Consistency of a Shared Versioned Model for Distributed Cooperation

Abstract:   In the A/E/C planning process, expert teams of different disciplines create solutions that are interdependent to a high degree. As a rule the ultimate solution needs many iteration steps. Available CAD-systems support synchronous and distributed work on a document base. Therefore, cooperation between the engineers can be obtained only by the exchange of documents. It is generally known that an overall consistency of the planning material is not adequately addressed by this approach. In this article a solution approach focused upon consistency of the shared planning material in a distributed CAD environment is presented. Because of the nature of the planning process, version management is applied on an object basis. Project data are stored as object versions and relationships. The operations for the distributed cooperation are identified and their impact on the project data is described formally, using logical expressions and set theory. A formulation based upon an algebra of sets is presented.