3D Building Components Formalization For Reconciling Non- Compliant Specifications Ivan Mutis, Raja R.A. Issa, Ian Flood Rinker School of Building Construction University of Florida Gainesville, FL 32611 USA {imutis,raymond-issa,flood}@ufl.edu Randy Chow Computer and Information Science and Engineering University of Florida Gainesville, FL 32611 USA chow@cise.ufl.edu Abstract Construction project participants such as designers and contractors, rely on drawings and specifications as sources of information to specify building components and to interpret how to build them. The specifications are text-based descriptions of product details and product conditions. The details are semantically poor and do not fully explain the intent behind the information, and the conditions are ambiguous and do not represent how the building evolves and progresses through the various construction stages. These information gaps force a construction participant to interpret the specifications based only on their own experiences and perspectives and to make incongruous decisions in the advancement of the activity which tend to be error prone and inefficient. Accordingly, there is a need in the industry to develop a systematic approach that helps construction participants in identifying the potential inconsistencies in their interpretations of the specification documents. This research will analyze the specifications for a particular construction product and the contextual adjacent products. The analysis will be associated with observations of the 3D product representation. This research will use conceptual formalization procedures by developing ontology in order to obtain explicit information and less diverged interpretations. The formalization of the ontology creates the ability to extend it to other similar classes of products from different projects resulting in reusability. As a result of the ontology development, this research aims to define a framework that will allow researchers to produce computer applications to aid in the interpretation of the specifications associated with the 3D representation of building products. Keywords 3D Representation, Construction Specifications, Ontology Categories, Construction Product Representations, Boundary of Sufficiency, Boundary of Deficiency. 1. INTRODUCTION Construction project participants are committed to build- ing projects based on the drawings and specifications they have been furnished in the construction documents. The documentation will help them in understanding the scope of the specific activities of the project. Designers rely on this documentation to communicate the design intent and contractors rely on it to interpret the design intent. The construction documents and all additional communication between the parties are relied upon in settling contractual disputes. Misinterpretations of design intent occur due to lack of coordination among actors in fully understanding the Details and Conditions (D&C) of a construction product. Consequently, the inconsistencies produce errors in construction products, or delays or dis- ruptions in construction processes. The effect of these misinterpretations on a construction project is the reduc- tion of productivity and efficiency, and the escalation of construction project costs. The specifications are text-based data that intend to de- scribe construction product D&C. Construction product