Our client is a company that helps customers discover product data and interact with Building Product Manufacturers in an innovative way, and completely for free.
They came to QArea with a request to develop an ecosystem of digital services, a cloud-native platform that would provide users with means to conveniently research, select, configure, and download building product data from the world’s leading building product manufacturers.
One of the requested solutions for the client’s ecosystem of digital services was a web library of BIM content. The client needed us to create a robust web building product research tool. The service would feature a huge catalog of BIM components for architects, engineers, and designers to discover, compare, download, and use in Revit, AutoCAD, SketchUp, and other building information modeling software.
Following the client’s request, we formed a development team that analyzed the business requirements for the project. The team prepared the documentation necessary for project launch, including a software requirements specification, project management plan, and work breakdown structure. As a software development methodology for the project, we chose Agile.
The tech stack we chose for the development of the solution included Angular for the frontend and .NET, MySQL, and C# for the backend. We used Microsoft Azure as the cloud computing service for the platform and Azure Blob Storage for efficient data management.
In the course of development, the solution has grown from a simple combination of .NET and Angular 2 to a multi-server solution with the latest tech updates and a distributed database, integrated with the existing ecosystem’s user account and analytics systems that feature their own libraries and permission control. In addition, we developed a clever workaround that allows Angular to be more friendly to search engines.
The workaround is that the main content related to pages that can be indexed by the search engine is not provided by Angular itself but by the server when visiting individual URLs. That is, for a user visiting a specific page, the content is generated by Angular. And if we are dealing with a search bot that goes to specific URLs from the sitemap, the bot receives pre-formed content—the necessary amount of meta-information generated so that everything could be indexed by the search engine. This gives the bot a clear picture of what URL provides what information to users.
In four years we developed from scratch a building product research tool with a huge catalog of downloadable BIM components from furniture and flooring to HVAC, security, and fire protection. Today there are already more than a million users on the platform and it is being successfully promoted across the US, Europe, and the UK.
The solution features a convenient catalog with advanced search functionality and all sorts of filters from project data type to performance benchmarks & standards. It enables massive downloads of large files, including specifications and blueprints. Users can save chosen components in their profiles and contact the manufacturers. It also features a very rich admin panel for manufacturers of BIM components where they can manage product lines, monitor and manage SEO data, and so on.
The project is a part of a robust ecosystem of services with shared authorization and analytical systems as well as common databases for knowledge, certificates, and master specs that all the services pull information from.
Our team provides ongoing support and maintenance for the library project. We constantly update the technologies involved to the latest versions to make sure that the service shows stable operation and can easily process such large amounts of data.