SIST EN ISO 16757-1:2019

SLOVENSKI STANDARD
01-september-2019
Podatkovne strukture digitalnih knjižnic gradnikov stavbnih sistemov - 1. del:
Koncepti, arhitektura in model (ISO 16757-1:2015)
Data structures for electronic product catalogues for building services - Part 1: Concepts,
architecture and model (ISO 16757-1:2015)
Datenstrukturen für elektronische Produktkataloge für Technische Gebäudeausrüstung -
Teil 1: Konzepte, Architektur und Modelle (ISO 16757-1:2015)
Structures de données pour catalogues électroniques de produits pour les services du
bâtiment - Partie 1: Concepts, architecture et modèle (ISO 16757-1:2015)
Ta slovenski standard je istoveten z: EN ISO 16757-1:2019
ICS:
35.240.67 Uporabniške rešitve IT v IT applications in building
gradbeništvu and construction industry
91.010.01 Gradbeništvo na splošno Construction industry in
general
2003-01.Slovenski inštitut za standardizacijo. Razmnoževanje celote ali delov tega standarda ni dovoljeno.

EN ISO 16757-1
EUROPEAN STANDARD
NORME EUROPÉENNE
May 2019
EUROPÄISCHE NORM
ICS 91.010.01
English Version
Data structures for electronic product catalogues for
building services - Part 1: Concepts, architecture and
model (ISO 16757-1:2015)
Structures de données pour catalogues électroniques Datenstrukturen für elektronische Produktkataloge für
de produits pour les services du bâtiment - Partie 1: Technische Gebäudeausrüstung - Teil 1: Konzepte,
Concepts, architecture et modèle (ISO 16757-1:2015) Architektur und Modelle (ISO 16757-1:2015)
This European Standard was approved by CEN on 19 May 2019.

CEN members are bound to comply with the CEN/CENELEC Internal Regulations which stipulate the conditions for giving this
European Standard the status of a national standard without any alteration. Up-to-date lists and bibliographical references
concerning such national standards may be obtained on application to the CEN-CENELEC Management Centre or to any CEN
member.
This European Standard exists in three official versions (English, French, German). A version in any other language made by
translation under the responsibility of a CEN member into its own language and notified to the CEN-CENELEC Management
Centre has the same status as the official versions.

CEN members are the national standards bodies of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia,
Finland, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania,
Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland,
Turkey and United Kingdom.
EUROPEAN COMMITTEE FOR STANDARDIZATION
COMITÉ EUROPÉEN DE NORMALISATION

EUROPÄISCHES KOMITEE FÜR NORMUNG

CEN-CENELEC Management Centre: Rue de la Science 23, B-1040 Brussels
© 2019 CEN All rights of exploitation in any form and by any means reserved Ref. No. EN ISO 16757-1:2019 E
worldwide for CEN national Members.

Contents Page
European foreword . 3

European foreword
The text of ISO 16757-1:2015 has been prepared by Technical Committee ISO/TC 59 "Buildings and
civil engineering works” of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and has been taken
over as EN ISO 16757-1:2019 by Technical Committee CEN/TC 442 “Building Information Modelling
(BIM)” the secretariat of which is held by SN.
This European Standard shall be given the status of a national standard, either by publication of an
identical text or by endorsement, at the latest by November 2019, and conflicting national standards
shall be withdrawn at the latest by November 2019.
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of
patent rights. CEN shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.
According to the CEN-CENELEC Internal Regulations, the national standards organizations of the
following countries are bound to implement this European Standard: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria,
Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,
France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta,
Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland,
Turkey and the United Kingdom.
Endorsement notice
The text of ISO 16757-1:2015 has been approved by CEN as EN ISO 16757-1:2019 without any
modification.
INTERNATIONAL ISO
STANDARD 16757-1
First edition
2015-02-01
Data structures for electronic product
catalogues for building services —
Part 1:
Concepts, architecture and model
Structures de données pour catalogues électroniques de produits pour
les services du bâtiment —
Partie 1: Concepts, architecture et modèle
Reference number
ISO 16757-1:2015(E)
©
ISO 2015
ISO 16757-1:2015(E)
© ISO 2015
All rights reserved. Unless otherwise specified, no part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized otherwise in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, or posting on the internet or an intranet, without prior
written permission. Permission can be requested from either ISO at the address below or ISO’s member body in the country of
the requester.
ISO copyright office
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Tel. + 41 22 749 01 11
Fax + 41 22 749 09 47
E-mail copyright@iso.org
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Published in Switzerland
ii © ISO 2015 – All rights reserved

ISO 16757-1:2015(E)
Contents Page
Foreword .iv
Introduction .v
1 Scope . 1
2 Terms and definitions . 2
3 Requirements and fundamentals. 4
3.1 Content of a catalogue . 6
3.2 Manufacture vs. user view of a catalogue . 6
3.3 Parametric representation of catalogue data . 7
3.4 Dynamic technical properties describing the behaviour of a product . 8
3.5 Descriptive objects and representation objects .10
3.6 Purpose of Content Parts .10
3.7 Relationship to dictionary standards (ISO 13584, ISO 12006-3) .11
4 Product configuration and selection .11
4.1 Configuration by referencing properties .11
4.2 Selection of specific products .13
4.3 Standardised and catalogue-specific properties .15
5 Technical properties .16
5.1 Static properties.17
5.2 Dynamic properties .17
6 Accessories and composed products .18
7 Representation objects and descriptive objects .21
7.1 Article numbers .21
7.2 Geometry data .22
7.3 Product description .23
7.4 Descriptive objects .23
8 Requirements to implement ISO 16757 in engineering systems.23
9 Data model .23
9.1 Properties .24
9.1.1 Technical perspective of properties .24
9.1.2 Content perspective of properties .26
9.2 Selection properties and the selection property hierarchy . .27
9.3 Technical properties .30
10 Embedding of product data of selected products into the building information model .31
Bibliography .33
ISO 16757-1:2015(E)
Foreword
ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) is a worldwide federation of national standards
bodies (ISO member bodies). The work of preparing International Standards is normally carried out
through ISO technical committees. Each member body interested in a subject for which a technical
committee has been established has the right to be represented on that committee. International
organizations, governmental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO, also take part in the work.
ISO collaborates closely with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) on all matters of
electrotechnical standardization.
The procedures used to develop this document and those intended for its further maintenance are
described in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1. In particular the different approval criteria needed for the
different types of ISO documents should be noted. This document was drafted in accordance with the
editorial rules of the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2 (see www.iso.org/directives).
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of
patent rights. ISO shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights. Details of any
patent rights identified during the development of the document will be in the Introduction and/or on
the ISO list of patent declarations received (see www.iso.org/patents).
Any trade name used in this document is information given for the convenience of users and does not
constitute an endorsement.
For an explanation on the meaning of ISO specific terms and expressions related to conformity
assessment, as well as information about ISO’s adherence to the WTO principles in the Technical Barriers
to Trade (TBT), see the following URL: Foreword — Supplementary information.
The committee responsible for this document is ISO/TC 59, Buildings and civil engineering works,
Subcommittee SC 13, Organization of information about construction works.
ISO 16757 consists of the following parts, under the general title Data structures for electronic building
services product catalogues:
— Part 1: Concepts, architecture and model
— Part 2: Geometry
The following parts are planned:
— Part 3: Script language and functions
— Part 4: Cooperation with building information modelling standards
— Part 5: Product catalogue exchange format
iv © ISO 2015 – All rights reserved

ISO 16757-1:2015(E)
Introduction
These Content Parts of this International Standard will define standardised properties for the product
groups and the composition of the technical data model. Furthermore, they determine the specific
programming function-interfaces to layout, calculate, and simulate the products.
There is a growing need for information about building services systems during the planning and design
of buildings. The designers in building services have to execute detailed calculations and simulations
to ensure saving of energy and to satisfy hygienic and comfort criteria in heating, ventilation, air
conditioning, and sanitary plants. They have to provide better and better documentation to verify
the compliance with these requirements. The resulting designs have to describe the complete plants
without internal interference or intersection with the building.
These requirements can only be achieved with modern engineering applications like CAD- and CAE-systems,
calculation programs, BIM tools, and management software. The software systems need exact data of the
used plant components. Each component contributes to the performance data of the whole building.
There are many manufacturers, who provide products to certain sectors of building services (such as
heating, ventilation, air conditioning, sanitary). Others provide only certain product groups (radiators,
heaters, air condition equipment, air pipes, valves, devices).
Classical catalogues provide product data in tables and show the design algorithms in diagrams and
design rules. In addition to the technical properties required for functional design and calculation (e.g.
in the form of curve diagrams), such catalogues also contain the geometry data needed for dimensional
design and construction (e.g. in the form of dimensional drawings with port details) and the descriptive
objects serving for visualization (such as photos, video sequences, or acoustical sequences).
Additionally, nearly all big manufacturers provide their own software (mostly for free) as electronic
catalogues to select, to design, and to calculate their products.
Unfortunately, none of these software solutions meets all the requirements of the planner. Needless
to say, that each program contains only the product range of its manufacturer. So it is not possible to
perform a continuous planning of the plant with products of different manufacturers.
Thus, it is desirable to provide engineering applications which are independent from the manufacturers.
The next problem is that data files from different manufacturers — if available at all — are organized in
different data formats, structures, and terminologies.
Independent CAD-systems and calculation software need to get data and algorithms in a uniform way.
Only if product data and algorithms are automatically available, the calculation and simulation of a
complete HVAC plant is possible.
Software providers cannot afford to provide all data from all product manufacturers in the format
required by their system. Also, product manufacturers cannot provide current information about their
products in the formats of all potential software systems. Thus, we have a typical situation where
standardization is required to improve the exchange of information between business partners.
Within single product groups (e.g. radiators), national initiatives to standardize exchange formats have
already been conducted. But there is a lack of unification of existing formats across all product groups.
Required is a uniform, internationally standardised definition for product catalogue data interchange.
Such a definition eliminates the need to manage different data formats and to use different software
systems to deal with products of different manufacturers, and this leads to a significant reduction of costs
for manufacturers and users. Integrating this data into BIM-systems (Building Information Modelling)
allows data interchange between IT systems. In addition, to the benefit for planning, there will be an
amount of advantages for other software solutions, e.g. facility management and life cycle management.
This International Standard offers for the first time an interface which allows the uniform handling of data
about technical, commercial, maintenance, service, as well as geometry, images, video, and text information.
ISO 16757-1:2015(E)
ISO 16757 is a multi-part standard. Future parts will include:
— an overview of ISO 16757 and the rationale for its elements and organization;
— geometric elements which are used to represent the products in the catalogues of ISO 16757;
— definition of the script language used in ISO 16757 for various purposes;
— IDM descriptions for ISO 16757, including process descriptions for those processes which are to
be supported by the standard and it comprises the rules for mapping of product and the property
descriptions to IFC and for defining properties semantically with IFD;
— definition of an exchange format in XML by which electronic catalogues can be exchanged according to
the definitions of ISO 16757. The exchange format will be specified as an XML Schema Definition (XSD).
vi © ISO 2015 – All rights reserved

INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ISO 16757-1:2015(E)
Data structures for electronic product catalogues for
building services —
Part 1:
Concepts, architecture and model
1 Scope
The primary purpose of this International Standard is the provision of data structures for electronic
product catalogues to transmit building services product data automatically into models of building
services software applications. This includes a meta model for the specification of product classes
and their properties and a meta model for the product data which is exchanged in product catalogues.
Product data has to follow the specifications for their product groups.
The standard series is split into two areas:
— Basic concepts like conceptual models, languages, geometry representations, and XML schemas for data
exchange are provided in the Conceptual Parts of the standard series (Parts with a one digit number).
— Using these resources, the Content Parts of this International Standard define for various product
groups of building services concrete models for the description and the exchange of products.
The basic concepts which are provided by the standard series include the following:
— resources for the specification of selection properties and a selection property tree guiding the
selection process to identify the appropriate product variant from a parametric electronic catalogue;
— resources for the specification of dependent properties and their computational functions to
compute their values in dependency from installation parameters;
— resources for the specification of composition relationships between products which can be used to
model structures like bill of materials or accessory relationships;
— resources for a parametric constructed solid geometry (CSG) based geometry representation containing
specific CSG elements geometrical elements which are typical for building services products.
This part of ISO 16757 specifies
— the underlying concepts,
— a generic model specifying the available modelling elements and their relationships, and
— a framework for the specification of the Content Parts by describing the elements which are to be
provided by these Parts.
Not in scope of this part of ISO 16757 are the following:
— a detailed description of the used geometrical primitives;
NOTE Geometry is described in ISO 16757-2.
— a specification of the script language used to exchange algorithms for computing the values of
dependent and computable properties;
NOTE The script language is described in ISO 16757-3.
ISO 16757-1:2015(E)
— a specification of the XML Schema specifying the data structures for the catalogue exchange;
NOTE The XML schema is described in ISO 16757-5.
— a description of the relationships to standards of the area of buildingSMART;
NOTE The relationships to standards of the area of buildingSMART is described in ISO 16757-4.
— definition of models for specific product groups.
NOTE 1 Definitions of models for specific product areas are described in ISO 16757-10 et. seq., the Content
Parts of ISO 16757.
NOTE 2 All parts are still under development.
2 Terms and definitions
For the purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions apply.
2.1
accessory
product of the same or of different product groups, which can be attached to a product
Note 1 to entry: An accessory is not a different type of product, it plays an ancillary role to another product.
2.2
accessory hierarchy
representation of the dependencies between products and accessories
2.3
article number
manufacturer’s reference number, GTIN, or other identifier identifying the product or constituents of a
product
2.4
building information modelling
BIM
construction of a model that contains the information about a building for all phases of the building life cycle
Note 1 to entry: In many cases, the abbreviation BIM is also used for the result of the building information
modelling, namely the building information model.
2.5
building services
utilities and installations supplied and distributed within a building such as electricity, gas, heating,
water, and communications
[SOURCE: ISO 16484-2]
2.6
building services system
BSS
technical system that provides building services in a building
[SOURCE: ISO 16484-2]
2.7
BSS property
technical property that describes an aspect of the current state of a BSS
Note 1 to entry: A BSS property cannot get a value in a catalogue because the states of the building services
system are not known and will vary according to the specific system and its various system states.
2 © ISO 2015 – All rights reserved

ISO 16757-1:2015(E)
EXAMPLE In the example given in 2.10, ‘media volume flow’ and ‘media density’ are BSS properties.
2.8
catalogue metadata
data in the catalogue which contains data about the catalogue itself
EXAMPLE Catalogue metadata include standard numbers, data for version management, the manufacturer’s
name, and global location number, as well as file check details.
2.9
descriptive object
object giving descriptive and/or visual information about the product
EXAMPLE Descriptive objects are pictures, descriptions, videos, etc.
2.10
dynamic property
technical property, that reflects the product’s behaviour under the operating conditions of the building
services system in which the product is installed
EXAMPLE The dynamic property ‘pressure loss of a pipe elbow’ is dependent of the ‘media volume flow’
and the ‘media density’. In a catalogue, the manufacturer of a pipe elbow has to provide a means to allow the
determination of the actual ‘pressure loss’ for various values of ‘media volume flow’ and ‘media density’
Note 1 to entry: A dynamic property does not get a value from a product catalogue because the value of a dynamic
property is dependent on the state of the building services system into which the product will be integrated.
Therefore, the value may vary according to the state. The catalogue normally contains some means which allow
the product user to determine the value of that property in a given state of the building services system.
2.11
facility management
FM
all the services before, during, and after utilisation of real estate properties and infrastructure based
on a holistic (integral) strategy
[SOURCE: ISO 16484-2:2004]
2.12
function
formula
algorithms and formulas for the calculation of computable product properties
Note 1 to entry: The representation of functions and formulae follows a simple program script syntax.
2.13
Global Trade Item Number
GTIN
identifier for trade items used to look up product information in a database GS1
2.14
product
orderable, technical entity
2.15
product catalogue
compilation of information about products
Note 1 to entry: A product catalogue can be related by its article numbers to price lists.
2.16
product group
set of products described by common properties
ISO 16757-1:2015(E)
2.17
product index
compilation of references to all property values of a defined product, the product description, the
product geometry, and the product article numbers
2.18
product series
types of products, defined by the manufacturer, which are commonly constructed and manufactured
2.19
property
defined parameter suitable for the description and differentiation of products
[SOURCE: ISO/TS 13399-5:2014]
Note 1 to entry: The description of a product is the description of its properties.
2.20
representation object
object that represents a product or a part of it as a whole
EXAMPLE Article numbers and geometry are representation objects.
2.21
static property
technical property that is independent of the operating conditions of the building services system in
which the product is installed and which gets its fixed value from the catalogue
2.22
selection property
property which is used for the selection of a certain product from the product variants of the catalogue
2.23
technical property
property which is used to represent technical data and functions for designing, calculating, and
simulating the product
Note 1 to entry: Technical properties comprise static and dynamic technical properties.
3 Requirements and fundamentals
The strategic interest of this International Standard is the provision of product data for design,
calculation, and simulation of Building Services systems within engineering application models. This
means it is necessary to exchange machine-readable product data from manufacturers to engineering
applications and to building information models in an automatic way.
Basically, the products are described by three elements (see Figure 1):
— property values;
— representation objects (like geometry);
— descriptive objects (like text documents, pictures, etc.).
In addition, products can be supplemented by a number of accessories which can be optionally selected
in addition to the product itself. Which and how many accessories belong to a product is described by
specific rules.
The properties which are used to describe a product have to be defined in a standard (one exception
are the catalogue-specific selection properties; see below). The purpose of the Content Parts of this
International Standard is exactly the definition of these properties. In Figure 1, which gives a high-
4 © ISO 2015 – All rights reserved

ISO 16757-1:2015(E)
level overview about the modelling levels of this International Standard, the meta model on the left side
specifies which kinds of properties can be defined for a product group. A Content Part of this International
Standard for a product group has to specify which properties are required for the representation of
products of this product group. Thus, it will define properties of the various kinds shown in Figure 1;
technically speaking, it will provide an instance of the meta model. The various kinds of properties are
described below.
On the right side of Figure 1, the elements are shown which make up an ISO 16757 product catalogue.
All elements which belong to a product class are grouped under a ClassElements object which is related
to the respective ProductClass (see Figure 1). The property values in the catalogue belong to a property
which has been defined in the respective Content Part for the product group the product belongs to (not
explicitly shown in Figure 1). Some (selection) properties are catalogue specific; their definition will be
provided in the catalogue and they are only applicable for that catalogue.
Figure 1 — Overview about the elements of a catalogue and the kinds of properties
The diagram in Figure 1, as well as the diagrams in a number of further figures, is drawn by use of the
Unified Modelling Language (UML) class diagrams (see ISO/IEC 19505-1). The following semantics is
assumed for the relationships:
Subclass relationship (is-a)
ISO 16757-1:2015(E)
Composition relationship (sub-object belongs physically to the upper object)
Aggregation relationship (sub-object belongs logically to the upper object)
Properties of different kinds have different roles:
— Technical properties describe those values which are used as basic parameters in the simulation
and the design of building services systems. Technical properties can be static or dynamic, i.e.
dependent of parameters of the building service system in which the product is being installed.
Dynamic properties provide a function specification giving the parameters from which the actual
value of the property depends.
— Selection properties are used to select a single product from a catalogue which often contains more
than a million products of similar kind. By specifying all applicable selection properties, a product
has been identified. Selection properties might be catalogue specific.
— Information about the catalogue itself and its administration is transmitted by values of catalogue
metadata (not shown in Figure 1).
These different kinds of properties and the related objects will be described in more detail in the
following clauses. In this clause, the decisions taken for the definition of these properties and objects
will be motivated.
3.1 Content of a catalogue
An ISO 16757 catalogue (in the following just called a catalogue) is an electronic catalogue containing
at least one product, but normally many products. The product groups which can be transmitted in
ISO 16757 catalogues will be defined in ISO 16757-10 et seq., the Content Parts.
Accessories normally belong to a different product group as the main product. They can be described in
separate product catalogues. Products outside the catalogue can be referenced from inside the catalogue.
Therefore, the identification and the name of the data entity (e.g. the data file) of the external catalogue
has to be included into the reference. It is always assumed that the name is unique in the current context
of the catalogue. More information will be given in ISO 16757-5 where the concrete exchange of product
catalogues is described.
A product may consist of several articles which build the product. The division of products into
different articles with several article numbers is depending on manufacturers’ conventions and has
no technical influence.
EXAMPLE Fire dampers have to be checked in certain time intervals. They can be activated manually or by
a separate control device. For one manufacturer, the combination of the fire damper together with its control
device is a single article with a single article number. Other manufacturers provide them as a product, consisting
of two articles with two different article numbers.
3.2 Manufacture vs. user view of a catalogue
Catalogue providers and catalogue users can have different interests and they use catalogues with
different intentions.
NOTE 1 The user’s goal is to get information in a way which makes the products of different manufactures
comparable based on standardised terminology and definitions. This would help users to find the best fitting
products at lowest prices.
NOTE 2 This International Standard does not standardize the exchange of price information or any other
commercial information. This information may supplement an ISO 16757 compliant catalogue, but its format is
not in the scope of this International Standard.
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ISO 16757-1:2015(E)
NOTE 3 Many manufacturers are not willing to produce product catalogues which make them easily comparable
with other manufacturers. They argue, when all products were comparable, the specific product differences
became invisible. In addition, new developments and inventions would not have a chance to be communicated
unless the new concepts are incorporated into the standardised terminology. In fact, manufacturers have the
motivation to present their products as positive as possible. Besides, they are responsible for their data. Ownership
and copyright of catalogues is with the manufacturers. Therefore, the product catalogues are manufacturer-
related and they are produced by the manufacturers themselves.
To support both views, this International Standard follows two principles:
a) ISO 16757 provides technical properties which are needed for calculation, representation, ordering,
and simulation in different application cases in a standardised form. These properties will be
imported into application systems on the user’s site like engineering applications, simulation tools,
etc. These properties shall be standardised in the Content Parts of this International Standard for
the relevant product classes.
b) ISO 16757 allows manufacturers to use their internal terms for the description of products. This
can be done by providing standard properties without determining the allowed set of values (e.g.
for colours, so that manufacturers can use their own colour coding) or by allowing manufacturers
to define catalogue-specific properties which have a specific place in the selection process (and are
thus still useable in a computer-supported variant selection process).
One of the main use cases for many properties is the selection of a specific variant among its many
similar variants. This will be explained below in more detail. The properties which are supposed to be
used in this process are called selection properties in this International Standard.
Normally, selection properties are standardised in the Content Parts of ISO 16757 to enable consistent
product selection as far as possible. In addition, ISO 16757 allows manufacturers to specify catalogue-
specific selection properties. The definition of these properties shall be provided in the catalogue.
As a conclusion, the following main kinds of properties are provided by this International Standard:
— standardised selection properties;
— catalogue specific selection properties;
— technical properties for technical calculation and design.
It is possible that sometimes the content of selection properties and the content of technical properties
seem to be redundant. But in fact, in most cases for selection and for calculation, different views on a
property are necessary. A very obvious example is the car battery: it has a nominal voltage of 12 V, but
the real value of a fully charged battery is around 13 V. Whereas for the selection, a nominal value is most
important, for the calculation, the real value is necessary which can deviate from the nominal value.
Thus, sometimes the same property name can be used, but they convey different semantics (which in
some other approaches is distinguished by different qualifiers for property values). In this International
Standard, these different properties shall be identified by different identifiers.
3.3 Parametric representation of catalogue data
Based upon the process in which the provision, exchange, and use of standardised product data are
performed, a product catalogue may contain a single product or a number of products. To deal with a
big number of products, one essential part of the catalogue structure of this International Standard are
mechanisms to represent similar products in a compact way. That means, the products are not described
separately in the structure but each potential property value and each technical property element is
available only once in the structure. To isolate a single product, a configuration mechanism allows the
selection of values and elements which describe exactly this product.
Product representation objects like geometry are also organized in a parameterized way. Most product
series define shapes, which are geometrically the same for all variants of that product series. They only
differ in their dimensions. In the same way as the data management uses the same property data for
different products, the same basic geometry can be used to describe similar shapes. Dimensions are
ISO 16757-1:2015(E)
described as parametric terms containing properties as parameters, which are filled with actual values
of the selected variant.
If one of the variants of a product is selected, it can be taken into the target (e.g. the building information
model) in two ways: Either as a fixed product where all selection parameters are filled with actual
values or as a parametric product where the variations still exist and the actual values of the parameters
are given as well. The scope of this International Standard is only the representation of parametric
structures in the exchange file.
3.4 Dynamic technical properties describing the behaviour of a product
The interest of application software is to get information about the product’s behaviour in different
load cases. This data are provided in paper catalogues by data tables, formulas, and diagrams. They
determine the values of specific properties in different load cases.
In this International Standard, the behaviour of a product is defined by dynamic properties. Dynamic
properties are properties whose values are dependent on values of other properties which describe the
installation situation of the product in a given building services system. If the state of the surrounding
system changes, i.e. if the values of the BSS properties are changed, then the values of the dynamic
properties might change as well.
Thus, the values of dynamic properties cannot be transferred as single values in the catalogue because
there is no single value for all situations. Rather, the manufacturer has to provide some means which
allows the user to determine the correct property value in a given system situation.
NOTE In conventional product data sheets, this is normally done by tables, formulas, or diagrams where
the reader can relate some situation specific parameters of the system with the actual behaviour of the product,
i.e. with the values of the dynamic technical properties. Thus, this International Standard does not require
manufacturers to provide more information as they are used to provide in their print media. But this International
Standard provides a method to transfer this information in a way which can be understood by a computer.
Thus, the definition of a dynamic property comprises two elements:
a) the definition of the property itself (describing name, data type, allowed values, etc.);
b) the definition of the properties on which the value of the dynamic property depends (these properties
describe the current state of the building services system into which the product is integrated).
BSS properties are defined in Content Parts of this International Standard. A catalogue cannot provide
values for these properties — they describe the system context into which the product will be installed.
Only with the description of the actual system context the values of dynamic properties can be
determined giving the specific behaviour of the product under these conditions. Thus, the standard
defines that the computable property is a function of some other BSS properties. The implementation
of the function itself is product and manufacture specific, it may differ from product to product. Only
the manufacturer can specify how the product behaves under these conditions – he has to provide the
means to compute this dependency in his catalogue.
Dynamic parameters can be described generally by the function:
DynParam = f (BSS properties technical product properties)
The Content Parts of this International Standard shall provide such a function specification for any
dynamic property.
The purpose of defining dynamic properties is to enable software systems which process the received
catalogue data to determine the value of the dependent properties for specific situations. Thus, one
requirement for ISO 16757 catalogues is to transfer the manufacturer specific method for determining
a dependent value for a specific product into the software systems of the users.
There are different ways how that can be done: One way is to produce a table of values which specifies
the resulting values of the dependent property for some given combinations of parameters of the
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ISO 16757-1:2015(E)
function. Another way is to provide a function as a mathematical term, and the third way is to describe
the calculation of the value of the dependent property by means of an algorithm in some algorithmic
language. In different situations, different methods are best suited for transferring this information.
All t
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