At NBS we are now working on a very interesting project looking at an carbon assessment tool for the construction industry. The following press release went out today...
Press release:
A new industry project codenamed ‘iCAT’ is launched – with the aim of creating an everyday design tool to facilitate carbon assessment.
A new collaborative industry project team led by AEC3 UK is developing the Interoperable Carbon Assessment Toolkit or ‘iCAT’ for embodied carbon calculations, which will enhance the design and life cycle management of zero carbon and low impact buildings.
AEC3 UK is leading an expert academic and industry project team, including: the University of Northumbria, BSRIA, Faithful and Gould, RIBA Enterprises, Autodesk, and the University of Bath. The iCAT project is part-funded by the Technology Strategy Board (TSB).
Focusing on the early, feasibility and pre-design stages, iCAT will enable designers, cost consultants and their clients to minimise life cycle carbon and economic costs though improved decision-making.
iCAT will be available as an interoperable online tool, using data from the University of Bath’s Inventory of Carbon and Energy (ICE) database, along with other carbon embodiment and building modelling data from mainstream design and analysis tools. Mark Bew, Chair of BuildingSMART UK and Director of Scott Wilson, says: “we welcome the development of iCAT, which will exploit the benefits of interoperable design tools. iCAT offers a much-needed integration of carbon assessment data and methodologies to manage building carbon data from cradle to grave”.
Friday, 30 July 2010
Thursday, 29 July 2010
NBS Link Plug-in for ArchiCAD Press Release
The NBS Link plug-in for ArchiCAD features on the front of the Graphisoft International website. The press release is below...
Link your NBS project specification information to your ArchiCAD Building Information Model
LONDON, July 27, 2010
GRAPHISOFT today announced that ArchiCAD™, its award-winning architectural design software, can now link directly with NBS specifications. This capability continues the company’s innovation in model-based design collaboration by offering an easy-to-use, yet powerful connection with documents produced with the UK’s industry-standard master specification system.
The connection delivers productivity improvements to architects and other specifiers by providing a quick and easy-to-use method within ArchiCAD for creating links between the information modeled in ArchiCAD and that modeled in NBS. Clause titles and references can be added with a single mouse-click; NBS guidance can be viewed in context to assist decision making; and the specification details can be easily reviewed and revised, with an automated link ensuring the details in the specification and ArchiCAD models remain in sync.
This latest ArchiCAD plug-in from GRAPHISOFT links to specifications written in any of NBS specification systems, including NBS Building, NBS Engineering Services, NBS Landscape and NBS Scheduler.
“Building Information Modeling (BIM) has created an unprecedented potential for improving the coordination and quality of design and construction documentation,” said Simon Gilbert, ArchiCAD Product Manager at GRAPHISOFT. “With this connection between ArchiCAD and NBS, architects and designers can be assured that the specification details in their designs are accurate and, perhaps just as important, the effort required to place and maintain specification details has been reduced hugely.”
Dr Stephen Hamil, from the research and development department of NBS, echoed Simon’s comments. “Bringing the information held in project specifications and that held within the CAD model closer, and providing the user the ability to maintain these relationships in this way, is an important development in the evolution of BIM. The road to integrated coordination of project information will be made up of small but significant steps like this, and we are pleased to have supported GRAPHISOFT in the UK to be able to make this innovation available to users of ArchiCAD and NBS.”
Nick Greenwood, of Mouchel Business Services, who has been trialing the new connection, commented, “Marking up the architectural model with specification references is a very important part of preparing high quality construction documentation but it is also very tedious and repetitive work. And, of course, if it’s being done manually from paper specifications it’s easy to make a mistake when transcribing a specification number. This connection makes it really simple and quick to apply specification details to any view or document in the design and it’s really great having such a simple method to check that the details are up to date. This is an enormous time saver for us both in applying the specifications in the first place and ensuring that the correct specification details are on the final documentation.”
A movie showing the scope of NBS Building, how this is connected with ArchiCAD, and how specifications can be reviewed and revised in ArchiCAD, is at www.tinyurl.com/nbslink
Availability
The ArchiCAD to NBS connection is available immediately and can be obtained from Accredited ArchiCAD Centres in the UK and Ireland. These Centres can be located at www.graphisoft.com/purchase
About NBS
Since the 1970s, architects have turned to NBS master specification systems to produce technically robust, up-to-date project specifications. NBS also provides tools for project administration, online access to technical and regulatory information, and learning services to keep construction professionals' skills and knowledge current. It is also the official publisher of the Approved Documents to the Building Regulations. Further information, can be found at www.theNBS.com. Further media requests can be made to James Sykes at james.sykes@theNBS.com
About GRAPHISOFT
GRAPHISOFT® ignited the BIM revolution with ArchiCAD®, the industry first BIM software for architects. GRAPHISOFT continues to lead the industry with innovative solutions such as the revolutionary GRAPHISOFT BIM Server™, the world’s first real-time BIM collaboration environment, and the GRAPHISOFT EcoDesigner™, the world's first fully integrated building energy modeling application. GRAPHISOFT’s innovative solutions have fundamentally changed the way architects around the world design and collaborate.
Friday, 23 July 2010
£10,000 for Marie Curie
Picture from the Newcastle Journal below from our charity day to celebrate £10,000 raised for Marie Curie.
Cake sales, pool nights, Great North Runs, swimathons and a London to Paris Cycle challenge were amongst the events.
Wednesday, 21 July 2010
Exporting NBS annotations to Vectorworks Notes Manager format
In the next two or three weeks we'll do an update to the Annotator that will allow users to export to Vectorworks Note Manager format.
It will work in pretty much the same way as the Autodesk and Bentley exports. The screenshots below give an indication of the process.
Fig 1 - Export the annotations from your project specification/schedule of work
Fig 2 - The exported file is a tab separated file that can be amended to suite
Fig 3 - Annotations can then be made off this file within Vectorworks.
It will work in pretty much the same way as the Autodesk and Bentley exports. The screenshots below give an indication of the process.
Fig 1 - Export the annotations from your project specification/schedule of work
Fig 2 - The exported file is a tab separated file that can be amended to suite
Fig 3 - Annotations can then be made off this file within Vectorworks.
Thursday, 15 July 2010
NBS Scheduler and manufacturers' information
Over 90% of NBS Building users specify using NBS Plus manufacturer information. A year or two ago the same NBS Plus feature was added to NBS Scheduler. The use of NBS Plus within NBS Scheduler is rising, however, this blog post gives a quick overview of how you can benefit from this if you are not already.
Fig 1 - Note the "NBS Plus" image indicating manufacturer specifications are available
Figure 2 - The relevant manufacturers for the selected work item are displayed
Figure 3 - Browse to find the manufacturer product you want to specify
Figure 4 - Add the product specification with one click and complete it
Thursday, 1 July 2010
BSI spells out the case for BIM
At NBS we are members of BuildingSMART a cross-industry alliance dedicated to improving the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the design, construction and facilities management industries, with an emphasis on information-sharing and BIM. BuildingSMART have recently worked with BSI to release two straight-to-the-point guides to BIM.
These can be downloaded from http://shop.bsigroup.com/bim - the full press release is below.
The British Standards Institution invited BuildingSMART UK – the organisation that promotes BIM-enabled smart working – to produce a straight to the point guide to building information modelling, Constructing the Business Case. The publication sets out the case for BIM adoption and explains the underlying technologies to stimulate uptake in the construction and FM industries. For busy CEOs, a shorter document is also available. Known as the Investors Report, it distils the business case into two pages – enough to enable senior leaders to understand the principles and direct their staff to the longer publication. Both documents are available as a free download at http://shop.bsigroup.com/bim.
Cost/benefit reflections and examples of successful implementation show how the industry is moving towards higher levels of collaborative working, emphasising that the moment for BIM adoption is right now. The Nordic countries and the US have forged ahead in adopting these technologies and the UK has some way to go.
Against a background of rising client expectations, the publication can play a valuable role. The ideas behind BIM are simple and powerful. Nick Nisbet, BuildingSMART’s technical co-ordinator, says ‘It can place the implementation of BIM permanently on the agenda of the executive board, as part of an information strategy and the development of core capabilities’.
Very few companies go fully public about their experience of BIM – it is confidential information and benchmarking is less than straightforward where one project may differ from the next. But a number of case studies are available providing cost/benefit information, and these are cited in the publication.
‘The outcome of our collaboration with BSI is a clear and concise document that meets a real need,’ says Chris Groome, BuildingSMART Business Manager. ‘The publication is already meeting with a favourable response. It was sent out for review to the executive membership of Constructing Excellence, one of whom described it as the “best document of its type I’ve seen on the subject of BIM”.’
These can be downloaded from http://shop.bsigroup.com/bim - the full press release is below.
The British Standards Institution invited BuildingSMART UK – the organisation that promotes BIM-enabled smart working – to produce a straight to the point guide to building information modelling, Constructing the Business Case. The publication sets out the case for BIM adoption and explains the underlying technologies to stimulate uptake in the construction and FM industries. For busy CEOs, a shorter document is also available. Known as the Investors Report, it distils the business case into two pages – enough to enable senior leaders to understand the principles and direct their staff to the longer publication. Both documents are available as a free download at http://shop.bsigroup.com/bim.
Cost/benefit reflections and examples of successful implementation show how the industry is moving towards higher levels of collaborative working, emphasising that the moment for BIM adoption is right now. The Nordic countries and the US have forged ahead in adopting these technologies and the UK has some way to go.
Against a background of rising client expectations, the publication can play a valuable role. The ideas behind BIM are simple and powerful. Nick Nisbet, BuildingSMART’s technical co-ordinator, says ‘It can place the implementation of BIM permanently on the agenda of the executive board, as part of an information strategy and the development of core capabilities’.
Very few companies go fully public about their experience of BIM – it is confidential information and benchmarking is less than straightforward where one project may differ from the next. But a number of case studies are available providing cost/benefit information, and these are cited in the publication.
‘The outcome of our collaboration with BSI is a clear and concise document that meets a real need,’ says Chris Groome, BuildingSMART Business Manager. ‘The publication is already meeting with a favourable response. It was sent out for review to the executive membership of Constructing Excellence, one of whom described it as the “best document of its type I’ve seen on the subject of BIM”.’
Tuesday, 22 June 2010
Viewing the NBS specification
Recently I’ve made a number of trips to see practices around the country (Glasgow, London. Sheffield, Aldershot, Brighton, Gosforth…) promoting the latest improvements to the NBS software.
Of all the enhancements, the item that has probably received the best feedback is the free NBS Viewer. The NBS Viewer is installed with all NBS software as part of the NBS Tools or can be downloaded for free from www.theNBS.com/NBSTools
The main primary benefit is in allowing practices with a number of construction professionals to be able to view and publish NBS specifications without having to use up valuable licence seats. Those in the office who have a need to modify specification can do so without the frustration of finding out that there are no licences available. In addition, people in the office who have never have had NBS software on their machine can install this lightweight viewer and see specifications-in-progress without the need to export to PDF or Word.
It should be noted that the Viewer and the other NBS Tools can be downloaded for free by other members of your project team who want to view NBS specifications.
The screenshot below shows the NBS Viewer.
Of all the enhancements, the item that has probably received the best feedback is the free NBS Viewer. The NBS Viewer is installed with all NBS software as part of the NBS Tools or can be downloaded for free from www.theNBS.com/NBSTools
The main primary benefit is in allowing practices with a number of construction professionals to be able to view and publish NBS specifications without having to use up valuable licence seats. Those in the office who have a need to modify specification can do so without the frustration of finding out that there are no licences available. In addition, people in the office who have never have had NBS software on their machine can install this lightweight viewer and see specifications-in-progress without the need to export to PDF or Word.
It should be noted that the Viewer and the other NBS Tools can be downloaded for free by other members of your project team who want to view NBS specifications.
The screenshot below shows the NBS Viewer.
Wednesday, 9 June 2010
Upcoming maintenance releases of NBS software
Following some major releases of many of the NBS software products earlier in the year, we have been addressing some smaller items of work over recent months. The following will be released in July/August 2010...
NBS Building, Engineering and Landscape
NBS Building, Engineering and Landscape
- Security issues in Guidance
The technology we use for the NBS Guidance is Microsoft CHM files. Recently Microsoft have been tightening up security for CHM file use on networks and this has been causing a number of problems for NBS customers. This will be resolved by creating a cache of these libraries locally on users’ machines. - Alignment tweak in the published output
There is a 2 or 3 pixel alignment problem where a clause follows a sub heading. This will be fixed.
- Export dialog
Enhancements to the export functionality to allow export to Autodesk and Microstation keynote format - Prelims tweaks
Improvements to Prelims addressing issues where user clauses were not printing correctly - Document completeness
At the point of publish, an indication to the document completeness is given. - Spell checker in prelims
The addition of a spell checker in prelims - PDF merge
The ability to merge PDF documents to create a single document
- Instruction forms
Additional spaces and clipped text on Instruction forms and improved performance on open - Database upgrade for D&B contractsIssue fixed if Employer or Employers Agent were already in DB.
- Practical completion
Rectification date chanes or all JCT 2005 contracts - Cost Tracking module
The inclusion of the NBS Tools module and in particular the Cost Tracking that allows tender comparisons, valuations to be summarised and these costs to be tracked.
- Improved email filing
Flexibility on how email attachments are filed - Ability to set home page to Intranet site
When Perspective starts up – the ability to choose any web URL to start at - Ability to add domains to whitelist
Whole domains (eg thenbs.com) can be added to the white list
- Updating of annotation fileBug fixed where annotation data cache file did not update immediately following the modification of a specification.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)