BUILDING PRODUCT MODELS
Computer Environments Supporting Design and Construction
Charles M. Eastman
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta GA. USA
Copyright 1999
CRC Press
Boca Raton FLCHAPTER FIVE
ISO-STEP
..the opportunity to develop EXPRESS was a chance to improve upon what seemed
10 be an inadequate way of thinking about and documenting what we know about
information, which influences our lives so greatly. We are pushed into either of two
corners: one that dealt with data and relationships only and another that entangled
information with every conceivable computer application development detail. From
my point of view, information is certainly more than the former and definitely
should be kept apart from the later.
Douglas Schenck and Peter Wilson
Preface
formation Modeling the EXPRESS Was
1994
5.1 INTRODUCTION
By 1984, the issues of CAD data translation, as summarized at the end of Chapter Three,
suggested to a number of industry-based research groups in Europe and the US that the time was
appropriate for a new generation of standards efforts. In the US, the new effort was centered
around the Product Data Exchange Standard (PDES). About the same time, the International
Standards Organization (ISO) in Geneva, Switzerland, initiated a Technical Committee, TC184, to
initiate a subcommittee, SC4, to develop a standard called STEP (STandard for the Exchange of
Product Model Data). The full ttle ofthe standard is 1501303 - Industrial Automation Systems ~
Product Data Representation and Exchange. The STEP effort was initiated in part because
different European countries were embarking on development of their own standards. Beside
IGES and PDES, there was SET by the French, CAD by the Germans, and other efforts such as
VDA-FS and EDIF. After initially operating as parallel but separate activities, the PDES and
STEP efforts merged in 1991. Today, the international committees working on STEP meet
quarterly, twice a year in the USA, once a year in Europe, and once a year in Asia.
‘This chapter reviews the overall structure of ISO-STEP and its approach to data exchange. It
surveys the various languages—specifically NIAM, EXPRESS and EXPRESS-G—