the sand flowing in the hourglass as the information that is being exchanged.

The SABLE project is born in September 2002 thanks to the magic of a Sauna in Tampere, Finland (this is amazing what this finnish habit can do to your body and your soul).
The four authors of this idea are Arto Kiviniemi (VTT, Finland), Jiri Hietanen (qPartners, Finland), Yoshinobu Adachi (SECOM, Japan) and Patrick Houbaux (Eurostep, Finland) (resp. Finnish, Finnish, Japanese and French).
The original idea of the project was to create simple domain specific programming interfaces to access to IFC model servers.

• From Septembre to Novembre 2002, the idea grew up and after long nights of mail exchanges and beers the final proposal architecture reach the first level of feasibility.
• From Novembre to Decembre 2002, the project proposal has been written and proposed to several potential industrial and research partners.
• From January 2003 to February 2003, the final project proposal was elaborated and submitted to TEKES (the Finnish National Technical Agency).
• From February 2003 to May 2003, a lot of marketing tasks was done to gather more and more partners. In the beginning of May 2003, TEKES granted Eurostep fundings for the management of the project and other tasks.
• The SABLE project was officially launched in June 2003.

The current list participants to the project can be found here.

IAI is the International Alliance for Interoperability responsible of specifying the IFC model. More information can be found here.

BLIS means Building Lifecycle Interoperable Software. This project is an initiative of a sub-group of people from the IAI that has for objective to coordinate the implementation of IFC in softwares and the use of it in the building industry processes. BLIS is independant from IAI. More information can be found here.

All the specifications and documents available on the SABLE web site are under copyright of the BLIS project. They are constituing the "Public" resources and results of the project. It means that they are free to be used by anybody but no modifications are allowed without the permission of the SABLE project manager.

Yes as far as you tell us about it and don't modify the specifications for your projects without submitting your modifications to us.

Several partnership are possible in SABLE:

• As an observer
  • Participation to discussions
    
• As a committer
  • Need commitment to provide m.m and/or €
  • Participation in the development of the public specifications
  • Connecting a client application to SABLE server(s)
  • Participation to discussions
  • Special agreements are possible with the providers of the SABLE server(s).

 

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The STEP standards (ISO 10303) specify a set of protocols to exchange product model data for international trade and cooperation in major industries including automotive, electronics, aerospace, plant engineering and civil engineering.

The STEP standards are defined using a product modelling language called EXPRESS (ISO10303:11). The major portion of the STEP standards is made up of Application Protocols. These define the domain of discourse (shared knowledge) in an exchange. The context of the exchange is provided by the project.The message is exchanged using file-based exchange based on IS010303:21. The language for exchange of the schema is EXPRESS, the Part 21 exchange format is used to encode the message. The medium is the exchange file.

The IAI's mission is to specify how "things" that can be found in a construction (concrete componants like doors, walls, .... and abstract concepts like spaces, organizations, processes, ...) can be electronically represented in a computer. These specifications represent a data structure on which the electronic representation of a buidling project, needed for the exhange of data between software applications, is based upon.
Each specification is called a "Class" and each class is used for describing a numbers of "things" having the same caracteristics.

The classes defined by the IAI are called "Industry Fundation Classes" (IFC) and are:

• specifically defined for the Architecture, Engineering, Construction and Facility Management
• the fundation of the model for the exchange of data
• definining agreed object classes to develop a common language for the Buidling industry.

 

The all idea of SABLE is to hide the IFC model. So the SABLE client application will use a SABLE API in which we will have a "SABLE model".
We have to bear in mind that we are defining domain specific APIs ... this is not supported at all by the IFC model.

 

No.
When we design a web service we design what the service is doing (the web service methods) and the data types (the object model) that the methods are using for achieving the tasks. Nothing related to IFC at all.

 

 

Yes.
The SABLE methods will put the information in the IFC model on the IFC model servers.
So that an application that is not connected through the SABLE Domain specific API can also view/manipulate the same data.

 

It is the data schema in which the information is made persistent.

 

Nothing is stored on the SABLE Server that can be used by anything else than the SABLE Server itself.
We can think, for instance, that the SABLE server will probably need to store some information for keeping the consistence of the data and probably a cache. Moreover the implementation of the SABLE server depends on the company that is implementing it and not on the SABLE project.
In anyway nothing usable for the client applications should be stored on the SABLE server.

 

Yes !

 

Not always, it depends on the tasks the method will achieve.

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