The National Building Information Model Standard project committee is in dire need of volunteers to help it develop open building-information-model standards to foster interoperability among products of different software vendors. The buildingSMART alliance of the National Institute of Building Sciences, which is organizing the effort, is intent on delivering NBIMS at no cost to users.
That is not an easy thing to do. Much of the standard will be published in the form of information-delivery manuals. Progress in developing the manuals is based on the donated work of alliance members. “We have grown from 50 to over 500 members over the past year, but we need to expand to at least 5,000 over this year,” says Dana K. “Deke” Smith, executive director of the buildingSMART alliance at the Washington, D.C.-based NIBS.