1. National BIM Library
I had the pleasure of presenting the National BIM Library (NBL) at the RIBA Village. Almost 40 years since the launch of NBS, the geometric information on a construction project and the specification information is now starting to come together. The NBL is based on the same bread and butter principles as the NBS - high quality, maintained, generic construction information and high quality, maintained, proprietary construction information.
We now have a live launch set of generic content...
...and are well way through the second phase of content...
...and have lots of manufacturers on board and have started on the proprietary content...
...and endorsements from all the main CAD vendors and buildingSMART.
The photo-shoot from Wednesday
RIBA Village find a use is found for me - holding a microphone off camera for UK Construction Strategy author Mark Bew interview
2. NBS Create
Last but, by no means least John Gelder and Ian Chapman presented NBS Create our newly released "next generation" specification product. Available with architecture, services, structural and landscape libraries, it is a specification product that can be used to drive the specification process through the project timeline. From outline, through to D+B or traditional procurement to finally an "as-built" spec.
The screenshot below gives a taste of the product - note how the specification is created in a user friendly interface - yet behind the scenes a detailed relational information model is built in the background. Also, as expected from NBS, detailed guidance and links to key construction documents are at hand from within the same interface.
Last year I blogged quite a bit about NBS Create, some pointers to these posts below...
- Specification throughout the timeline
- The specification as an information model
- Adding your knowledge to the specification system
- Specifying manufacturer products
And now home to the North East. A busy few days.
Sorry to keep banging on...but it's a pity that a major new product like NBS Create is not platform neutral, but is Windows only.
ReplyDeleteThe National BIM Library is all about open standards like IFC, but no such stance with your flagship specification product.
Chris - points taken on board. We do discuss this in the office, look at the feedback in the customer satisfaction survey and look at what the options are.
ReplyDeleteI'll do a blog post outlining ideas and progress to date - for example most of our developments over the last two years are platform neutral web based (NBS Domestic, CIS 4, NBL, RIBACPD...)
We'd like to keep on improving our web specification engine (what is now Domestic) and adding content - I'll contact you when we have customer focus group sessions on this. Through web service technology this specification content could link to Vectorworks/ArchiCAD on a Mac.
Please stay in touch.