The NBIMS-US™ v4 is a consensus-based national-level standard focused on defining standard approaches and guidelines to defining requirements, planning BIM adoption, and exchanging information between project team members. MORE
The following terms are used throughout this document. Footnotes refer to links with additional information in the Appendix A: Resources section.
| TERM | DEFINITION | DETAILS |
|---|---|---|
| COBie | Construction to Operations Building Information Exchange | The digital standard defined in this document. |
| NIBS | National Institute of Building Sciences | A not-for-profit, non-government organization committed to supporting advances in building science and technology.1 NIBS is the author of this document. |
| NBIMS-US™ | National BIM Standard-United States® | The National BIM Standard-United States® is a document developed and maintained by NIBS.2 The COBie standard is part of NBIMS-US™. |
| IFC | Industry Foundation Classes | An ISO standard (ISO 16739-1:2018) digital description of the built asset industry. |
| ifcXML | XML Schema Definition for IFC | An XML schema for IFC Step files based on STEP XML transformation rules |
| IDS | Information Delivery Specification | A document that defines the exchange requirements of digital models, which includes how the objects in the model, their properties, their classifications, their values, and their units should be exchanged. |
| MVD | Model View Definition | A subset of the overall IFC schema used to describe a data exchange for a specific use or workflow.3 The COBie standard is considered an MVD of IFC. |
| FM | Facilities Management | The maintenance and management of an organization’s buildings and equipment. |
| O&M | Operations & Maintenance | The tasks, responsibilities, and effort associated with ongoing facilities management. |
| JSON | JavaScript Object Notation | Open standard data file and exchange format based on attribute-value pairs and arrays in human-readable text. |
| GUID | Global Unique Identifier | A 128-bit text string in hexadecimal format used to represent identification of a digital element. |
| Asset | Maintainable assets of a facility for COBie are those items that the owner of a facility will manage in an Operations & Maintenance system. | Maintainable assets can include mechanical equipment, electrical equipment, plumbing fixtures, and other items that require maintenance, upkeep, and replacement. |
| Component | The individual instances of the products and equipment defined in the Type data table. | Components can be part of other components, building an assembly. |
| Entity | Class of information defined by common attributes and constraints as defined in ISO-10303-11. | Like the term “class” in common programming languages, but describing data structures only (not behavior, such as methods). |
| Element | A major component, assembly, or construction entity part which, in itself or in combination with others fulfills a predominating function of a construction entity. | See IFC and MVD use of the term. |
| Attribute | A single unit of data that in a certain context is considered indivisible. | Source: ISO/TS 21089:2018(en), 3.44, modified from term ‘data attribute’ to ‘attribute’. |
| Instance | Occurrence of an entity. | Like the term “instance of a class” in object-oriented programming. |
| Object Types | Common characteristics shared by multiple object occurrences. | Like “class”, “template”, and “type” in other publications. |
| External Reference | Link to information outside the data set, with direct relevance to the specific information. | The link originates from outside of the data set. |
| Data Table or Table | Table of digital information | Tables include rows of data (records) and columns of data headers. COBie is comprised of 19 data tables. |
| Data Field or Field | A single field of digital information | COBie is comprised of 144 data fields. |
| Data Record or Record | A line of related data in a table | Each data table includes rows of data, known as records, representing the assets defined in COBie. |
| Data Value or Value | The data in a data field | COBie requires all data fields to have some value and not be left blank, even if that value is “n/a” (not applicable). |
The NBIMS-US™ v4 is a consensus-based national-level standard focused on defining standard approaches and guidelines to defining requirements, planning BIM adoption, and exchanging information between project team members. MORE
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