Case study
OOPIS: a standard for identifying and positioning building elements
One durable identifier for every door, extinguisher and hydrant. A label with a QR code and NFC says what it is and exactly where it is.
- Type
- Kol.ski's own product
- For whom
- Housing communities, property managers, developers, service companies
- Scope
- Specification, data formats, reference implementation, mapping methodology
- Status
- Version 1.0 ready, the pilot in the first building is ahead
Challenge
A building has hundreds of technical elements, and each carries a different number in a different document: at the developer, the property manager, the service company, in the inspection report and in a resident's ticket.
The extinguisher by the lift on the third floor.
That is enough for a human and not enough for a system. A postal address does not exist while the building is under construction, and replacing a device loses the history of the place where it hung.
Solution
Every element gets a fixed-length identifier of 36 characters and a label with a QR code and an optional NFC tag. The code can be read without a database, and the developer, the manager and the service technician talk about the same element with the same code.
Where the building stands
A place anchor based on Plus Code, not on an address. It works on a construction site too.
Which part and level
The code points to the part of the building and the storey where the element is.
What the element is
The type comes from an open, versioned registry: a door, a hydrant, an electrical cabinet, a valve, a parking space.
Where the label hangs
The label's position in the building's local coordinate system, measured during mapping, not guessed.
Result
- 36characters in the identifier, in the layout known from UUIDs
- 5parts of the standard in version 1.0
- 26numbered design decisions with a rationale
- 0central registries needed to operate
What is ready
- A normative specification with a formal grammar, a checksum and a validation procedure.
- A reference implementation: a library, a CLI and an HTTP JSON API on one logic layer.
- A generator of QR codes and print-ready labels.
- A mapping methodology: LiDAR scanning with a phone, aligning the scan to the model, label placement rules.
- A sample building package with a corridor fragment.
Ahead
- A pilot in the first building: an inventory of one staircase, printing and mounting labels.
- The decision on publishing the standard and its licence.
- A map and 3D model viewer for property managers, integrations with ticketing and inspection systems.
OOPIS does not replace BIM or CMMS systems: it provides the identifier and the position those systems can refer to.
What it consists of
The specification is normative, and the data formats and the implementation must conform to it. A divergence is a defect, not an interpretation.
Specification
Identifier grammar, checksum, coordinate system, type registry, point lifecycle, test vectors
- Markdown
- ABNF
- JSON
Data formats
Building manifest, element records, QR and NFC payloads, building package, resolver API
- JSON Schema
- SQL
- OpenAPI
- NDEF
Reference implementation
A library, a CLI and an HTTP JSON API, a label generator, tests driven by the specification's vectors
- Python
- segno
- SVG
Methodology and deployment plans
Scanning procedure, scan-to-model alignment, a pipeline from 2D plans to a 3D model, PoC and MVP plans
- iPhone with LiDAR
- ICP
- glTF 2.0
Lessons
- An identifier should be readable without a database. A code a human reads off a label and a system parses on its own is worth more than a random UUID behind a nice interface.
- A Plus Code anchor instead of an address. A building under construction has no address, and an address can change by an administrative decision.
- Test vectors are the contract between the specification and the code. An error in the checksum description surfaced only during implementation.
- A standard starts with a specific building. OOPIS grew out of the needs of one housing community, not out of a committee.
A building to label?
Inventories, scanning, labels and integrations for housing communities, property managers and companies. Write to us if you want to be the first building in the pilot.
The first conversation is free: 30 minutes online, no preparation and no commitment.