The NBS are at in again, in collaboration with BIM academy in compiling the first open BIM library. This library will be launched in March 2012 and will be open, online for anyone to use for free. This has been a huge project in development, and the teams have been working hard with it over the past 6 months, in various forms, to get the library up to scratch and to get the right legislation sorted for the standards used. 

So, I'm sure most of us know by now what IFC are, if not, this post may be for you! I just wanted to make a small post to anyone who was still in the dark. IFC or Industry Foundation Classes are a data modeling standard which are complete and fully stable, open and international standards for exchanging BIM data. buildingSMART developed the idea and the certification process. 

The NBS along with BIM academy and other involved parties, today launched the new National BIM Library at Ecobuild 2012. The new website which was also announced contains pre-made standard object configurations which are compatible with Revit, ArchiCAD, Tekla, Vectorworks and Bentley. The site also has links to manufacturer specific content and other useful documents and videos. 

One of the biggest challenges with embracing BIM (building information modeling) throughout concept through completion on a construction project is often the lack of interoperability among the various software platforms used by the different companies. But this challenge is beginning to be addressed by new initiatives and technology developments aimed at helping improve BIM in the construction industry.

A post by Rob Clark on his BIM Implementation blog followed up by my response:

So, I want to put a thought out there.   I’m sure it’s not original, but I’ve never heard anybody suggest it and I am beginning to wonder why.

Here is a small tutorial showing how to turn your 3D Revit models into the .PDF format. This could be useful for collaborating on ideas, and showing potential clients your 3D model in a program they may have installed on their computers. I have read about various ways to open your Revit models with Adobe reader, but until now, none of them have worked as I wanted.

I recently discovered a new blog - Geometry Gym, which is run by Jon Mirtschin. In case you have not seen his blog, I suggest you head over and take a look at the projects he is working on. He has and continues to work on some exciting projects involving IFC interoperability as well as the newly added Grasshopper to Revit via IFC add-on. The video which you can see on the right hand side gives a small explanation of his plugin.

Asite have joined forces with Tech Soft 3D to enhance their current cBIM platform with the addition of the HOOPS software development toolkits, into a visual 3D coordination tool with IFC visualisation. In short this means that the current real-time open sharing and model management platform will be transformed and upgraded into a real time model sharing platform with instant IFC visualisation. - A very powerful tool for collaboration. 

A global 48 hour virtual BIM competition is kicking off later today, in the form of Build Qatar Live 2012, the first time the event has moved out of London (2008, 2009, 2012). An event held earlier this year, Build  London Live 2012 was a great success with many of the same teams entering again for a second time round. The competition is open for anyone and everyone who has the time and skills to take part! The main sponsor is Nemetschek Vectorworks.

"The rest of the world is in awe of the UK BIM strategy and the progress made so far."

The IFC/COBie Report 2012 is a document created by The NBS along with the OpenBIM network with input from some of the major Tier 1 contractors and their supply chains. It is a description of a series of test run on Autodesk, Graphisoft and Vectorworks BIM authoring software to test the capability of the buildingSMART IFC file format to find out whether it is capable of supporting the creation of COBie datasets from the Building Information Model.

Here is a great video recorded from New York City Revit User Group or NYCRUG. Presented by Christopher Zoog, he discusses 'What is IFC and why you should care' An excellent hour long presentation well worth watching. I've uploaded the video to my YouTube channel after speaking to Christopher - Thanks to Ryan Schultz for sharing the orginal recording on Dropbox.