ETIM UK, a partnership between the Electrical Distributors’ Association (EDA) and the Builders Merchants Federation, has launched a smart object creator for manufacturers that have not yet digitised their product libraries.
ETIM is the international standard structure for product technical and performance data in the electrotechnical, HVAC and plumbing and building products sectors.
The ETIM Modelling Class (MC), as the smart object creator is called, was launched at last week’s Digital Construction Week. ETIM MC is already established in a number of European markets.
Margaret Fitzsimons, board director of ETIM UK and chief executive of the EDA, said: “ETIM MC is an extension to the ETIM product data standard, which we introduced to the UK in 2017 and which is now adopted widely. We now [have] another potential string to the ETIM bow, the Modelling Class add-on.
“The creation and sharing of BIM objects is a complex topic with well-established players, but ETIM MC offers tremendous potential for the many manufacturers that have not already created BIM objects for their products. This is very much the start of the conversation for the UK.”
How it works
Richard Appleton, ETIM UK board director and head of digitalisation at the EDA, explained how ETIM MC works. “It is a valuable add-on to the widely used core ETIM standard that provides a structure for geometric product data that can render a 3D BIM object. ETIM MC is particularly suitable for repeatable BIM objects that come in many sizes and dimensions, but which are broadly similar in shape, such as cable trays and pumps.
“When combined with a hosted library of generic objects, ETIM MC enables the creation of manufacturer-specific 3D objects with sufficient detail for most practical mechanical, electrical and plumbing design and installation purposes.”
ETIM MC is system-agnostic and does not rely on third-party hosting. It allows manufacturers to retain IP and to control ensuing product data changes, making data used by others both reliable and traceable back to the manufacturer, ETIM UK claimed. ETIM MC also “integrates very well into common BIM standards such as IFC, the buildingSMART Data Dictionary and ISO 16757 (Data structures for electronic product catalogues for building services)”.
ETIM started in the Netherlands in the 1990s.
Don’t miss out on BIM and digital construction news: sign up to receive the BIMplus newsletter.
