Merry Xmas and Happy New Year

To those that have visited the blog this year - many thanks for your support. Merry Xmas and Happy New Year to all. A summary of what's gone on on the blog through 2010 is below.

Launching in January 2010 the blog has seen an increased number of visitors throughout the year. Key stats are over 2,000 unique visitors, 80 posts and ending the year on over 600 visitors per month.

The most popular posts were:

1. Building Information Modelling (BIM) - 431 visitors
   An introduction to what BIM is and what benefits adopters are seeing.
2. Using NBS with AutoCAD, Revit or Microstation - 409 visitors
   A walkthrough of how to export NBS project specification information to keynote format.
3. Annotating ArchiCAD models from NBS - 290 visitors
   A tutorial video showing the NBS Link plug-in to ArchiCAD.
4. NBS Domestic Specification - coming soon as an online product - 210 visitors
   The teaser post promoting the new specification product from NBS.
5. Exporting NBS annotations to Vectorworks NotesManager format - 191 visitors
   A walkthrough of how to export NBS project spec info for use with Vectorworks.

The most common keywords that Google visitors found the site from most were:

1. nbs archicad - 43 visitors
2. nbs on the road - 22 visitors
3. using both scheduler and building - 19 visitors
4. bim conference - 18 visitors
5. nbs software blog - 15 visitors

See you all next year in 2011. There'll be some nice new improvements to the NBS specification products to be blogged about. Please keep your comments coming to. Always great to read them.

New NBS work section I think for 2011-1 update - B19 Site made frozen water constructions

Near future specification systems

My colleague from the NBS Technical Team John Gelder has written a super article on his vision for the next generation of specification systems. It was written for the latest NBS Journal. But can also be read on thenbs.com - http://www.thenbs.com/topics/DesignSpecification/articles/nearFutureProjectSpecifications.asp

Introduction:

John Gelder, NBS Content Development Manager, looks at how near-future project specifications might differ from current project specifications.

Generally, we'll see that project specifications will be much smarter than at present, able to work much harder, whilst requiring less effort to produce and use.

Conclusions:

When is this near-future? Some of what is described here could be available in a couple of years, some within five, and some will take longer. None of it depends on specifiers being expert in building information modelling. Provided the content and software developers get it right, you'll be using BIM without even knowing it!

NBS BIM 2010 Survey featured on bdonline

bdonline.co.uk has our NBS BIM 2010 Survey as the featured article.

• bdonline
  http://www.bdonline.co.uk/news/survey-reveals-industry-split-over-bim/5010009.article
• NBS Survey Presentation
  http://www.thenbs.com/bim/What_BIM_is_and_how_it_is_being_used.asp

CIBSE BIM Conference

The winter weather did not manage to spoil the CIBSE BIM conference. Nearly all the delegates turned up which was good to see.
I’ll do a post on a couple of the presentations on the NBS BIM Blog in a day or two. But as a summary, it was good to see a range of presentations. Impressive case studies from Sam Collard from Laing O’Rourke and Dan Clipsom from Arup. Also, a very interesting presentation from Paul Coates from John McCall Architects discussing how they have successfully adopted BIM.
The delegates seemed interested in the NBS BIM Survey 2010 results and it was good to get the chance to speak at such an event. Keep tuned to theNBS.com/BIM for the release of this research paper in the next month or two.

Chairman Terry Wyatt thanks Sarah Graham from IES for her presentation

Anne King from BSRIA presents the findings from their conference earlier in the year

The snowy Clapham Common