Organizing Definition Elements

Instances of DefinitionElement hold configuration-related information that is meant to be referenced and shared. They are expected to be contained in DefinitionModels as explained in Model Fundamentals.

Examples of DefinitionElements include instances of:

• Category and Subcategory
• TypeDefinitionElement
• RenderMaterial
• PhysicalMaterial
• LineStyle
• etc.

Definition Rank

Some DefinitionElement instances are introduced in an iModel for standardization. This is done at various ranks of the BIS ecosystem. The ranks to keep in mind in this discussion are:

• Core: standardized definitions that are semantically at the "Core" and "Common" layers of the BIS schema hierarchy. There are actually no examples of these to-date.
• Discipline: standardized definitions at the "Discipline-Physical" or "Discipline-Other" layers of the BIS schema hierarchy.
• Application: application-specific definitions. Note that applications and connectors should endeavor to define and use standardized domains, so this does not mean "any definition written by a connector".
• User: most definitions, which are user-specific or project-specific.

Definition scope

The Subject hierarchy in the repository essentially defines various levels of scope. The Root Subject is a "global" scope and all other Subjects define narrower scopes.

Each Subject can have 0 or 1 child DefinitionPartition element which is sub-modeled by a DefinitionModel.

DictionaryModel (for global-scoped definitions)

The DefinitionPartion of the Root Subject always has a CodeValue of "BisCore.DictionaryModel". Its sub-model is called the "DictionaryModel". The DictionaryModel is a singleton container of DefinitionElement instances. It directly holds User-rank definitions and holds Core, Discipline, and Application-standardized definitions organized under DefinitionContainers.

• For Discipline-rank definitions, there should be a DefinitionContainer with a CodeValue of "{domain alias}:DomainDefinitions" (where {domain alias} is the schema alias for the domain that is doing the standardization - which might be different than the schema that defines the particular DefinitionElement subclass) - and a CodeScope that is the ElementId of the DefinitionModel that contains it. Domain-standardized definitions should go in the sub-model of that DefinitionContainer.
• For standardized Application-rank definitions, there should be a DefinitionContainer with a CodeValue of "{application name}:ApplicationDefinitions" and a CodeScope that is the Id of the DefinitionModel that contains it. Application-standardized definitions should go in the sub-model of that `DefinitionContainer.
• For Core-rank definitions, there should be a DefinitionContainer with a CodeValue of "bis:CoreDefinitions" and a CodeScope that is the Id of the DefinitionModel that contains it. BIS-standardized definitions should go in the sub-model of that DefinitionContainer.

All global-scoped Core-rank, Discipline-rank and Application-rank definitions should be organized under the DictionaryModel.

As an example of domain-ranked definitions, the "Terrain" domain (with prefix "trrn") defines a set of standard Category elements and the "Earthworks" domain (with prefix "ew") defines some standard PhysicalType elements to be used with Connectors and Applications that support that domain. See diagram below.

Subject-specific definitions

Only User-rank definitions should be placed in Subject-specific DictionaryModels, which are typically created by iModel Connectors. In that case, the DefinitionPartion for Subject-specific definitions should have a CodeValue of "Definitions" and CodeScope of its parent Subject.

Example organization of definitions

The following instance-diagram depicts the organization of definition elements of various ranks and scopes. See Instance-diagram Conventions for details about the conventions used.

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Last Updated: 21 November, 2022