About NBS - National Building Service

Issue #1,022 

 

by Ralph Grabowski

National Building Service was established by RIBA (Ryal Institute of British Architects), and last year it was partially sold to Lloyds Bank. It has 220 employees in England, Canada, and Australia, with 260,000 users. Its symbol libraries represent products from 1,100 manufacturers. CEO of NBS Richard Waterhouse told me how his organization works. NBS is trying to increase productivity in construction, as are other organizations and software companies. According to one study, construction is only 5% digitized and suffers from a -1.5% productivity growth. NBS targets the specifications side of the problem. When it conducted a survey about problems with specifications, the top three problems in 2018 were... Materials substituted for those specified Drawings and specifications contradicting each other Inaccurate technical data These and other problems create one or more disputes in about 1/3 of construction projects. The British government has been working on reducing its spending on construction, finding that it was able to cut costs 13% in 2011 and 24% in 2015. This is, of course, at odds with construction companies; they prefer that costs go up.  The solution from NBS is automating the specifying of specifications. The ultimate aim is to implement 5D processes (3D design, cost, and scheduling) that result in 3D output. Data that can be included in the 5D process include Geometry Geographic data Specifications Thermal and acoustic properties Aesthetics NBS' solution is to connect construction information to all processes, starting with the drawings through to the building site. It has a library of building parts from 1,100 participating manufacturers, whose data are input directly into ArchiCAD, ASite, BIM 360, Newforma, Revit Vectorworks, and Viewpoint. CDE (common data environment) is available for BIM360, Newforma, and Viewporint, so far.   NBS offers these services:  NBS BIM Toolkit - free-to-use BIM project management tool NBS Building - building libraries for Standard, Intermediate, or Minor projects NBS Chorus - online specification platform for construction; includes Create and Building NBS Create - create specifications with architecture, structural, building services and landscape content NBS Domestic Specification - online specifications for small domestic building projects NBS Landscape - specifications for landscape projects NBS National BIM Library - library of BIM objects certified to the NBS BIM Object Standard NBS Scheduler - scheduling arranged by trades or space for renovations and small projects, without bills of quantities Uniclass 2015 - unified classification system for the construction industry   http://thenbs.com

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And In Other News

Here are some of the most recent posts made to the WorldCAD Access blog: On Who Would Buy OnShape The Determinism Future of A.I. (part 1) To Our Detriment, A.I. Locks Up Knowledge (part 2) I Bought a $275 Lossless Music Player, then Returned It - - - Bricsys has its Web page up for the annual international user conference at www.bricsys.com/en-intl/conference/, being held Oct 9-10 in Stockholm Sweden. - - - The Open Design Alliance will talk about its port of Web SDK technology to Microsoft Azure for building cloud-based applications in the areas of CAD and BIM visualization, data access, automation, and markup editing at its Milan conference in September. conference.opendesign.com/ In other ODA news, the new Facet Modeler SDK is released. It performs Boolean operations, slicing, scaling, rotation, mirroring, and area and volume calculations on 3D facet models, often used in architecture. It's included free with ODA membership. www.opendesign.com - - - TechSoft 3D holds their Krakow HOOPS Summit 2019 in Poland Oct 15 at the Hotel Unicus Palace. Free registration at pages.techsoft3d.com/2019-krakow-hoops-summit-registration-0-0. (BTW, HOOPS is short for "hierarchical object-oriented picture system," and used to be owned by Autodesk.) - - - HxGN LIVE Global switches to bi-annual, so Hexagon’s formerly annual user conference takes place next during June 2021, again in Las Vegas. During the two-year break, the company plans regional events. hxgnlive.com/ - - - From Jon Peddie Research, we learned that CAD/CAM is the biggest user of computer graphics. Explains the huge booths from nVidia et al at CAD vendor trade shows. www.jonpeddie.com - - - Nemetschek Group reports Q2 revenues up 21% to $150 million. - - - PTC continued faltering this quarter with Q3 revenue of $295 million and a net loss of $15 million, using generally accepted accounting principles. Contrast this with Dassault, where a single product (Catia) makes more than all of PTC. - - - Dassault Systemes reports Solidworks Q2 revenues grew 4% to $223 million. Monica Schnitge reports that CEO Charlès "believes customers remain excited about Solidworks, cloud, and the ability to use DS PowerBy to connect Solidworks to the 3Dexperience platform." The $223 million figure is important, because it means Dassault is well on its way to making Soldiworks a billion-dollar brand. Big step-brother CATIA already is a billion-dollar brand. All of Dassault Systemes made $1.01 billion in the quarter, up 16%. - - - Now we know why Google is to quick to reassure us that it uses only annonymized data: "Researchers ... published a method they say is able to correctly re-identify 99.98% of individuals in anonymized datasets with just 15 demographic attributes." - - - The Khronos Group announced the OpenXR 1.0 royalty-free open specification for cross-platform access to VR and AR devices. So far, Collabora, Microsoft, Oculus, Epic Games, and Varjo have said that they support it. https://www.khronos.org - - - Cedreo a 3D home design software for drawing floor plans and generating 3D renderings, with 2,500 users in France. Earlier this year, the company launched the software in the USA. cedreo.com/en/ - - - A Siemens contractor pled guilty to planting logic bomb in company spreadsheets. zdnet.com/article/siemens-contractor-pleads-guilty-to-planting-logic-bomb-in-company-spreadsheets/ - - - Autodesk gives us the next reason to not hold subscriptions (which is software whose license they check over an internet connection every 30 days): In brief, many not-so-old releases of Autodesk software need their Internet connection security updated to continue working (ie, continue phoning home) but for about half there is no update available (those marked with an ominous star), so you can't keep using them, irregardless. For Autodesk it's win-win: Win: Internet connection is made secure. Win: Customers are forced to upgrade, otherwise "their" software stops working. For customers with permanent licenses, it is also win-win: Win: No need to worry about insecure Internet connections. Win: No forced upgrades! (I have a permanent license of one the the afflicted AutoCADs, so I'm cool.) knowledge.autodesk.com/search-result/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Transport-Layer-Security-TLS-Updates-Required-to-Maintain-Software-Access.html - - - The modern version of 'And the truth shall set you free': "Google Places Whistleblowing Engineer On Administrative Leave."

Letters to the Editor

I was reading an article discussing design responsibility in construction -- constructioncanada.net/assignment-of-design-to-constructors-a-discussion-and-direction/ -- and came across a paragraph that is almost a repeat of the points I raised long ago in the editorial "Does CAD Degrade Drawing Quality?"  The association concluded that the quality of construction documents has declined, and cited many reasons. The technology that they saw as assisting the decline is the newer BIM rather than good old CAD. Here is what they had to say:  CCA [Canadian Construction Association] indicated the subsequent decrease in quality of documents is not directly related to the quantity or effort to create extensive drawings and specifications from design professionals, rather it is a problem of the quality of communication within the whole of the construction documents. The association also indicated the use of computers and processes such as building information modelling (BIM) are implicated in the decrease in quality of documentation as users rely on imported information rather than creating project-specific content.      - Leo Schlosberg - - -   I'm looking into ArchiCAD for its month-by-month subscription. Apparently, one can use the program for some number of months, stop, and then resume later - without hassle. I'm still busy finishing something via Revit; then I'll get into ArchiCAD's free trial, then see what makes sense. I mention this in case any of your architect-readers may want something fully featured for design and working drawings, at less cost and flexible cost at that. Thanks for covering the industry so well, with essential information.     - Michael David Rubin The editor replies: I recall when they first came out with it, but they never did emphasize it. I see that they also have a hourly license. helpcenter.graphisoft.com/knowledgebase/25697/ - - - The Russian translation of your "Graphisoft's plan to be #1" became our hit of July. CAD/AEC people in Russia are crazy about competition in BIM.  Please see isicad.ru/ru/articles.php?article_num=20650, re-titled "How ARCHICAD will outrun Revit".     - David Levin     isicad Re: The AutoCAD Workalike Market I had lost track of the number of AutoCAD lookalikes. Amazing that there are 30 something. One little typo, you mention Carson in the heading. The company is Carlson. They are a serious contender in the civil/surveying world. Anyway, great research as always.      - Tom Lazear     Archway Systems - - -   I read with interest your upFront.eZine Issue #1,021 regarding the The AutoCAD Workalike Market. One clarification for your readers, you incorrectly identified Carlson (more commonly known as "Carlson Software") as Carson. As one of the last independently held CAD software developers who got their start during the early days of the AutoCAD add-on market, Carlson [Software] is still an active Autodesk ADN member, board member of the ITC, board member of the ODA, developer on Bentley BDN platform and developer on ESRI EDN. Thank you for your consideration as point of clarification in a future edition of upFront.eZine.     - David Carlson, CAD development director     Carlson Software - - -   Nice article. Excellent, well-organized practical information.     - Don Beaton - - -   Thanks for the post about IntelliCAD membership. Minor correction at CMS IntelliCAD geographic region, it's actually USA, not Korea.     - Vitor Neves, chairman of the board     IntelliCAD Technology Consortium - - -   Thanks for the mentions in your article. ‘TwinCAD’ though is actually ‘DoubleCAD’ -- we never had a product called ‘TwinCAD’.     - Bob Mayer     IMSI/Design - - -   I was disappointed to not see Datacad listed! 30+ years and still offering a proven platform for a very loyal AEC user base and by far the best customer service in the industry!     - D. S. The editor replies: There were three criteria for being included in the list of AutoCAD workalikes: read and write DWG natively; AutoCAD-like user interface; and AutoCAD-like command structure. As far as I know, DataCAD is unique in these requirements. D. S. responds: Shoot, after re-reading your article I stand corrected. Sorry. Datacad IS (thankfully) unique in this regard. Thank you for all you do for us and the timely response to my note. - - -   Excellent summary review. Thanx!     - Cadman - - -   Thanks for your hard work bringing us the news we like to know. Just wanted you to know that GstarCAD does dynamic blocks as well. We are an independent distributor for GstarCAD in The Netherlands and Belgium since 2009, so we know what we're talking about. It works fine.     - Siem Eikelenboom      IDEOMA intelligent systems, The Netherlands - - -   Great overview, Ralph. Thank you. Small correction. DraftSight starts at $99/year for DraftSight Standard.     - Sam Scholes, senior account manager     GoEngineer

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Notable Quotable

"Economists have correctly predicted nine out of the previous four recessions, and two others they never saw coming."     - Stephen Green *5285