NATSPEC recently released the Open BIM object standard (OBOS) to assist manufacturers planning to create Building Information Modelling (BIM) objects, of their products.

BIM objects are 3D digital representations of building elements and components that designers using BIM software can incorporate directly into the models of buildings they are working on. Manufacturers or suppliers who provide BIM objects of their products are more likely to have them selected because it saves designers having to model them from scratch and reduces the risk of them not being accurate.

Up until now, some product manufacturers or suppliers have hesitated to invest in having their products modelled because of the lack of any widely accepted modelling standard. The absence of a consistent approach to modelling objects has meant that objects created are not always acceptable to designers. Building models can be made up of hundreds or thousands of BIM objects, so basic things such as different ways of naming them and their properties can cause serious difficulties in the management of a model’s content. Object properties, or parameters, include product details such as dimensions, model number, materials and finishes.

NATSPEC has produced a standard based on global best-practice principles that can be applied to modelling objects regardless of the proprietary software used.

Manufacturers and suppliers can have much greater confidence that their BIM objects will be accepted and used by designers if they are based on the OBOS. To find out more and download a copy, click here

The application of the OBOS can be assisted by the use of the NATSPEC BIM Properties Generator. These two tools complement each other.

• The OBOS defines requirements for the graphical modelling of BIM objects, together with requirements for the information (properties and metadata) included with them.
• The Properties Generator is a repository of properties typically included with BIM objects, and which conform to the information requirements of the OBOS.