Journal Article - NBS Specification Software Enhancements

A copy of the article I have written for the up and coming NBS Journal is below.

The NBS Journal contains specially-written articles on specification, and is available twice a year. The current edition and all previous NBS Journals are available to all as PDFs from the NBS website.
http://www.thenbs.com/resources/journals/

NBS Building, Landscape and Engineering Services Software Improvements

The recent 2010-1 update of NBS Building, Landscape and Engineering Services includes a number of significant software enhancements, following over a year of development work. Head of NBS Software Development, Dr Stephen Hamil, presents these in this article.

1. Integration between the specification and CAD

At NBS, one of our main priorities is to develop our existing products in-line with our customers’ needs. To prioritise these enhancements to the software we have a number of customer focus groups and we also have a yearly customer satisfaction survey.

One of the most requested features has been to make it easier to annotate a CAD model from clauses in a project specification. The Annotator application is now installed with your NBS software as part of the NBS Tools suite of the software. This application allows you to quickly access the clause number and title from your project specifications when making annotations in your CAD model.

The Annotator application works through copy and paste; this means it will sit alongside any CAD software such as ArchiCAD, Microstation or AutoCAD. Subject to having a valid NBS licence, you can access NBS technical guidance using the Annotator. This allows you to browse the general guidance in work sections at early design stage to benefit from this comprehensive and trusted NBS information.

Figure 1- Using the Annotator from NBS

In addition to the Annotator, it is now possible from within the NBS software to export to keynote format. This allows you to work with project specification keynote references within AutoCAD, Revit or Microstation. Using this method of working, within CAD you can annotate an element type once and then quickly access this same annotation from all of the matching element types within your model.

This work is very much seen as a first step towards further CAD integration and we are currently researching and prototyping methods to take this integration further.

2. Publishing enhancements

A number of enhancements have been made to the publishing engine. The way the headers and footers are generated has had a complete overhaul. It is now possible to have mixed styles, a separator line and for the text to grow to fill the available space. This is demonstrated in Figure 2 below.

Figure 2 – Improved headers and footers

Another key improvement to the published document is the ability to clearly indicate how clauses have been revised when re-issuing a specification or a work section. The screenshot below shows two clauses that have been revised, one has been removed and one has been added as new. This helps communicate any changes made to the specification clearly to the other members of the project team. Figure 3 below shows an extract from the re-issued specification.

Figure 3 – Revisions to the specification

3. A new search facility

It is now possible to search NBS libraries, project documents and office standards from within the software. Initially, this is useful when you are creating a specification and do not know exactly where to find the content in the NBS libraries. For example, how many customers know where to find fascias and soffits (G20) or underslab insulation (E20)? This search facility allows you to preview the clause and view the guidance prior to adding the work section to your specification. This search facility can be launched through clicking on the search button on the main toolbar.

In addition to searching for content in NBS you can also search for content in your project specifications and contract preliminaries. Once you have found the clause that you have searched for, double click on it to open for editing in the main software window.

Figure 4 demonstrates the user searching a project specification for a particular manufacturer. It can be seen that all of the product clauses in which this manufacturer is specified are returned and can be quickly previewed. 

Figure 4 – New search facility

 4. Financial summary

For smaller projects without a bill of quantities, it is now possible to publish a financial summary at the back of your specification for the contractors to price. Rather than the contractors providing a lump sum cost based on the specification and drawings, the project can be broken down to allow improved analysis of the tender costs and a clearer demonstration to the client of how money will be spent.

Like the Annotator application, the Cost Tracking application is installed as part of the NBS Tools suite of the software. This application also enables the creation of a spreadsheet to allow costs to be tracked through the construction phase of the project.

Figure 5 displays a tender analysis report generated within the Cost Tracking application. Contractor prices are arranged from lowest to highest against a pre-tender estimate. The variations in costs for each priceable item are clearly shown.

Figure 5 – Tender analysis within the Cost Tracking application

5. Further integration with CIS and Building Regulations

The final major enhancement to the NBS software is the facility to seamlessly link with The Construction Information Service and NBS Building Regulations. If you are a subscriber to these services, you can enter your user name and password once and then immediately click through from the NBS guidance to the relevant technical information.

Figure 6 - External links within the NBS Guidance

Figure 7 - Seamless links through to The Construction Information Service

Larger practices can securely enter a company username and password to these services in their NBS office settings file. All users of the NBS software in the office can then immediately click through and download documents such as British Standards, BRE publications and Building Regulations without the need to log on individually each time.

6. Further information

• Video showing these improvements at: http://www.thenbs.com/update
• Free NBS Tools download: http://www.thenbs.com/nbstools  

Thinking About BIM Conference

A quick blog post to promote the following 1/2 day conference. A few of the NBS R&D team will be attending.

RIBA CPD2010 Extras - Thinking about BIM?

½ day Conference
Date: Wednesday 5th May 2010
Time: 9:30am - 12:30pm followed by lunch
Venue: Sutherland Great Hall, Northumbria University

The Building Information Modelling (BIM) revolution has been advancing quietly, steadily and irreversibly over the past decade.
At the heart of the BIM approach is the ability to share information and work collaboratively, so that we can raise our game. There are benefits for all – from better communication between designer and client, to a smoother construction process and more effective management of the asset over its whole life-cycle.
Sustainability is high on the agenda. BIM offers the opportunity to create more efficient buildings. Energy analysis and life-cycle costing can be done using the building model.
Thinking about BIM? is a call to action. Many clients and suppliers have yet to adopt BIM. This seminar/conference is for you. BIM technologies are available, you will hear about successful users in the North East, and those yet to embark will gain insight into the benefits of BIM, and how to go about it, by listening to industry professionals at this event.


Speakers:
Nick Nisbet - BuildingSmart
Sam Collard - Laing O'Rourke
William Sutherland - WS Architecture Ltd
Nick Deeming & Peter St Julien - Faulkner Browns
Andrew Bellerby, Tekla UK
Robert Barnes - MicroCAD
Mark Cronin - Northumbria University
Margaret Horne / Professor Stephen Lockley - Northumbria University

Cost:
CPD Club Member £41.00 (+VAT)
RIBA/CIAT £47.00 (+VAT)
Others £58.50 (+VAT)

To register for this event, please contact:
Amanda McManus, amanda.mcmanus@inst.riba.org or on 0191 261 7441.

Video of new features in NBS Building, Engineering and Landscape

Our marketing team have put together a super video presentation showing the new features off in the NBS 2010 specification software. The video also presents some of the new technical content enhancements to provide further guidance on BREEAM and accessible design (BS 8300).

Select the image below to go to theNBS.com to watch the video:

Seamless linkage between NBS and The Construction Information Service

The 2010 versions of NBS Building, Lansdscape and Engineering Services all now have the facility to seamlessly link with The Construction Information Service and NBS Building Regulations.

This means that if you are a subscriber to these services then you can enter your user name and password once centrally and then immediately click through from the NBS guidance to the relevant technical information.

The screenshots below demonstrate this.

Figure 1 - Enter your username and passwords to the services in the NBS software

Figure 2 - From within the NBS guidance, click to view technical standards and approved documents

Figure 3 - Without the need to enter your user details again, you are taken to the correct document on The Construction Information Service

Figure 4 - This document can be quickly downloaded as a PDF file

Figure 5 - Again, without the need to enter your user details again, you are taken to the relevant section of the Approved Document

NBS Tools now available to download

The NBS Tools suite of applications are now available to download.

http://www.thenbs.com/nbstools/

These have been developed to enable collaboration across a project team. All those in the project team can now view and publish from a specification with the Viewer. Those who work on CAD models or generate schedules and bills of quantities can now annotate these directly from the specification using Annotator. All those in the project team who perform valuations and tender analysis can do so using the Cost Tracker.

This is a free download, so please feel free to direct anyone you think that may benefit from these features to the website above.

Note that NBS Tools work with all NBS documents and not just specifications. So for instance you can view a set of prelims created using NBS Building or you can annotate from a schedule of work generated using NBS Scheduler.

How the Annotator Tool from NBS was Developed

The suite of free NBS Tools has just passed testing and will go live next week for download. NBS Tools contains the three applications (1) Annotator, (2) Viewer and (3) Cost Tracking. Further details on each of these will be posted to this blog over the next few weeks.

This blog post details how the Annotator was developed.

Stage 1 - Back of an envelope sketch

The scan below shows a sketch that was done a little while back in a pub in London after a lunchtime discussion with one of our Advisory Panel members. The event was on a completely different subject, but the topic of annotating CAD from NBS had cropped up over a cup of coffee.

All of the main concepts can be seen in the notes on the sketch. The three customer names who had pushed for this development have been blurred out of the sketch to the bottom right. Note how the concept that this could also be released so third parties could integrate it into their software (API) is scribbled at the top of the page.

Stage 2 - Prototype
The next stage was setting one of our software developers away on developing a rapid prototype. This is shown below:

The basic functionality is in place here. This prototype was then demonstrated to get some early feedback and to help develop a brief for our software design team.

Stage 3 - Brief
The main feature list was then developed with the aid of further sketch designs and an MS Word document. The concept of embedding the guidance and the manufacturer information is now in the sketch. The ability to export to different formats such as CSV and keynotes is there too.

Stage 4 - Detailed Designs
Our Design Team then worked their magic in Fireworks to draw up exactly how the application would look (note it must be pixel perfect) - also detailed was the functionality and the user journey in an MS Word document.

The branding changed a little following these sketches, but what is shown in the screenshot above is pretty much how the final application turned out.

Stage 5 -Develop the Application
Our Software Development team then wrote the code to make the application work (hopefully) perfectly. QA tested it and along the way our Beta Testers had the chance to have an early look at this too.

And now it is finished and ready for release.

Related posts:

- Working with the exported keynote file with AutoDesk/Bentley products
- How software developers can integrate the Annotator into their own products

Adding User Guidance to NBS

One great way of making the NBS master specification system work even better for your practice is to add your office knowledge to it.

NBS supports this through the "User Guidance" feature.

Adding user guidance notes to an office standard works especially well as these notes will come through to all designers in the office that create project specifications using this office standard.

Fig 1 - Creating a user guidance page

Figure 1 shows the user has selected to add a guidance note. This is being made "high priority", which means that it will take priority over the NBS Guidance and the Manufacturer information.

Fig 2 - Editing a user guidance page

Figure 2 above shows that within the NBS software the user may perform simple editing on the note to add their practice knowledge to their local NBS system. This is ideal for information tailored to the specific practice and this enhances the technical guidance provided by NBS.

Fig 3 - Adding an external link as user guidance

For practices with web based Intranet systems, the ability to link to web pages works really well. Figure 3 above shows that instead of a basic user guidance note being added, a link to an Intranet page may be selected.

Fig 4 - HTML user guidance notes

Figure 4 above shows the advantage of writing user guidance notes as Intranet pages and then linking to them:

• All formatting styles that HTML allows may be used.
• Images, tables, movies and advanced hyperlinking can be used.
• These practice notes are edited outside of NBS, this is possible without using up an NBS licence seat.

Building Information Modelling (BIM)

This is an article I have written for publication on our website. I thought I'd post it here too in case anyone has any comments.

Introduction

My first introduction to the modelling of buildings was during my time at Durham University in the 1990s. I studied for a PhD in the computer modelling of reinforced concrete beam to column connections. This involved developing computer models using finite element analysis and then comparing these virtual models under load against actual test specimens. I also assisted in the computer sessions with the undergraduates, helping to teach a CAD package that worked with parametric building elements as opposed to traditional 2D line drawings.

In 2010, Building Information Modelling (BIM) has made significant leaps forward and is now very much part of many construction professionals' lives. By using the geometry and spatial relationships, quantities and properties of the building elements within a BIM, real efficiencies and improvements in accuracy are being made in the design, construction and maintenance of buildings.

Increasingly at NBS, the technical information we are producing is rich and highly structured and is a BIM in its own right. The NBS Research and Development team are now in a position to make use of this technical information and give construction professionals some very exciting software solutions.

Geometry and spatial relationships

When most people think of BIM they think of 3D CAD, and indeed, this is a very big part of it.

The immediate benefit is the fantastic 3D models that are automatically generated from the 2D lines drawn and the element properties within the software. This gives amazing visualisations that the designer can present to the client before commencement of construction. It also offers infinite 2D plans and elevations that can be cut from the 3D model on demand. Figure 1 below shows a stunning visualisation example created using Graphisoft ArchiCAD, and rendering engine Artlantis.

Figure 1 – Stunning visualisations from a BIM

(Credit: Artlantis rendering by Thierry Tutin)

Of course, there is more to BIM than visualisations, as each building element knows what it is. For example, whether an element is a door, window, pipe or wall. Within BIM software, relationships and behaviours are defined between these elements. A door cannot be greater in size than the wall that contains it. If a wall is removed from the model, then the doors and windows it contains are also removed. More complex relationships can also be developed, for example, a rule that each door must have a light switch within a defined distance. This sort of functionality is clearly not possible within traditional 2D CAD.

Once the major building elements are in place, it is possible for architects, structural engineers and mechanical engineers to work together on the same BIM. The spatial relationships defined can then ensure that there are no clashes between, for instance, the mechanical engineer’s duct work and the structural engineer’s steelwork.

A well documented example of this collaborative working on a huge project was in the development of Heathrow Airport Terminal Five; the entire project team worked off a single BIM for the design and construction of the buildings. This has been held up as a classic case study for the success of BIM, and estimates are that this may have saved as much as 10% on costs.

Quantities

With traditional 2D plans and elevations, quantities such as volumes or areas of materials or numbers of components have to be calculated accumulatively.

With a BIM, quantities can be calculated automatically by the software, making automatic generation of template bills of quantities, door and window schedules an instant operation.

The screenshot below shows how simple it is to create a door schedule in Autodesk Revit. It is possible to select the fields required, then at the click of a button the software loops through all of the elements in the BIM identifying the doors and creating the schedule. Schedules could easily be created for other elements, such as walls or floors, showing lengths, areas, or volumes.

Figure 2 – Selecting the columns for your schedule

Figure 3 – A dynamic schedule that displays the values in the BIM

The big advantage of scheduling and taking off quantities using BIM software is that changes in the graphical view of the model are automatically reflected in the schedule, and changes in the schedule are automatically reflected in the graphical interface.

Building element properties

A NBS specification does not contain structured information about geometry, spatial relationships or quantities, but it does contain a huge amount of information about the properties of building elements. We are currently working on greatly improving the structure of this data to the point where NBS will be a Building Information Model in its own right. Each product in the specification will have a property set of marked up data, with typical options against each property. The relationship to guidance, technical standards and Building Regulations will be improved. Finally, the supporting information required for a contractor to install the product on site, for the designer to test that performance requirements upon completion and for the owner to maintain the building will be available.

Examples of use of the NBS BIM will include:

• An architect specifying a product by defining the required properties. The specification will be passed to the contractor who will be able to select from a list of available products that meet or exceed the requirements
• As the building elements have properties that can be interpreted by computer software, this will present exciting opportunities to do calculations, such as the quantity of embodied carbon or of recycled content. Opportunities such as the automatic calculation of BREEAM points or automatic Building Regulation approval will become possible
• The comprehensive database of building element properties will also provide building owners and facility managers with improved accuracy and time savings when replacement products are required or when the building is refurbished, altered or eventually dismantled.

Use of data from different Building Information Models

It is unlikely that all of the information from a construction project can be contained in a single BIM. More typically there will be a number of BIMs that are stored in different proprietary format. For example, the architect’s CAD model could be in ArchiCAD format, the engineer’s CAD model in Revit and the specification information within NBS.

Linking models through a common reference

It is crucial that links can be made between the different BIMs and that information can be exported from one BIM and imported into another. Traditionally, in the UK, the relationship between the drawing, specification and bill of quantities has been the Common Arrangement of Work Sections (CAWS). This was first published in 1987 by CPIC, a committee representing major institutes across the UK construction industry (RIBA, RICS, CIBSE and ICE). CAWS allows a building component to be labelled by reference and title on drawings and in the specification and bill of quantities.

Recently at NBS, we have developed a software API that allows other BIM software to reference a project specification and associate items in a CAD model with the specification clauses CAWS reference. So the designer can link an element in the CAD model such as a window with the clause in the NBS specification about the same window type.

The software API allows for improved efficiency savings and accuracy by helping to automate the process of annotation. Accuracy is improved further through the ability to report on the validity of the annotations prior to issuing the specification and drawings.

Figure 4 shows a screenshot from a prototype application with NBS Building and Graphisoft ArchiCAD interoperating. The CAD model has been annotated using NBS clause information. An annotation report has then been generated highlighting any corrections that are required prior to issue. This is a first step from NBS towards BIM integration between the CAD model and the specification.

Figure 4 – CAD and NBS working together

Importing and exporting information from BIMs

To go any further than the simple linking of two models through unique identifiers requires an agreed non-proprietary file format. Information can then be exported from one model to this file format and then imported into another model and round tripped. An example of this would be the architect designing the original building structure in Autodesk Revit, exporting this data into a non-proprietary file format and then the structural engineer then importing this into Bentley Microstation. The structural engineer could make amends and then export the data for the Architect to receive to complete the “round trip”.

The two main non-proprietary file formats supported by most of the main CAD packages are Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) and Green Building XML (gbXML). Figure 5 below shows the export options in Autodesk Revit to both gbXML and IFC format. 

Figure 5 – Exporting the Revit BIM to IFC format

Having information in an industry open standard format allows all members of the project team, owners, operators, designers, constructors, regulators and other stakeholders to be able to work with BIM data from cradle to grave. It also allows software developers to produce applications that can work with data in a standard format to produce applications that analyse the energy consumption or structural performance of a building.

BuildingSMART are the international organisation that is responsible for IFC development. NBS are members of BuildingSMART, and we are actively looking into ways of importing IFC structured data into NBS and exporting NBS data into IFC format.

Conclusions

Building Information Modelling has come a long way in a relatively short time. It is being used by many in the construction industry to make efficiency savings and to improve the accuracy and coordination of documentation.

It is common for building information to be held in different models. Relationships must be built between the data to exploit the full benefit of BIM, and open standard formats must be used to translate data from one proprietary format to another.