Ontological Analysis and Engineering Standards: An Initial Study of IFC

There is an increasing interest in developing ontological versions of engineering standards. In general, this amounts to restating a given standard in some ontological language like OWL. We observe that without an ontological analysis of the standard, the conversion neither improves the clarity of the standard nor facilitates its coherent application. In this chapter we begin to study the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC), a standard providing an open vendor-independent file format and data model for data interoperability and exchange for Architecture/Engineering/Construction and Facility Management. We first look at IFC and at an existing OWL version of IFC; then, we highlight the implicit assumptions and we apply ontological analysis to discuss how to best grasp the type/occurrence distinction in IFC. The goal is to show what has been done in IFC and the contribution of ontological analysis to help increasing the correct understanding of a standard. With this approach, we reach a deeper understanding, which can guide the translation from the original language to OWL with increased conceptual clarity while ensuring both logical coherence and ontological soundness.