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For the purposes of IFC the English term "alignment" defines three essentially separate but closely interconnected concepts.
Reference system for linear positioning
An alignment is used to define a reference system to position elements mainly for linear construction works, such as roads, rails, bridges, and others. The relative positioning along the alignment is defined by the linear referencing methodology.
NOTE See ISO 19148 Geographic information – Linear referencing for general definitions about linear referencing.
Kinematic perspective
In the kinematic perspective focus is on the safe and optimized movement of a vehicle under the constraints induced by changes in the direction of the horizontal and the vertical layout.
Geometric perspective
In the geometric perspective the focus is on the proper placement of horizontal and vertical segments to connect certain points along a proposed path. A huge body of knowledge has been developed over a long period of time, in many aspects predating the availability of modern computers and their software.
State of the art in contemporary engineering
Contemporary engineering usually establishes first a horizontal layout in a properly projected plane.
In a second step the vertical profile (i.e. sequence of segments with constant gradients together with smoothing segments showing a variation in gradient) is added.
In the rail domain in most cases a cant layout is added to the horizontal layout to compensate a part of the unwanted lateral acceleration.
In a final step the proposed layout is checked against a defined set of rules, formulas and thresholds to guarantee the conformance against the regulation.
The sequence of steps might change from case to case and might be repeated one or more times to achieve the economic objectives and fulfill regulatory safety requirements.
Contemporary alignment design almost always implements a 2.5 dimension approach.
The resulting and documented geometry might be very precise or just good enough to meet safety thresholds. This depends on factors like priorities of the management, date of the design - existing alignments might have been designed more then 50 years ago - or software tools used. Working with legacy data in a high precision BIM model requires a good understanding of these factors.
Distinction between business modeling and IFC core geometry
According to IFC modeling principles alignment entities are organised in two large parts. The two parts work together, but they can also be used independently from each other
Business aspects of alignment: Here the focus is a on a schema structure as close to business terminology as possible. It is possible to have a very detailed segment structure with many domain specific properties attached. Examples for domain specific properties are design speed or cant deficiency.
Representation with IFC geometry resources: Here the focus is on using as much of the established IFC geometry entities as possible. A mapping between Business aspects and IFC geometry is proposed.
IFC modelling
In IFC a single alignment must have:
A single alignment may have:
Alignments may be aggregated into referents (IfcReferent) or derivative alignments. Derivative alignments may be used to indicate dependent alignments, such as an alignment for a bridge that is relative to a parent alignment for a road, where the child IfcAlignment may have its shape representation set to IfcOffsetCurveByDistances that starts and ends at a span within the extent of the shape representation of the parent IfcAlignment.
Alignments may be assigned to groups using IfcRelAssignsToGroup, where IfcGroup or subtypes may capture information common to multiple alignments.
Supported shape representations of IfcAlignment are:
The RepresentationIdentifier shall always be set to 'Axis' and the RepresentationType shall be set to either 'Curve2D' or 'Curve3D' depending on if the referenced curve is 2- or 3-dimensional
NOTE Derivative specifications (Model View Definitions) may expand the above set to include additional supported curve types.
| # | Attribute | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| IfcRoot | |||
| 1 | GlobalId | IfcGloballyUniqueId | Assignment of a globally unique identifier within the entire software world. |
| 2 | OwnerHistory | OPTIONAL IfcOwnerHistory | Assignment of the information about the current ownership of that object, including owning actor, application, local identification and information captured about the recent changes of the object, > NOTE only the last modification in stored - either as addition, deletion or modification. > IFC4 CHANGE The attribute has been changed to be OPTIONAL. |
| 3 | Name | OPTIONAL IfcLabel | Optional name for use by the participating software systems or users. For some subtypes of IfcRoot the insertion of the Name attribute may be required. This would be enforced by a where rule. |
| 4 | Description | OPTIONAL IfcText | Optional description, provided for exchanging informative comments. |
| IfcObjectDefinition | |||
| HasAssignments | SET [0:?] OF IfcRelAssigns FOR RelatedObjects | Reference to the relationship objects, that assign (by an association relationship) other subtypes of IfcObject to this object instance. Examples are the association to products, processes, controls, resources or groups. | |
| Nests | SET [0:1] OF IfcRelNests FOR RelatedObjects | References to the decomposition relationship being a nesting. It determines that this object definition is a part within an ordered whole/part decomposition relationship. An object occurrence or type can only be part of a single decomposition (to allow hierarchical strutures only). > IFC4 CHANGE The inverse attribute datatype has been added and separated from Decomposes defined at IfcObjectDefinition. | |
| IsNestedBy | SET [0:?] OF IfcRelNests FOR RelatingObject | References to the decomposition relationship being a nesting. It determines that this object definition is the whole within an ordered whole/part decomposition relationship. An object or object type can be nested by several other objects (occurrences or types). > IFC4 CHANGE The inverse attribute datatype has been added and separated from IsDecomposedBy defined at IfcObjectDefinition. | |
| HasContext | SET [0:1] OF IfcRelDeclares FOR RelatedDefinitions | References to the context providing context information such as project unit or representation context. It should only be asserted for the uppermost non-spatial object. > IFC4 CHANGE The inverse attribute datatype has been added. | |
| IsDecomposedBy | SET [0:?] OF IfcRelAggregates FOR RelatingObject | References to the decomposition relationship being an aggregation. It determines that this object definition is whole within an unordered whole/part decomposition relationship. An object definitions can be aggregated by several other objects (occurrences or parts). > IFC4 CHANGE The inverse attribute datatype has been changed from the supertype IfcRelDecomposes to subtype IfcRelAggregates. | |
| Decomposes | SET [0:1] OF IfcRelAggregates FOR RelatedObjects | References to the decomposition relationship being an aggregation. It determines that this object definition is a part within an unordered whole/part decomposition relationship. An object definitions can only be part of a single decomposition (to allow hierarchical strutures only). > IFC4 CHANGE The inverse attribute datatype has been changed from the supertype IfcRelDecomposes to subtype IfcRelAggregates. | |
| HasAssociations | SET [0:?] OF IfcRelAssociates FOR RelatedObjects | Reference to the relationship objects, that associates external references or other resource definitions to the object.. Examples are the association to library, documentation or classification. | |
| IfcObject | |||
| 5 | ObjectType | OPTIONAL IfcLabel | The type denotes a particular type that indicates the object further. The use has to be established at the level of instantiable subtypes. In particular it holds the user defined type, if the enumeration of the attribute PredefinedType is set to USERDEFINED. |
| IsDeclaredBy | SET [0:1] OF IfcRelDefinesByObject FOR RelatedObjects | Link to the relationship object pointing to the declaring object that provides the object definitions for this object occurrence. The declaring object has to be part of an object type decomposition. The associated IfcObject, or its subtypes, contains the specific information (as part of a type, or style, definition), that is common to all reflected instances of the declaring IfcObject, or its subtypes. > IFC4 CHANGE New inverse relationship, change made with upward compatibility for file based exchange. | |
| Declares | SET [0:?] OF IfcRelDefinesByObject FOR RelatingObject | Link to the relationship object pointing to the reflected object(s) that receives the object definitions. The reflected object has to be part of an object occurrence decomposition. The associated IfcObject, or its subtypes, provides the specific information (as part of a type, or style, definition), that is common to all reflected instances of the declaring IfcObject, or its subtypes. > IFC4 CHANGE New inverse relationship, change made with upward compatibility for file based exchange. | |
| IsTypedBy | SET [0:1] OF IfcRelDefinesByType FOR RelatedObjects | Set of relationships to the object type that provides the type definitions for this object occurrence. The then associated IfcTypeObject, or its subtypes, contains the specific information (or type, or style), that is common to all instances of IfcObject, or its subtypes, referring to the same type. > IFC4 CHANGE New inverse relationship, the link to IfcRelDefinesByType had previously be included in the inverse relationship IfcRelDefines. Change made with upward compatibility for file based exchange. | |
| IsDefinedBy | SET [0:?] OF IfcRelDefinesByProperties FOR RelatedObjects | Set of relationships to property set definitions attached to this object. Those statically or dynamically defined properties contain alphanumeric information content that further defines the object. > IFC4 CHANGE The data type has been changed from IfcRelDefines to IfcRelDefinesByProperties with upward compatibility for file based exchange. | |
| IfcProduct | |||
| 6 | ObjectPlacement | OPTIONAL IfcObjectPlacement | Placement of the product in space, the placement can either be absolute (relative to the world coordinate system), relative (relative to the object placement of another product), or constraint (e.g. relative to grid axes). It is determined by the various subtypes of IfcObjectPlacement, which includes the axis placement information to determine the transformation for the object coordinate system. |
| 7 | Representation | IfcProductDefinitionShape | Reference to the representations of the product, being either a representation (IfcProductRepresentation) or as a special case a shape representations (IfcProductDefinitionShape). The product definition shape provides for multiple geometric representations of the shape property of the object within the same object coordinate system, defined by the object placement. |
| ReferencedBy | SET [0:?] OF IfcRelAssignsToProduct FOR RelatingProduct | Reference to the IfcRelAssignsToProduct relationship, by which other products, processes, controls, resources or actors (as subtypes of IfcObjectDefinition) can be related to this product. | |
| PositionedRelativeTo | SET [0:1] OF IfcRelPositions FOR RelatedProducts | ||
| ReferencedInStructures | SET [0:?] OF IfcRelReferencedInSpatialStructure FOR RelatedElements | ||
| IfcPositioningElement | |||
| ContainedInStructure | SET [0:1] OF IfcRelContainedInSpatialStructure FOR RelatedElements | Relationship to a spatial structure element, to which the positioning element is primarily associated. > IFC2x CHANGE The inverse relationship has been added to IfcGrid with upward compatibility > IFC4 CHANGE The inverse relationship has been promoted from IfcGrid to this new supertype with upward compatibility | |
| Positions | SET [0:?] OF IfcRelPositions FOR RelatingPositioningElement | ||
| IfcLinearPositioningElement | |||
| IfcAlignment | |||
| 8 | PredefinedType | OPTIONAL IfcAlignmentTypeEnum | |
Any object occurrence or object type can have a reference to a specific classification reference, i.e. to a particular facet within a classification system.
IfcRoot assigns the globally unique ID. In addition it may provide for a name and a description about the concept.
Any object occurrence can be typed by being assigned to a common object type utilizing this concept. A particular rule, restricting the applicable subtypes of IfcTypeObject that can be assigned, is introduced by overriding this concept at the level of subtypes of IfcObject.
An attribute Name and optionally Description can be used for all subypes of IfcObject. For those subtypes, that have an object type definition, such as ifcBeam - IfcBeamType, the common Name and optionally Description is associated with the object type.
The geometric representation of any IfcProduct is provided by the IfcProductDefinitionShape allowing multiple geometric representations. It uses the Product Placement concept utilizing IfcLocalPlacement to establish an object coordinate system, within all geometric representations are founded.
NOTE A detailed specification of how to apply the local placement and which shape representaions are applicable is provided at the level of subtypes of IfcProduct and is further determined by the model view definition and implementer agreements.
The Product Placement establishes the object coordinate system and is required, if a geometric shape representation is provided for this product.
Any object occurrence can hold property sets, each being a set of individual properties having name, description, value(s) and unit(s). A reference to applicable property sets, being part of this specification, is introduced at the level of sub types of IfcObject.
Any object occurrence can hold property sets, either directly at the object occurrence as element specific property sets, or at the object type, as type property sets. In this case, the properties that are provided to the object occurrence are the combinations of element specific and type properties. In case, that the same property (within the same property set, is defined both, in occurrence and type properties, the property value of the occurrence property overrides the property value of the type property.
Ownership, history, and merge state is captured using IfcOwnerHistory.
ENTITY IfcAlignment SUBTYPE OF (IfcLinearPositioningElement); PredefinedType : OPTIONAL IfcAlignmentTypeEnum; END_ENTITY;