Jeffrey Ouellette, Assoc. AIA, IES, senior product specialist at Vectorworks, Inc., has been named buildingSMART International’s Implementation Support Group Chair. Created to support the various implementation and certification activities for buildingSMART standards, ISG discusses and promotes the use of Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) and the BIM Collaboration Format (BCF) for the exchange and sharing of Building Information Modeling (BIM) data among different software products.
Ouellette—A Longtime ISG and buildingSMART Member
Ouellette is well known to the buildingSMART community and began attending meetings on behalf of Vectorworks in 2009, becoming deputy chair in the fall of 2011. Together with buildingSMART colleagues, he has created and maintained the IFC-Compatible Implementation Database. Since joining ISG (Implementation Support Group), Ouellette has been an advocate for openBIM standards among end users and the vendors in the community, trying to mediate the needs of all parties. According to Ouellette, the future of the global building industry depends on the cooperation of all sides to create, implement and use solutions that ultimately make everyone’s work more effective and result in greater value.
Role as Chair
Ouellette’s role as Chair of buildingSMART’s ISG will include leading all group meetings and forums and representing the group during other buildingSMART discussions and events. He will also be working with buildingSMART International’s leadership on objectives to increase group membership and improve communication with end users.
01 – buildingSMART International is the home to OpenBIM, an industry movement that fosters open collaboration and data interoperability through the AEC software industry.
“One major goal is to expand ISG membership and participation to include more vendors that claim support for IFC in their products. This ensures that their implementations are of the highest quality and compatible with the work of those who have been part of the ISG and its efforts for some time,” said Ouellette.
ISG membership is open to all software companies that are members of a local or regional chapter or alliance of buildingSMART. Currently, ISG organizes regular in-person meetings during the spring and fall seasons, as well as conducts telephone or web virtual conferences to discuss implementation and support strategies. Representatives of large software companies, such Nemetschek brands including Vectorworks, Allplan, Scia, DDS, Solibri and GRAPHISOFT, as well as Autodesk, Bentley and Trimble, and smaller independent vendors including Progman Oy, IES Ltd. and Arkey Systems BV, regularly attend ISG meetings.
“The group’s highest priority for 2016 is to foster the implementation and certification of IFC4 support across the range of products that have been involved in the previous IFC2x3 certification process,” said Ouellette. “As ISG Chair, I want to encourage uptake of IFC4 by even more software vendors as it significantly improves data exchanges for project coordination, as well as important parametric data to enable more advanced downstream modeling workflows. Additionally, we want increase the support for BCF to improve communications between collaborators about the model data.”
To learn more about buildingSMART International’s ISG, visit http://www.buildingsmart-tech.
About Vectorworks
Vectorworks, Inc. is a global design software developer serving the architecture, landscape and entertainment industries. Since 1985, we have been committed to helping designers capture inspiration, nurture innovation, communicate effectively and bring their visions to life. We’ve developed the best CAD and BIM software for Mac and Windows that puts BIM at the heart of the design process, enabling the flexibility needed for efficient iteration throughout the design life-cycle. Headquartered in Columbia, Maryland, Vectorworks, Inc. is a part of The Nemetschek Group. Learn more about how we empower more than half a million designers to create experiences that transform the world at vectorworks.net.