The MIT Libraries, in conjunction with the MIT School of Architecture and Planning, have commenced work on a newly funded research project called FACADE: Future-proofing Architectural Computer-Aided DEsign. The FACADE project will research methods and best practices to capture, describe, manage, preserve, and make available digital CAD models that are created by architects during building projects. The research data includes CAD models produced for the MIT Stata Center that were designed by its architect, Frank O. Gehry. The project will capture these models for archiving in DSpace, MIT's digital archive system, and will further develop DSpace's digital preservation capabilities to support the storage and use of this type of digital material for future use by architects, architectural historians, and design and architecture instructors.
Libraries, museums and archives around the world are increasingly faced with acquiring and preserving the artifacts of Computer-Aided Design (CAD) development, and while these cultural memory institutions have gained a degree of control over many important digital formats over the past decade -- text, image, audio and video material -- CAD software output remains in the category of proprietary and rapidly changing data formats that are still difficult, if not impossible, to preserve over archival timeframes.
The research problems on the FACADE project are
- What techniques can and should be applied to preserve the native CAD architectural models over archival timeframes? Given that CAD files require particular versions of specific software programs to interpret them, is it necessary and sufficient to archive the software as well, or is an "emulation" framework needed for the digital archive platforms that host the material?
- What additional process information is needed to capture the entire building life cycle, and how can that information best be stored in digital archives? Is a new standard necessary for encoding that information, or is a linked document sufficient?
- What other annotations need to be supported to capture the architect's intentions and instructions to the contractors and subcontractors who do the construction (i.e. the Building Information Model) and where and how should that information be kept?
- How can we archive this type of data into institutional digital repository systems like DSpace, which are designed to cover the entire range of digital data formats that libraries, archives and museums need to manage and preserve?
The FACADE project has five major objectives
- Analysis, identification and description of native digital formats produced by top CAD software used by architects, primarily CATIA and AutoCAD formats. Registration of these formats into the Global Digital Formats Registry for general access.
- Analysis, design and implementation of native CAD file ingestion, management, preservation and dissemination practices, and development of necessary modules for the DSpace digital archive system. These may include archiving of relevant CAD software packages for future processing, or development of emulation tools and frameworks for rendering these files in the DSpace platform at a minimum.
- Analysis and recommendation related to process documentation (relationships between various CAD files and versions, and between CAD files and other project communication and documentation).
- Analysis and recommendations related to annotation of CAD files for important related information, such as non-graphical files related to materials used.
- Documentation, training, outreach and dissemination of results to the digital library, digital preservation, and DSpace user communities
Project Team: MacKenzie Smith, Ann Whiteside, Larry Stone, Simon Kim, William Reilly
MIT Libraries' Digital Library Research Group (DLRG)
Project Advisory Board: Chair, William Mitchell. Stephen Abrams, Alonzo Addison, Howard Burns, Kristine Fallon, Bill Regli, Dennis Shelden
Last modified: November 6, 2007