Building product modelling using relational databases, hypermedia software and CAD systems

A framework for a national building product data model standard, the RA TAS‐model, was proposed in an industry‐wide cooperation project in Finland in 1987. The model structures the information describing a building using an object‐oriented semantic data model. In follow‐up projects a number of prototypes have been developed using different software tools. These prototypes have aimed at illustrating the potential of the product data model approach for facilitating data exchange between heterogeneous computing applications in construction, as well as at testing the implementation of the data structures (attributes, object classes, relationships between objects) of the product data models. The prototypes have been based on relational databases, hypermedia software, CAD‐systems and combinations of these.