Welcome to the buildingSMART International Newsletter for February 2021. This edition covers the buildingSMART Virtual Summit, for which early bird tickets go on sale today. The event is being held in conjunction with the Swiss chapter's 'Digital Construction Event _xCH21' and sponsorship packages are still available.
There is also an announcement of the launch of buildingSMART International's Podcast, and other news from the community including the appointment of Frédéric Grand as the new bSDD Product Manager, two new buildingSMART members for 2021 and updates from three Chapters.
Finally, you can also register to collaborate with the technical community in two interactive meetings taking place during the first week of March, and catch up with a Building Energy Modelling webinar if you missed it.
The buildingSMART Virtual Summit Spring 2021
The next Virtual Summit brought to you by buildingSMART International in conjunction with the Swiss Chapter will be held from Monday 15th - Friday 26th March 2021. Following on from the success of the last event held in October/November 2020, we are again expecting a full and interesting agenda to be well attended by our international community.
The event will be host to an opening plenary day, keynotes, roundtables, workshops, messages from our sponsors, working sessions and updates from our rooms.
We are excited to announce that early bird tickets go on sale today! Plan ahead and save 15% on your Summit ticket (only €169 for access to the full 10 days, discounted from €199). Early bird tickets will be available from 1st - 14th February.
Don't forget, you can still watch any of the sessions/presentations from the last Summit on-demand. To do so, please visit the dedicated page on our website here
Want to become a sponsor?
There are still sponsorship packages available. Download the PDF's below to get a full breakdown of the benefits on offer. If you would like to sign up or have any further questions, please contact us at summits@buildingsmart.org
The Digital Construction Event _xCH21 will take place over the opening 3 days of the Virtual Summit and is aimed at both the construction and real estate industries. It will showcase current developments and motivate participants to get actively involved and enter the debate.
Monday will begin with a joint welcome from bSI and _xCH21, as well as a mixture of contributions and keynotes from speakers internationally and from Switzerland.
Tuesday as the "Swiss Window" of the event will take place exclusively (virtually) in Switzerland. Here, national opinion leaders from industry, associations, politics and education will discuss the present and future of the Swiss construction and real estate industry at virtual round tables. The day will be held in German, but is open to an international audience - it will be simultaneously translated into both English and French. On Wednesday morning, in parallel to the bSI programme, there will be masterclasses by companies from Switzerland, which will be held in the original language.
January 2021 sees the launch of buildingSMART International's brand new podcast, with a focus on Digital Twins. The podcast series covers a range of interesting speakers and topics and includes a broad perspective from our industry and inspirational speakers from around the globe. The first two episodes are available now on both Buzzsprout and Spotify via the links below.
Episode #1 features Richard Petrie - Chief Executive of buildingSMART International. Richard looks back on his career, his motivation for joining buildingSMART International in 2013, the challenges and successes, and his hopes for the future.
Episode #2 features Patrick MacLeamy - Chairman of buildingSMART International and former CEO of HOK Architects. Hear from Patrick about his 50 years at HOK, his long-term commitment to buildingSMART and the journey in professionalizing the community.
Frédéric Grand appointed as Product Manager for the
buildingSMART Data Dictionary
buildingSMART International (bSI) has appointed Frédéric Grand of buildingSMART France to lead the buildingSMART Data Dictionary (bSDD) into its next phase. Frédéric was anointed a buildingSMART Fellow in 2020 and has a long history with the bSDD. He has played an integral part in the development of the new ISO 12006-3 due to be formally released later this year, following which we will also see the deployment of the new bSDD.
General Assembly of Implementers meeting and bSDD Hackathon
The first week of March 2021 will see the buildingSMART technical community come together to collaborate in interactive meetings. The team is asking for pro-active engagement to help improve the reliability of the buildingSMART standards and solutions.
The meetings will take place on Zoom, and it is important to note that you will need to register in order to join. One registration will grant you access to all three General Assembly Implementers meetings and a second registration will grant access to the two bSDD meetings. If you plan to attend both sets of meetings, please be sure to register via both links.
This meeting will provide an overview of development on BCF 3.0, IFC 4.3.x and IFC5. It will also update you on the development of the API family of standards like the BCF API, Foundations API and Documents API. There will also be slots for the Information Delivery Specification initiative (IDS), Software Certification, the Use Case Management tool and other buildingSMART Technical Services activities.
Monday 1st March, 1pm-5pm UTC
Tuesday 2nd March, 1pm-5pm UTC
Wednesday 3rd March, 1pm-5pm UTC
This meeting will provide insights into the new ISO12006-3 standard and the new bSDD that is facilitating the new standard. It is focused on how to connect to the new API and will have developers available to support your work in progress. There will also be slots that dive into using Product Data Templates (PDT) with the bSDD, and other advanced use-cases.
Wednesday 3rd March, 8am-12pm UTC
Thursday 4th March, 8am-12pm UTC
Building Energy Modelling (BEM) Webinar
IDM Report: Expert Panel Call For Participation
Last month, industry professionals with expertise and vested interest in the domain of Building Energy Modelling (BEM) were invited to attend an orientation session about the bSI BEM IDM report, to include a call for participation to be on the Expert Panel that will review the documentation.
Over the last two and a half years, the issue of addressing BEM utilizing buildingSMART principals and standards has been studied and documented with a ‘Master IDM’. It is an overview of how BEM may be applied to projects over their entire lifecycle, from conception to operations, and the many issues and challenges related to methods, processes, and technologies for creating, exchanging, and utilizing data among a diverse array of project stakeholders, software, and requirements.
The webinar provided information about the project and how to participate as an Expert Panel delegate to review the report and its findings before it is voted on by the buildingSMART International Standards Committee. The Expert Panel members are due to be announced in the coming days.
If you missed it, you can watch a recording of the webinar or view a PDF copy of the presentation below.
A message from the buildingSMART InfraRoom Steering Committee
The Infrastructure Room has over the past year or so been successfully expanding the bSI openBIM® standards to encompass much of the infrastructure domain including IFC for Roads, Bridges, Ports, Waterways and Tunnels, plus liaising closely with Railways. These developments are being incorporated into IFC 4.3 and future IFC releases.
The InfraRoom Roadmap for future openBIM® developments within the domain has recently been published. Your help is now needed to understand, prioritize and reinforce the next steps to be taken. As such, a discussion whitepaper has been issued looking at current issues, alongside a survey to gather opinion.
The InfraRoom's recently published Roadmap, which covers headline intentions over the next few years can be viewed here:
We are delighted to kick off the New Year with the addition of two new Standard members to our community.
Updates from our Chapter community
Chapters are invited to present to the community throughout the year about ongoing activities in the community. These updates are now recorded and posted on the Chapter Updates page of the website, which can be found here:
Follow the newly created buildingSMART USA LinkedIn page and find out
some exciting news from the Chapter:
Would you like to learn more about the leaders in the Chapter network? There is a Chapter Leaders directory. If you would like to learn more about any of the Chapter Leaders, please visit the website here:
Hear from Léon van Berlo, Aidan Mercer (both bSI) and Frank Weiss (Oracle) about why data is currently relevant, digital twins and pervasive and open standards now critical. Find out how these three big trends in Building Information Modeling (BIM) will help to shape the future.
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