CRC Construction Innovation Building our Future, Final Report, Collaboration Platform, Research Project No: 2007-003-EP

This Project reviews and analyses the current capability of model servers leading to open software technical requirements with special emphasis on the so-called "non-functional" specification for BIM Model Server which will cater for digital models accessible through a web interface. We borrow this terminology from software engineering where, roughly speaking, functional requirements specify the functionality of the system while non functional requirements specify the qualities of the system. It is not always easy to distinguish between functional and non-functional requirements and when sufficient details are provided the latter converts into the former (Kotonya and Sommerville, 1998). More specifically, non-functional requirements only describe what qualities the system should have while functional requirements specify how, or through which functionality, the qualities are to be achieved. For example, a non-functional requirement that the data be protected against unauthorised disclosure can be converted to a functional requirement to provide encryption and access control. For both functional and non-functional requirements, detailed specification and implementation solutions are not discussed.