Form U149-0794 BYRONIN.TXT
Ada Information Clearinghouse, 1-800/AdaIC-11, 703/685-1477
Ada provides a high quality support for large programs developed by several developers.
Byron Informatik is dedicated to software development and consulting for engineering companies in the HVAC (Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning) sector and for companies doing facility management. Its activities are now extending over Germany and Switzerland and will soon reach a European scale.
Byron Informatik is using the Alsys Ada development environment to develop a super-CAD system, namely an Integrated Engineering System. This system is far more than a regular CAD-system because all information about the objects are stored in a database. The CAD-like applications plugged into the database manipulate directly the objects in the database. There is no difference between applications offering the information CAD-like and textual. On the other hand normal CAD-Systems are storing the drawings in a separate internal file format. Even with a coupling to a database they tend to dominate the whole system.
The Integrated Engineering System helps the design of premises to optimize heating, ventilation, and air conditioning effectiveness. The six-people team originally developed a kernel for the HVAC engineer. It combines a tight coupling between the integrated tools through an underlying object oriented database and a uniform user interface. The system allows an easy integration of new tools. The kernel also fits well for Facility Management tasks, namely Building and Cable Management.
The project is now six years old and the software includes CAD-like features for the construction of schemes and 3-D plant and building models. Additionally, it enables you to make the relevant calculations on these models for heat loss of a building as well as dimensioning of pipes and radiators. In facility management applications, the dense information available in a fully developed building model is presented and used to organize administrative tasks (for instance, services and moves).
The application has been developed with the Alsys Ada compiler, AdaWorld for HP9000/700 following the Object-Oriented Design method (from Booch). It took about 300 man months for the six engineers to develop about 900,000 lines of code. The application has been developed with the help of several tools and third-parties: Object Store (Object Design) as Database, PHIGS (Figaro from Liant) and Xll (Motif for the user-interface). A TCP/IP communication network has been used for Object Store and X-Windows information exchange.
Ada was chosen because it perfectly meets the requirements of this application. "First, Ada is a standard which enables easy port on every platform. Second, it provides a high quality support for large programs developed by several developers. Third and finally, its safety concept like strong typing and packages is a key point since it allows package modification with affecting other program modules", says Mr. Duppenthaler, Project Manager. In addition, Byron Informatik developers took advantage of the reusability of code brought by the Ada generic features. Ada's Future with Byron Informatik
With regards to the future, the application is going to be ported to other Unix workstations and PCs using Solaris. At the same time, the software will be loaded with enhanced capabilities. Convinced of the benefits of Alsys and Ada, Byron Informatik also plans to start a new application in Ada (a facility management tool) and is looking forward to using Ada 9X functionality.
Thanks to Mr. Duppenthaler and Mr. Allenspach from Byron Informatik for presenting his experience with Alsys Ada.
For further information, please contact:
Ann Trib Alsys GMBH & Co.KG Kleinoberfeld 7 D-75135 Karlsruhe Germany Tel: + 49 721 985 530 Fax: + 49 49 721 985 5398
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Produced in cooperation with Ada Information Clearinghouse, Ada Software Alliance, and ACM SIGAda. Hard copy available from the Ada Information Clearinghouse, at the address below.
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Copyright 1994. IIT Research Institute. All rights assigned to the U.S. Government (Ada Joint Program Office). Permission to reprint this flyer, in whole or in part, is granted provided the AdaIC is acknowledged as the source. If this flyer is reprinted as a part of a published document, please send the AdaIC a courtesy copy of the publication.
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