Conversion standard: Conversion Calculator

What Is a Good Conversion Rate? It’s Higher Than You Think!

Conversion is a key element in your paid search strategy; after all, if you’re not actually turning lookers into buyers at a high rate, what are you advertising for? Conversion rate optimization enables you to maximize every cent of your PPC spend by finding that sweet spot that convinces the maximum percentage of your prospects to take action.

But what is a good conversion rate? If you’re already achieving 3%, 5% or even 10% conversion rates, is that as high as you’re going to go? But what is a good conversion rate? Across industries, the average landing page conversion rate was 2.35%, yet the top 25% are converting at 5.31% or higher. Ideally, you want to break into the top 10% — these are the landing pages with conversion rates of 11.45% or higher.

We recently analyzed thousands of Google Ads (formerly known as AdWords) accounts with a combined $3 billion in annual spend and discovered that some advertisers are converting at rates two or three times the average. Do you want to be average, or do you want your account to perform exponentially better than others in your industry?

Through our analysis of this massive amount of data on landing pages and conversion rates, we were able to identify some common traits of the top converting landing pages. What do they have that you don’t? Believe it or not, there isn’t much standing between you and conversion rates double or triple what you’re seeing today. But the way you’re going to get there is totally counter to typical conversion rate optimization wisdom.

• Why Conventional Wisdom Around Conversion Rate Optimization is Silly
• What Is a Good Conversion Rate?
• How You Can Replicate the Success of Top Landing Pages

Are you ready to find out why everything you thought you know about CRO is wrong?

Let’s get started, but first: Is your conversion rate higher or lower than average in your industry?

Find out with our conversion rate benchmarks 

Conversion Rate Optimization: The Conventional Wisdom

Learning that the experts you’ve been listening to all along are wrong is a bit like learning for the first time as a kid that mascots aren’t real. Underneath that fluffy suit there was just a sweaty unshaven guy. Everything you’ve learned about conversion rate optimization is a bit like that: shiny and pretty on the surface, but seriously lacking in substance.

How is everyone getting it so wrong? Primarily, if you’re singing the same song as everyone else, you can really never be anything more than average. When all of the gurus are all preaching the same optimizations, and all of your competitors are listening to them, how are you supposed to stand out?

The Classic Conversion Rate Optimization Test is Silly

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Great Conversion Rate Optimization Fairy Tale. Once upon a time, a self-professed marketing guru told you it’s really important that you optimize your site. They shared one example where the author changed the button color, or the font spacing, or the image. Lo and behold, the advertiser’s conversion rate jumped by 2-7%.

Amazing, right?! Um, no, not really. These are really basic, run-of-the-mill A/B testing best practices. Yes, you should be doing these optimizations on an ongoing basis, and you’re probably going to see small, single-digit increases in your conversion rate – but it’s not likely to shoot you into the 10% or greater conversion bucket.

Let me show you what happens with those gains generated by these small tweaks on your page. Here’s an example of a landing page split test; the gray line on the bottom is the first page version we were running. The blue line is the second version we ran against it. In the beginning, the new page far outperformed the old. Awesome, right?

Except as you can see, the gains were not long lasting. In fact, the “better” page would eventually plateau. We began running 20 to 30 tests at a time and saw this pattern across our tests. We call this a premature testing dilemma. You see an early lead but shortly down the line, the early lead disappears.

This isn’t true all of the time, of course. However, we found that in the majority of cases, small changes like line spacing, font colors, etc. = small gains. If you want big, serious, long-lasting conversion gains, you need to move past these spikes that last only a couple of days or weeks.

Why does this happen? Often, it’s because the total volume of conversions you’re measuring against are low to start with. If you’re looking at 50, 100 or even 200 conversions across your entire test, small changes can seem more impactful than they really are. A couple of conversions might mean a 4% conversion increase if there are only 50 conversions total, because your sample size really isn’t big enough to start with.

Not happy with your conversion rate? Get our (free!) guide to hacking Google Ads 

It’s Time to Stop Moving the Chairs Around

When it comes to landing page optimization, you can stay really busy doing small things that have little impact. It’s like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. We need to move past this mentality to the big tactics and optimizations that will dramatically change your performance and fortune.

First, we need to know:

What is a Good Conversion Rate?

Hint: it’s a lot higher than you may think.

Conventional wisdom says that a good conversion rate is somewhere around 2% to 5%. If you’re sitting at 2%, an improvement to 4% seems like a massive jump. You doubled your conversion rate! Well, congratulations, but you’re still stuck in the average performance bucket.

In this analysis, we started with all accounts we can analyze and went back a period of 3 months. We removed those that didn’t have conversion tracking set up properly, those with low conversion volumes (<10 conversions/month), and low volume accounts (<100 clicks/month), leaving hundreds of accounts for our analysis. We then plotted where the accounts fit in terms of conversion rate.

So what is a good conversion rate? About 1/4 of all accounts have less than 1% conversion rates. The median was 2.35%, but the top 25% of accounts have twice that – 5.31% – or greater. Check out the far right red bar – the top 10% of Google Ads advertisers have account conversion rates of 11. 45%.

Remember, this isn’t for individual landing pages – these advertisers are accomplishing 11.45% conversion and higher across their entire account.

Clearly, this isn’t some anomaly; this is perfectly attainable. If you’re currently getting 5% conversion rates, you’re outperforming 75% of advertisers … but you still have a ton of room to grow!

You should be shooting for 10%, 20%, or even higher, putting your conversion rates 3x to 5x higher than the average conversion rate. Aspire to have these landing page conversion rate unicorns in your account.

Conversion Rate by Industry

You may be thinking, “But conversion rates are low in my industry.” That’s entirely possible. We segmented conversion rate data by industry (Legal conversion rate, Ecommerce conversion rate, etc.) to see whether these insights held true for all marketers. Here’s what we found in an analysis of four major industries:

There’s a lot of flux there; e-commerce conversion rates are much lower, especially compared to finance. However, check out the Top 10% Conversion Rates. They’re 3 to 5 times higher than the average for each industry, so we can see that the rule holds across the board, regardless of industry.

The flip side, of course, is that if you’re in a high-performer industry like finance, 5% really isn’t a fantastic conversion rate. If you’re comparing yourself to the average across all industries, you’re really deluding yourself into thinking you’re doing better than you are. In truth, the top 10% are doing almost five times better.

Even if the average conversion rates are lower in your industry, the top advertisers are outperforming you by 3-5x or more.

Converting on Display is another animal entirely; typically, conversion rates will be lower. If you’re advertising on the display network, you can use a tool like our Smart Ads Creator to create designer-quality that will help you generate clicks and conversions at a higher rate.

5 Ways to Increase Your Landing Page Conversion Rate

What do these top 10% of landing page unicorns look like and how are they killing the competition the way they are? We went through 1,000 landing pages and performed a qualitative analysis, in order to find the common traits among the best performing advertiser landing pages in the market.

Here are my top five tips to help you reach landing page unicorn status:

1. Change the Offer

Across all of the high-performing landing pages, we saw massively creative and differentiated offers. Companies often have a default offer, their go-to, which may be the same or very similar to what all of their competitors are doing. Lawyers, for example, will offer a free consultation. Software companies will offer a free trial. They’re unimaginative and not very creative.

How can you get creative with your offer? In our case, we realized that offering prospects a free trial of WordStream software really wasn’t very imaginative or compelling. We had to think outside the box (don’t you love that phrase?) and come up with something different and unique; something more tangible and compelling than just sending them to a software trial to find their way around.

What we came up with was our free Google Ads Grader, which actually gives people an account evaluation report, with recommendations to help them improve their Google Ads strategy. This was a HUGE turning point for us. Prospects loved it and landing page conversion rates went through the roof.

So how do you know if your offer stinks? If your conversion rate is stuck at 2% or lower, you’re not there yet. But the real way we figured out how our offer stunk was by asking our customers. We added one form field on our landing page form to ask people what they wanted our help with – and it wasn’t a free software trial.

Brainstorm, ask your customers, and come up with more unique offers to test. You’ll never know which one is the winner until you try some new offers out.

2. Change the Flow

Sometimes, you’re putting up barriers to conversion without even realizing it.

In the above example, you can see the first landing page version and just how much information people had to provide before they could download the software trial. Clearly, this was too much for many prospects. It was daunting and discouraging – not the kind of user experience you want on your landing page.

Here you can see their new landing page iteration, which turned out to be an exponentially better performer. They’ve changed the flow so that anyone can download and install the file. At the last step, the user is asked to register the software. At this point, they’ve already spent 10 or 15 minutes with the software and are far more likely to invest the time in completing the information form.

This was actually so effective that they were overwhelmed with conversions. They ended up backing off slightly and using the registration to find more qualified leads, by asking for the information one week after the download, once their prospects had time to sit and get to know their software. Changing the flow helped them boost conversions, but also manage lead quality in a far more effective way.

Here’s another great example, where the advertiser realized their landing page offer didn’t necessarily speak to the person who would be performing a search. In their case, a loved one or friend might be seeking help.

This advertiser decided they would let the visitor choose their own flow. This was incredibly effective not only for conversion, but also in segmentation for their remarketing and lead nurturing efforts.

So what’s the takeaway here? Find the flow that works best for your prospects and use it to boost conversion rate and qualify your leads.

3. Use Remarketing as a CRO Tool

On average, 96% of the people who visit a website will leave without ever converting to a lead or sale. Remarketing helps you get in front of these people with targeted, relevant messaging as they take part in other activities around the web, like email, watching YouTube videos, using social networks or searching for information.

Check out my post at Moz for a deep dive into this incredibly effective tactic.

4. Try Out 10 Landing Pages to Find 1 Unicorn

Let’s talk about effort for a minute. What do you need to put into CRO to find your own unicorn landing pages? To understand this, let’s look at the relative abundance of these top performers:

Sometimes you get lucky, but if you want to achieve these top 10% landing pages across your account, you need to replicate the above steps multiple times and perform testing on an ongoing basis.

On average, you should be testing four unique landing pages – with varying offers, flow and messaging – to find that one awesome landing page. If you want to find a unicorn landing page – that top 10% page that sees your conversions reaching 3-5x the average – you need to test at least ten landing pages.

Here, we’ve analyzed an e-commerce account with 1000 unique landing pages. About a third of traffic goes to the top most-trafficked landing page in their account. When we dig deeper, we see that about 80% of traffic goes to just the top 10% of landing pages.

You don’t need to make thousands and thousands of landing pages. You need to find the top performers you already have and focus your efforts there. How can you improve their performance? Cut the fat, stop wasting time on the low performers – in fact, just get rid of them. If you have just one great landing page, it’s smarter to focus your efforts there.

Here’s more proof that burning the midnight oil creating dozens or hundreds of landing page variations isn’t the best use of your time:

Here, we’ve plotted out tens of thousands of accounts by conversion rate vs unique landing pages. We don’t see a strong correlation between increased number of landing pages and increased conversion.

If you’re after the top performers, quantity does not necessarily equal quality.

Before worrying about conversions, you’ll need to get prospects to your landing page in the first place. Try our free keyword tool to find niche-specific keywords to implement in your search ads and landing pages.

5. F%@# Conversion Rates

Wait, what??

Stay with me here. Higher conversion rates, on their face, seem awesome. However, if you’re converting less qualified leads, you’re actually throwing MORE money away, because those leads cost you money.

I want you to focus on landing page optimizations like the above that move you in the direction of higher quality, more qualified lead generation, not just more conversions.

Key Takeaways

So what have you taken away from this? I hope you can get the following to stick and use these tips to guide a more holistic, effective conversion rate optimization strategy – the kind that will boost your conversions, but bring better lead quality, as well.

1. Most landing page optimizations are like moving around the deck chairs on the Titanic. Small changes = small gains.
2. Insanely focused and strategic landing page optimization brings 3-5x the conversions AND improves lead quality.
3. In some industries, even 5% conversion rates aren’t that impressive. If you’re stuck in the 2-5% conversion rate bucket, you have a ton of room to grow.
4. Get creative with your offers and test multiple different offers to find the one that resonates best with your audience. If you want to get really crazy (you know you do), find different offers that can help you qualify leads in the process.
5. Identify the obstacles keeping prospects from converting and get those roadblocks out of the way by changing the flow. Test different variations to find out exactly which path to conversion works best for your audience.
6. Use remarketing to recapture people who showed intent but didn’t convert.
7. Test smarter, not more often. You need to test 10 unique landing page variations to find 1 top performer, but this goes far beyond changing a font color and calling it a landing page variation.
8. Trim the fat in your account and ditch your lowest performers. Focus your energies on the top 10% of landing pages that earn 80% of traffic.
9. Always, always keep your eye on the prize, which is making more sales or generating leads most likely to convert to sales. Don’t let high conversion rates take precedence over lead quality or you’re going to spend more qualifying leads. You need to find the sweet spot where everything works like a well-oiled machine.

Now go forth confidently, young marketer, to slay competitors and wow prospects with your newfound conversion optimization knowledge. Give our free Google Ads Grader a spin to see exactly where you’re at with your current landing page strategy, then start making smarter changes that will rocket you past your competition.

And as always, if you have any questions about our data, strategy or the tips outlined above, fire away in the comments!

Scientific Notation Converter

Basic Calculator

Scientific Notation Converter

enter a number or scientific notation

Operand 1

Answer:

= 3. 456 × 10¹¹
scientific notation

= 3.456e11
scientific e notation

= 345.6 × 10⁹
engineering notation
billion; prefix giga- (G)

= 3.456 × 10¹¹
standard form

11
Order of Magnitude
for scientific and standard forms

= 345600000000
(real number)

= three hundred forty-five billion six hundred million
word form

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Calculator Use

Convert a number to and from scientific notation, e notation, engineering notation, standard form, and real numbers. Enter a number or a decimal number or scientific notation and the calculator converts to scientific notation, e notation, engineering notation, standard form and word form formats. b where
a is a number or decimal number such that the absolute value of
a is greater than or equal to one and less than ten or, 1 ≤ |a| < 10. b is the power of 10 required so that the scientific notation is mathematically equivalent to the original number.

1. Move the decimal point in your number until there is only one non-zero digit to the left of the decimal point. The resulting decimal number is
   a.
2. Count how many places you moved the decimal point. This number is b.
3. If you moved the decimal to the left b is positive.
   
   If you moved the decimal to the right b is negative.
   
   If you did not need to move the decimal b = 0.
4. Write your scientific notation number as
   a x 10^b and read it as «a times 10 to the power of b. -4 = 3.456 x .0001 = 0.0003456

   Additional Resources

   See the
   Scientific Notation Calculator to add, subtract, multiply and divide numbers in scientific notation or E notation.

   To round significant figures use the
   Significant Figures Calculator.

   To see how standard form is similar to scientific notation visit
   Standard Form Calculator.

   If you need a scientific calculator see our resources on
   scientific calculators.

    

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   Conversion rules | BigQuery | Google Cloud

   Conversion includes, but is not limited to, casting, coercion, and
   supertyping.

   • Casting is explicit conversion and uses the
     CAST() function.
   • Coercion is implicit conversion, which BigQuery performs
     automatically under the conditions described below.
   • A supertype is a common type to which two or more expressions can be coerced.

   There are also conversions that have their own function names, such as
   PARSE_DATE(). To learn more about these functions, see
   Conversion functions

   Comparison of casting and coercion

   The following table summarizes all possible cast and coercion possibilities for
   BigQuery data types. The Coerce to column applies to all
   expressions of a given data type, (for example, a
   column), but
   literals and parameters can also be coerced. See
   literal coercion and
   parameter coercion for details.

   From type	Cast to	Coerce to
   INT64	BOOL INT64 NUMERIC BIGNUMERIC FLOAT64 STRING	NUMERIC BIGNUMERIC FLOAT64
   NUMERIC	INT64 NUMERIC BIGNUMERIC FLOAT64 STRING	BIGNUMERIC FLOAT64
   BIGNUMERIC	INT64 NUMERIC BIGNUMERIC FLOAT64 STRING	FLOAT64
   FLOAT64	INT64 NUMERIC BIGNUMERIC FLOAT64 STRING
   BOOL	BOOL INT64 STRING
   STRING	BOOL INT64 NUMERIC BIGNUMERIC FLOAT64 STRING BYTES DATE DATETIME TIME TIMESTAMP
   BYTES	STRING BYTES
   DATE	STRING DATE DATETIME TIMESTAMP	DATETIME
   DATETIME	STRING DATE DATETIME TIME TIMESTAMP
   TIME	STRING TIME
   TIMESTAMP	STRING DATE DATETIME TIME TIMESTAMP
   ARRAY	ARRAY
   STRUCT	STRUCT

   Casting

   Most data types can be cast from one type to another with the CAST function.
   When using CAST, a query can fail if BigQuery is unable to perform
   the cast. If you want to protect your queries from these types of errors, you
   can use SAFE_CAST. To learn more about the rules for CAST, SAFE_CAST and
   other casting functions, see
   Conversion functions.

   Coercion

   BigQuery coerces the result type of an argument expression to another
   type if needed to match function signatures. For example, if function func()
   is defined to take a single argument of type FLOAT64
   and an expression is used as an argument that has a result type of
   INT64, then the result of the expression will be
   coerced to FLOAT64 type before func() is computed.

   Literal coercion

   BigQuery supports the following literal coercions:

   Input data type	Result data type	Notes
   STRING literal	DATE DATETIME TIME TIMESTAMP

   Literal coercion is needed when the actual literal type is different from the
   type expected by the function in question. For
   example, if function func() takes a DATE argument,
   then the expression func("2014-09-27") is valid because the
   string literal "2014-09-27" is coerced to
   DATE.

   Literal conversion is evaluated at analysis time, and gives an error if the
   input literal cannot be converted successfully to the target type.

   Note: String literals do not coerce to numeric types.

   Parameter coercion

   BigQuery supports the following parameter coercions:

   Input data type	Result data type
   STRING parameter	DATE DATETIME TIME TIMESTAMP

   If the parameter value cannot be coerced successfully to the target type, an
   error is provided.

   Supertypes

   A supertype is a common type to which two or more expressions can be coerced.
   Supertypes are used with set operations such as UNION ALL and expressions such
   as CASE that expect multiple arguments with matching types. Each type has one
   or more supertypes, including itself, which defines its set of supertypes.

   Input type	Supertypes
   BOOL	BOOL
   INT64	INT64 FLOAT64 NUMERIC BIGNUMERIC
   FLOAT64	FLOAT64
   NUMERIC	NUMERIC BIGNUMERIC FLOAT64
   DECIMAL	DECIMAL BIGDECIMAL FLOAT64
   BIGNUMERIC	BIGNUMERIC FLOAT64
   BIGDECIMAL	BIGDECIMAL FLOAT64
   STRING	STRING
   DATE	DATE
   TIME	TIME
   DATETIME	DATETIME
   TIMESTAMP	TIMESTAMP
   BYTES	BYTES
   STRUCT	STRUCT with the same field position types.
   ARRAY	ARRAY with the same element types.
   GEOGRAPHY	GEOGRAPHY

   If you want to find the supertype for a set of input types, first determine the
   intersection of the set of supertypes for each input type. If that set is empty
   then the input types have no common supertype. If that set is non-empty, then
   the common supertype is generally the
   most specific type in that set. Generally,
   the most specific type is the type with the most restrictive domain.

   Examples

   Input types	Common supertype	Returns	Notes
   INT64 FLOAT64	FLOAT64	FLOAT64	If you apply supertyping to INT64 and FLOAT64, supertyping succeeds because they they share a supertype, FLOAT64.
   INT64 BOOL	None	Error	If you apply supertyping to INT64 and BOOL, supertyping fails because they do not share a common supertype.

   Exact and inexact types

   Numeric types can be exact or inexact. For supertyping, if all of the
   input types are exact types, then the resulting supertype can only be an
   exact type.

   The following table contains a list of exact and inexact numeric data types.

   Exact types	Inexact types
   INT64 NUMERIC BIGNUMERIC	FLOAT64

   Examples

   Input types	Common supertype	Returns	Notes
   INT64 FLOAT64	FLOAT64	FLOAT64	If supertyping is applied to INT64 and DOUBLE, supertyping succeeds because there are exact and inexact numeric types being supertyped.

   Types specificity

   Each type has a domain of values that it supports. A type with a
   narrow domain is more specific than a type with a wider domain. Exact types
   are more specific than inexact types because inexact types have a wider range
   of domain values that are supported than exact types. For example,
   INT64 is more specific than FLOAT64.

   Supertypes and literals

   Supertype rules for literals are more permissive than for normal expressions,
   and are consistent with implicit coercion rules. The following algorithm is used
   when the input set of types includes types related to literals:

   • If there exists non-literals in the set, find the set of common supertypes
     of the non-literals.
   • If there is at least one possible supertype, find the
     most specific type to
     which the remaining literal types can be implicitly coerced and return that
     supertype. Otherwise, there is no supertype.
   • If the set only contains types related to literals, compute the supertype of
     the literal types.
   • If all input types are related to NULL literals, then the resulting
     supertype is INT64.
   • If no common supertype is found, an error is produced.

   Examples

   Input types	Common supertype	Returns
   INT64 literal UINT64 expression	UINT64	UINT64
   TIMESTAMP expression STRING literal	TIMESTAMP	TIMESTAMP
   NULL literal NULL literal	INT64	INT64
   BOOL literal TIMESTAMP literal	None	Error

   Standards and Methods

   • OpenBIM Standards
   • UK BIM standards
   • BIM standards USA
   • IFC Standard

   OpenBIM standards

   5 basic OpenBIM standards

   Name	Standard	Purpose
   IDM (Information Delivery Manual)	ISO 29481-1:2016 ISO 29481-2:2012	Description of business processes
   IFC (Industry Foundation Classes)	ISO 16739:2013	Information/data transfer description
   BCF (BIM Collaboration Format)	buildingSMART BCF	Description of interaction between BIM applications
   IFD (International Framework for Dictionaries)	ISO 12006-3:2007 buildingSMART Data Dictionary	Description of data conversion conditions
   MVD (Model View Definitions)	buildingSMART MVD	Description of converting processes to specifications

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   UK BIM standards

   The table shows the BIM standards for the AEC industry in the UK. Link to source.

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   US BIM standards

   Link to source. Pre-registration is required.

   National BIM Standard-United States® (NBIMS-US™) — Version 2 — 2012 — Download — .zip file (15MB)

   National BIM Standard-United States® (NBIMS-US™) — Version 3 — 2015 — download — .zip file (86 MB)

   The archive contains .pdf files collected by sections.

   The content of the National BIM Standard-United States® version 3 is presented in the table.

   Section	Additional information
   FOREWORD
   ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
   1SCOPE
   2 REFERENCE STANDARDS
   2.1 Introduction to Reference Standards
   2.2 ISO 16739, Industry Foundation Class 2X3	February 2006 *
   2.3 W3C XML 1.0 Fifth Edition	November 2008 *
   2. 4 OmniClass™
   2.4.4.1 Table 11 — Construction Entities by Function	February 2013
   2.4.4.2 Table 12 — Construction Entities by Form	October 2012
   2.4.4.3 Table 13 — Spaces by Function	May 2011 *
   2.4.4.4 Table 21 — Elements	February 2011 *
   2.4.4.5 Table 22 — Work Results	August 2013
   2.4.4.6 Table 23 — Products	June 2010 *
   2.4.4.7 Table 31 — Phases	October 2012
   2.4.4.8 Table 32 — Services	June 2010 *
   2.4.4.9 Table 33 — Disciplines	October 2012
   2.4.4.10 Table 34 — Organizational Roles	October 2012
   2.4.4.11 Table 36 — Information	June 2010 *
   2. 4.4.12 Table 41 — Materials	October 2012
   2.4.4.13 Table 49 — Properties	October 2012
   2.5 International Framework for Dictionaries (IFD)/buildingSMART Data Dictionary (BSDD)	May 2012 *
   2.6 BIM Collaboration Format (BCF)	Version 1.0
   2.7LOD Specifications	August 2013
   2.8 United States National CAD Standard® (NCS)	Version 5
   3 TERMS AND DEFINITIONS
   4 INFORMATION EXCHANGE STANDARDS
   4.1 Introduction to Information Exchange Standards
   4.2 Construction Operations Building information exchange (COBie) Annex A — COBie Mapping Rules Annex B — Life Cycle information exchange (LCie) for Product and Product Type Data Exchanges	Version 2.4
   4. 3 Design to Spatial Program Validation (SPV)	*
   4.4 Design to Building Energy Analysis (BEA)	*
   4.5 Design to Quantity Takeoff for Cost Estimating (QTO)	*
   4.6 Building Programming information exchange (BPie)	Version 1.0
   4.7 Electrical information exchange (SPARKie)	Edition 2013
   4.8 Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning information exchange (HVACie)	Edition 2013
   4.9 Water Systems information exchange (WSie)	Edition 2013
   5 PRACTICE DOCUMENTS
   5.1 Introduction to Practice Documents
   5.2 Minimum BIM	2nd Edition
   5.3 BIM Project Execution Planning Guide	Version 2.1 *
   5.4 BIM Project Execution Plan Content	Version 2. 1 *
   5.5 Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing and Fire Protection Systems Spatial Coordination Requirements for Construction Installation Models and Deliverables	May 2012 *
   5.6 Planning, Executing and Managing Information Handover	*
   5.7 BIM Planning Guide for Facility Owners
   5.8 Practical BIM Contract Requirements
   5.9 The Uses of BIM
   ANNEX A — NATIONAL BIM STANDARD — UNITED STATES PROJECT COMMITTEE RULES OF GOVERNANCE
   ANNEX B — UNITED STATES NATIONAL BUILDING INFORMATION MODELING STANDARD™	Version 1 Part One (Overview, Principles and Methodology) — December 2007 *

   * — The content of the section has not changed since version 2.

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   IFC standard

   IFC standard formats

   Format	Description	Icon
   . ifc	IFC data file using the physical STEP (STandard for the Exchange of Product data) file structure according to ISO 10303-21. The *.ifc file is validated according to the IFC-EXPRESS specification. This format is used by default for IFC data exchange.
   .ifcXML	IFC data file using XML document structure. It can be obtained directly from the application or with an *.ifc file using ISO 10303-28 (EXPRESS Schema and Data XML Representation) conversion. An .ifcXML file is typically 300-400% larger than an .ifc file.
   .ifcZIP	IFC data file using the PKzip 2.04g compression algorithm (for example, compatible with winzip, zlib, info-zip, etc.). Requires one .ifc or . ifcXML data file in the main directory of the zip archive. The .ifcZIP format file typically compresses the .ifc format file by 60-80% and the format file. ifcXML — by 90-95%.

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   IFC versions

   Designation	Description
   IFC5	Currently in the initial planning stage. Full support for various infrastructure domains and more parametric capabilities are expected.
   IFC4 Add2	Second addition to the IFC4 version. IFC4 Add2 was released in July 2016 as a buildingSMART standard.
   IFC4 Add1	The first addition to the IFC4 release, including improvements that were identified during the experimental implementations and development of MVD. Version IFC4 Add1 was released in July 2015 as a buildingSMART standard.
   IFC4	Originally IFC2x4. Was released as a new IFC platform for years to come. IFC4 released in March 2013
   IFC2x3-TC1	IFC2x Edition 3 Technical Corrigendum 1 A version was released in July 2007 to amend the IFC2x3 version.
   IFC2x3	IFC2x Edition 3 (IFC2x Edition 3) is the third release of the IFC2x platform. Basically, the changes concerned the qualitative improvement of the IFC2x2 version. The version was released in February 2006.
   IFC2x2-Add1	IFC2x Edition 2 Addendum 1 (IFC2x Edition 2 Addendum 1) — a small addition to the IFC2x version to fix the releases that were made during the implementation. The version was released in July 2004.
   IFC2x2	IFC2x Edition 2 (IFC2x Edition 2) is the second release of the IFC2x platform. Some improvements have been made in the subject area of ​​knowledge. The version was released in May 2003.
   IFC2x-Add1	IFC2x Addendum 1 (IFC2x Addendum 1) is a small addition to the IFC2x version to fix releases that were made during rollout. A version was released in October 2001. This version was used to certify and implement IFC 2x.
   IFC2x	IFC2x is the first release of the IFC2x platform. The version was released in October 2000. Basically, attention was paid to ensuring the stability of the platform.
   IFC2.0 IFC1.5.1 IFC1.5 and IFC1.0	These versions have become obsolete over time and are no longer mentioned.

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   What does the IFC version include?

   Each version of the standard includes the following specifications:

   • html IFC specification documentation (including all definitions, schemas, libraries):
     • for IFC4 Add2 version
     • for IFC4 Add1 version
     • for IFC4 version
     • for version IFC2x3 TC1
     • for IFC2x3 version
   • URL for IFC EXPRESS scheme:
     • for IFC4 Add2 version
     • for IFC4 Add1 version
     • for IFC4 version
     • for version IFC2x3 TC1
     • for IFC2x3 version
   • URL for ifcXML XSD Schema
     • for IFC4 Add2 version
     • for IFC4 Add1 version
     • for IFC4 version
     • for IFC2x3 version

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   IFC

   certified software

   buildingSMART® certified IFC2x3 software can be viewed here.

   Guidelines for implementing the IFC standard in BIM applications

   More than 150 applications support the import and/or export of IFC data. This standard is becoming an open standard for BIM data.

   buildingSMART provides a framework for software companies to collaborate on supporting open standards for BIM. A special implementation support group has been created — ISG (Implementation Support Group), whose main task is to support the implementation and certification of buildingSMART standards. Any software company that is a member of a local or regional buildingSMART chapter can become a member of this group.

   There are IFC implementation guides that are useful for software developers:

   • IFC header implementation guide section of header file contains data:
     • about the version of the IFC scheme;
     • about the description of the content and options used to create the file;
     • about the file name, its authors, the application that created the file, and the IFC translator/render.

     An example of filling in the header section of an IFC file:

     An example of a header section in an IFC STEP exchange file:

   • IFC implementation guide — is intended for a general understanding of the implementation of the IFC standard using STEP implementation technologies. The IFC Implementation Guide does not replace MVD (Model View Definition) definitions and conventions. This manual describes section data of the IFC standard file;
   • ifcXML IFC Implementation Guide — describes the internal structure of the ifcXML format, gives definitions, explains possible applications.
     Comparison of data description in .ifc and .ifcXML files:

   You can download the latest IFC Implementation Guides here.

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   IFC Workbench

   Most implementations of the IFC standard among applications are based on special tools — tools designed to read and write IFC files in the STEP format, as well as to create interfaces for converting application entities to IFC entities and vice versa . The API (Application Programming Interface) of applications is built on one or more programming languages ​​(for example, C++, Java, VB). IFC tools can also perform database persistence, support reading and writing ifcXML files, etc. There are other tools that are useful for IFC development:

   • IFC validators — Means for validating an IFC data file according to the IFC standard schema. These tools ensure that the resulting IFC data file is syntactically correct.
   • IFC viewers are tools that read the IFC standard file and display products that have 3D or 2D geometry in the IFC standard file. Often such tools allow you to see the project structure (building, floors), components (list of walls, floors) and the properties of each component (group properties, etc.). There are both paid and free IFC viewers. The most famous:
     • from Solibri — Solibri Model Viewer
     • from Data Design System — DDS-CAD Viewer
     • from AllPlan — IFC Viewer
     • from Trimble Solutions — Tekla BIMsight
     • from RDF — IFC Engine Viewer

     You can see the full list of IFC viewers here by expanding the Model Viewer grouping.

   • IFC browsers are tools that open the IFC standard file and allow you to navigate through links. These tools can be used to view a pure text file.

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   ISO — Shaping a sustainable future

   The world may have already passed some inflection points. The previous decades have been marked by clear climate change, accelerating biodiversity loss, plastic waste in the oceans, violent land grabs and political instability. A new era awaits all of us, but we must recognize the impact of our choices and actions in keeping our eyes on the future before it’s too late.

   In 2015, the United Nations set a global agenda for 2030, based on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), to address some of the most pressing challenges facing our planet. Thus was born a collective purpose for a future of peace and prosperity throughout the world. This is not just a common goal, but a call to humanity to take part in a global partnership for sustainable development — the key to our future.

   The World Wildlife Fund (WWF), reports that the SDGs are now becoming the universal language for governments, non-governmental organizations and businesses to achieve these goals, commitments, outcomes and impacts. It also highlights the responsibility of the private sector to address social and environmental issues in their respective value chains, to include sustainable development in their core business mission, and to participate in the transformation of the broader sector of which they are part.

   WWF highlights how sustainability standards can help coordinate efforts to achieve the SDGs. Sustainability standards are key to transforming the market — developing standards that address sustainability issues and provide organizations around the world with ready-made tools to do so. Bringing together the various key players in the standards development process embodies the multi-stakeholder approach that is critical to meeting the Global 2030 Agenda.

   From a business perspective, McKinsey reports that 43% of 2,900 executives surveyed said their companies align sustainability with their overall business goals, mission or values. Top managers rated waste reduction by 63%, reduction in energy use in operations by 64% and management of their corporate reputation to achieve sustainability at 59%. This situation shows that sustainability is also a priority on today’s corporate agenda.

   What the world needs right now

   International standards are fundamental tools for solving many pressing global problems. Created by a group of experts on standards and sustainability, ISO Guide 82, Guidelines for sustainability in standards, provides guidance to standards developers on how to consider sustainability criteria when developing, reviewing and updating standards. The document also aims to raise awareness of sustainability issues among standards writers and provide a systematic and consistent approach to identifying and assessing sustainability factors, which is essential in every standards development process.

   The guide has recently been updated to provide information on how the standards can support the implementation of the SDGs and how they remain relevant to help the world achieve a sustainable future. Jimmy Yoler, chair of the working group that reviewed the guidelines, says that SDG 2030 was the main challenge to address in the revision of the guidelines to ensure that the core elements of sustainability are included in the standards. “ISO Guide 82 has been developed to clarify what sustainable development is. It also highlights the diversity of approaches to problem solving in the development of relevant standards. Leadership is a valuable asset to contribute to the global 2030 agenda,” he notes.

   The guide also focuses on how sustainability should be taken into account in the formation of committees and in the subsequent steps of the standards development process. The guide talks about how sustainable development can be mainstreamed into the scope, structure and strategic plan of a technical committee from its inception, not to mention raising the awareness of management and committee members about the principles of sustainable development, ensuring that it becomes an integral part of their work.

   sustainable solutions for all

   While the SDGs set ambitious targets for 2030 and national development priorities must be in line with this vision, a concerted effort is needed to make this vision a reality. The development of standards can be a complex process that must adapt to constantly changing conditions, taking into account the three key elements of sustainable development: society, the economy and the environment. Most likely, sustainable development will be achieved as a whole if these three aspects are considered on an equal and consistent basis. Problem-solving actions in these areas influence each other — understanding their dynamic interdependence is key to developing sustainable solutions that include all three elements.

   It can be said that there are parallels in addressing sustainability issues in standards and addressing sustainability issues in organizations. When multiple sustainable development challenges are identified as relevant and significant, it is possible that many solutions will be found. In such cases, conflicts may arise, i.e. the implementation of a decision on one issue may interfere with the implementation of a decision on another. Standards writers should recognize that there are several appropriate ways to address these issues, and that resources and capabilities can vary widely.

   Yohler argues that in such cases standards developers should anticipate conflicts as much as possible. Alternatively, they may consider providing multiple options so that users of the standards are aware of the issues and can decide which option to apply “ISO Guide 82 provides guidance to standards developers on the need to take into account the interests of relevant stakeholders and engage in practice in the exchange of ideas. and exchange of information based on the contribution of a broad and balanced database,” he adds.

   how to make sustainability a reality

   Since sustainability and progress towards sustainability are highly dependent on many factors, ISO Guide 82 provides a methodology that standards developers can use to develop their own approach to addressing sustainability issues on a specific subject matter. On that note, ISO/TC 17/SC 16, the ISO technical subcommittee that is responsible for standardizing the quality, dimensions and tolerances, and other relevant properties specific to steel used to reinforce concrete and prestressed steels, is on the right track. .

   Jan Karlsen, chair of the subcommittee, states that ISO Guide 82 is an important document for future work. In 2019, several action plans were identified to adapt them in line with the SDGs, and an assessment was made to identify those plans that are critical to achieving specific goals. “ISO Guide 82 was one of the main documents used as a tool for this assessment, and committee members found the document a practical and useful tool for developing our standards and also achieving sustainability,” he notes.

   The recent subcommittee conventions were to form a broader group of sustainability experts to ensure that sustainability criteria are taken into account in the development of standards. “In line with the recommendations of ISO Guide 82, we have recognized the vital role played by sustainability experts in this regard and we rely on them to guide us in the right direction, making sure our future standards are sustainable in every way,” adds Mr. Mr Carlsen.

   In recent years, the role of sustainable development standards has increased. They can influence entire systems, facilitating dialogue among multiple stakeholders in different sectors. Such a situation can lead to improved strategies and forms of interaction to address key sustainable development issues, as well as help build mutual trust, influence attitudes or empower those who are often excluded from decisions that affect them. Seen as the foundation of sustainable development, standards are designed to address the most pressing social and environmental challenges of our time. In parallel, standards are constantly evolving in a struggle for legitimacy and impact on the ground. These developments indicate that there are challenges facing experts at the start of developing a standard, highlighting the limitations of existing approaches and spurring a relentless pursuit of new, better measures.

   Standardization plays an important role in making our world sustainable. The inclusion of sustainability issues in the writing of standards itself means that they are considered most carefully. Given that sustainability is at the heart of the 2030 Agenda, standards writers around the world are called upon to consider this issue at all stages of the standards development process. Such a mechanism would help protect the most important sustainable development issues from global impact. Accordingly, ISO Guide 82 will add value to the community by helping standards build a better future for all of us.

   Frame rate conversion using Insync’s «FrameFormer» technology and AWS Elemental MediaConvert cloud service

   by
   AWS Central EurAsia & Russia Team | on
   02 Aug 2021 | in
   AWS Elemental MediaConvert, Media & Entertainment |
   Permalink |
   share

   Original article: link (and post: Paola Hobson, Managing Director of InSync Technology, Ltd. )

   AWS is not responsible for the content or accuracy of the material in this article, as it belongs to a third party author.

   Since the early days of television broadcasting, viewers have wanted to watch live news, international sporting events, entertainment and cultural programs from other countries. However, the international exchange of programs is not such a simple process due to differences in television standards adopted in different parts of the world. This statement is also true for the global film distribution industry, where it is also necessary to create content in formats suitable for viewing on client devices (mainly TV) used in a particular country. This is a complex task and inherently requires format and frame rate conversion depending on the chosen region of content consumption.

   Format and standards converters are required to ensure the best possible reproduction of the original content for any type of audience, or at least to ensure the best possible result, on the display device used by the viewer. Incorrect standards conversion results in blurry images, jitter in motion scenes, and broken diagonal lines. Dissatisfaction with the quality of viewing directly contributes to the outflow of subscribers and the loss of operator revenue. High quality frame rate conversion is essential for every content owner looking to monetize their assets globally. This article explains how to achieve consistent, high-quality results for frame rate conversion using InSync’s motion compensation technology, which is used by AWS’ cloud-based video transcoding service, AWS Elemental MediaConvert (MediaConvert). This service makes it easy to process video-on-demand (VOD) content for broadcast and delivery to a wide range of receiving devices.

   Why do I need to convert the frame rate?

   You perceive movement when watching a movie or video content because the device you are viewing on displays a certain number of individual images or frames on the screen every second, creating the illusion of movement. In the US, for example, the frame rate of a home TV is updated at about 29.97 frames per second (fps).

   If you are watching a TV series or film made in the USA, the content is filmed at 29 speed.97 fps. This exactly matches the TV input requirements of that country, and only then can the viewer enjoy the subjective effect of smooth motion on their TV screen.

   In Europe, the TV display standard is 25 frames per second. Well, if you are watching content on a laptop, tablet or smartphone anywhere in the world, the screen refresh rate can be from 60 to 120 frames per second, and on game displays — 144 frames per second and higher.

   Content producers create videos with a huge range of frame rates, including 23.98, 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 50, 59.94 and 60 fps. Frame rate conversion is required whenever the frame rate used in production and the frame rate of the display device differ. A TV Show created at 29.97 frames per second will not display correctly on display devices at 25 frames per second without proper frame rate conversion (standards conversion). Poorly performed standards conversion causes visible artifacts, including jerky movement, ripple or flickering of detailed areas of the scene, shading or «ghosting» of the object, and other visible defects.

   Simple frame rate conversion

   Broadcasters use a specific frame rate depending on the broadcast region. For example, European broadcasters transmit video at 25 frames per second, and European viewers will therefore have 25 frames per second at home. But if a European broadcaster were tasked with broadcasting an American talk show at 29.97 frames per second, they could theoretically change the metadata in the video file to look like a program at 25 frames per second. However, this would lead to slower playback of content and negatively affect the speed of movement of objects in the scene. It would also distort the sound reproduction. This «speed down» practice is used in certain, limited situations where a slight change in frame rate is required, such as from 23. 98 to 25 fps. In these cases, the change in sound is imperceptible. However, the broadcaster will have to accept a 4% change in program length.

   When streaming video to mobile devices (broadcasting/streaming over the Internet), the frame rate can be any of the above. The streaming service, in this case, relies on a software player/decoder to ensure that the original frame rate matches the frame rate of the display device. These frame rate conversions use very simple techniques: copying frames from input to output where their presentation times are close or overlapping between input and output, and dropping or duplicating frames where necessary to maintain the desired overall frame rate across the output. The AWS cloud service for transcoding files (AWS Elemental MediaConvert) has this functionality in its arsenal. This is a parameter in the menu list of frame rate conversion algorithms: “drop/repeat or duplicate” frames (“Drop duplicate”) (Fig. 1).

   Figure 1: Drop or duplicate frame option

   This drop/redo approach is useful in certain cases, but can cause problems in some other cases. Unnatural and jerky movement; audio artifacts, where audio packets are lost or repeated when a frame is dropped/replayed; metadata corruption, where subtitle packets can be lost or duplicated are all disadvantages that can occur when using this method. Considering all the facts listed above, this method may be sufficient for the consumer video level or enterprise video applications, but professional video applications typically require other, more sophisticated frame rate conversion methods.

   Motion-compensated conversion — no compromise solution

   Linear interpolation is another easy way to create new frames. MediaConvert enables this interpolation option, as shown in Figure 1 above. In its simplest sense, linear interpolation uses pixels from two input frames to create pixels in a new frame that lie temporarily between them. A simple linear interpolation using a weighted sum of existing pixels to create new output pixels gets around some frame skipping/repeating issues, but can still cause image quality issues such as blur, loss of resolution, and unnatural movement of objects, also known as «jitter».

   Even considering motion adaptation, when different processing is applied to still and moving areas of an image, linear frame rate conversion is only a compromise. In practice, real images are rarely completely stationary, and common effects such as lighting changes and image noise can contribute to false motion detection, which inevitably reduces the quality of the output image.

   The surest way to achieve high quality frame rate conversion and avoid unwanted visual or audio effects is to use motion compensation technology. The Motion Compensated Frame Rate Converter calculates motion between frames in the content and determines where to move objects when creating new frames between them, as shown in Figure 2.

   Figure 2: Illustration of frame rate conversion with motion compensation

   As shown in figure 2, if we can calculate the change in the position of an object between frames 1 and 2, and we know the time interval between these frames, and also, if we assume that the object is moving at a constant speed, then we can determine where the object should be on any other time interval. Thus, a motion-compensated transform can reproduce an object in any interpolated or resynchronized frames. Therefore, all objects in the image remain sharp and in focus, and their movement is displayed smoothly, without judder or uneven movement.

   “ FrameFormer ” motion compensated conversion

   MediaConvert has in its arsenal the ability to use «FrameFormer» technology to perform high quality frame rate conversion using sophisticated processing to ensure stable results. Creating new images with different time intervals requires extremely accurate calculation of motion vectors. In the simple case shown in Figure 2, a single object is moving at a constant speed against a flat background. In practice, real TV programs contain several objects that move at different speeds, overlap each other, move in and out of the scene, and move in and out of the camera’s field of view. Even the assumption of a constant speed is a huge simplification.

   Figure 3: Illustration of different types of movement in a scene

   Figure 3 shows an example of a typical movement, where arrows of different lengths show each person walking in a different direction and at different speeds. People cross each other, moving in and out of the frame, some walk towards the camera and appear larger, while others move away from the camera and appear smaller. What’s more, although we don’t see it in a still image, the camera can move across the frame, meaning that there is both global and local movement. Typical scenes also include rotating objects, camera zooms, and special effects. Additional complications arise from overlaying graphics on the image, such as titles and credits.

   “FrameFormer” uses phase correlation for motion estimation. The phase correlation method uses a Fourier transform to transform image data into the frequency domain. The Fourier transform is a mathematical process that decomposes a time signal into its component frequencies. The 2D Fourier transform applied to the image data (spatial domain) provides information about the vertical and horizontal phase and frequency details of the image. The magnitude values ​​are normalized so that they all contribute the same. The size and direction of motions present can then be obtained by subtracting the phases obtained from two consecutive frames and converting the result back to the spatial domain.

   Applying phase correlation alone is not enough to perform motion compensation on its own. This method detects motion present in an image, but does not determine which areas of the image have that motion. Therefore, the measured movements must be associated with specific areas of the image, which usually represent individual objects in the real world.

   It should also be noted that in content with noise, low resolution or blurring, it is even more difficult to assess movement. Other content properties such as frame changes, hidden and exposed image elements, brightness changes, and the presence of sharp image edges add additional complexity to motion estimation analysis. “FrameFormer” technology uses a number of proprietary video processing techniques to improve accuracy and robustness that address these common content issues.

   Using “ FrameFormer ”

   In MediaConvert, when you select an output frame rate other than the input frame rate, you access a menu list with a choice of frame rate conversion algorithms. Just select “FrameFormer” for motion compensated frame rate conversion.

   Frame rate setting

   “FrameFormer” generates an output sequence at exactly the frame rate required by your application. Working with fractional frame rates requires extra precision. The frame rate, often referred to as «59fps» is actually 60/1.001 fps. If you enter «59» in the frame rate selection field, «FrameFormer» will generate an output sequence at exactly 59 frames per second. This can cause unexpected errors when displaying 59 fps on a 60/1. 001 fps display device, or when loading a 59 fps video into a 60/1.001 fps application for further editing. These errors include jerky motion or the inability to play video.

   As shown in Figure 4, you can select the frame rate from the drop-down list, or if you are working with a fractional frame rate, you can enter the fractional part in the available fields. For example, you must enter 60000/1001 to get content at 59.94 frames per second.

   Figure 4: Fractional Frame Rate Entry

   Conclusion

   Because frame rate conversion is critical to maintaining image quality when distributing content globally, it is important to use additional technologies such as “FrameFormer” when using MediaConvert. “FrameFormer” provides all the important elements of motion-compensated frame rate conversion when used in MediaConvert. “FrameFormer” is the result of years of experience in standards conversion, giving you the confidence to deliver the results your viewers expect.