In just over two weeks, the National Institute of Building Sciences buildingSMART alliance® will release the latest edition of the nation’s consensus-based standard governing building information modeling (BIM).

The National BIM Standard-United States® (NBIMS-US™) Version 3 (V3) covers the full life cycle of buildings — from planning and design through construction and operations. The NBIMS-US™ Project Committee, which oversees the standard’s development, went through a multi-year process to prepare the new edition.

“The National BIM Standard-United States® Version 3 is the result of the work of hundreds of volunteers who combined thousands of hours of their time to help streamline the way the U.S. building industry plans, designs, builds, and maintains facilities,” said Jeffrey W. Ouellette, chair of the NBIMS-US™ Project Committee. “We thank all of the volunteers for their tremendous efforts. In just a little more than two weeks, it will be the responsibility of the industry to take the NBIMS-US™ V3 and put it into practice.”

Building professionals from across the nation and around the world had the opportunity to offer their ideas to improve the NBIMS-US™. The project committee received 40 submissions, from which 27 were complete enough to be forwarded to subcommittees for review. The subcommittees then forwarded their recommendations, along with the submissions, to the full project committee membership of 143 industry peers. More than 91% of the NBIMS-US™ project committee members voted on the V3 ballots, with more than two thirds of the non-abstaining members voting to approve the 27 items on the ballot. Following the vote, the planning committee officially ratified the results. The standard then underwent proofing and final preparations before being ready for publication.

The Alliance will unveil NBIMS-US™ V3 to the public for the first time on April 15.