BIMvoice

Last week a senior BIM professional asked me the question everyone thinks and almost not many say out loud:

"Will the certification actually bring me real job opportunities, or does it just improve a CV for marketing reasons? I value my time."

I like questions like this, so he got the honest answer.

No certification creates a job by itself. Anyone who promises you that is selling smoke.

What it changes is how you get filtered. The market is full of senior BIM profiles claiming the same skills, and a hiring manager cannot verify any of it. A buildingSMART certification sits in a public registry where anyone can check it, it is vendor neutral, and it comes from the organisation behind IFC itself. Your profile becomes easy to pick out instead of easy to skip.

And there is a second part people miss. The Practitioner level is about writing and checking information requirements, not about modelling faster. That side of the work, deciding what a model must know and verifying that it does, pays better than production. Around 350 people hold that certification worldwide. In most countries you can count them on one hand or there are zero certified pros so far.

So no, a certificate will not get you hired. Being verifiable in a market full of claims might.

What made you decide for or against certification? I read every answer.

2 hours ago | [YT] | 1

BIMvoice

The surprising part about more than 1,000 pull requests to IFClite is not the number. It is that I still do not know how to code.

My Claude agents fixed bugs and added features while I continued doing my normal work. I tested things here and there, mainly the parts I was already using and understood from my own experience. Louis took care of the maintainer work, reviewing the contributions and deciding what should become part of IFClite.

What I brought was the experience I have built since I started working in AEC (in 2008), including the last six years focused on openBIM. I know many of the problems users face, how the tools should behave and what would make the work easier.

Until recently, that knowledge could only become a feature request. I could explain the problem, then wait and hope somebody with coding skills and enough time would build the solution.

Now an agent can work on it in parallel while I do my own work.

This does not mean that anyone can send unlimited code and the maintainer simply accepts it. Clear direction, review, tests and decisions about what belongs in the project become even more important. Without that work, the volume quickly becomes noise.

But it does mean that many more people can contribute. An engineer who understands a broken IFC export, an architect repeating the same workaround every week or a contractor who knows what information is missing on site can now help move a solution forward.

As Louis said, this may be the first trickle of a much bigger wave. You do not have to wait for that wave to arrive. You can become one of the droplets creating it.

What would you build or fix if knowing how to code was no longer required?

1 day ago | [YT] | 4

BIMvoice

7,000 subscribers on YouTube.

Thank you for following along, watching, asking questions and supporting my work. I truly appreciate every one of you.

2 days ago | [YT] | 7

BIMvoice

A green validation report is not always good news.

Sometimes it only means that the IFC model passed broken rules.

I recently tested a public IDS file and found that the IDS itself was invalid. Some of the property data types were wrong.

The errors were easy to fix once the validation tools showed them. They were also easy to miss if you assumed the IDS must be correct.

Before trusting the report, validate the IDS. Then check whether its requirements describe what the client actually needs.

A model can pass every rule and still be wrong for the project. The software only checks the rules it receives.

Green does not mean correct until you have checked what created the green result.

6 days ago | [YT] | 1

BIMvoice

Here is a strange thing about our industry.

We work with one of the most complex information systems in construction. The IFC schema alone has hundreds of entities, thousands of properties, relationships in every direction. On top of it sit exchange standards, requirement standards, validation, coordination workflows. Genuinely complex, by any measure.

And nobody asks anyone to prove they understand it.

Think about how backwards that is. Everywhere else, complexity attracts verification. Structures get signed by verified engineers. Welds get done by certified welders. Even the forklift in the yard needs a licence. The more complex and consequential the work, the more the industry wants proof.

Here, the requirements are contractual, the deliveries feed real decisions, the system is deeply complex, and the expected proof of competence is... nothing. Just confidence.

There is only one way an environment like that stays stable. Most participants are mimicking. Going through the motions, exporting something, calling it openBIM, and nobody checks because the person who would check is mimicking too. The silence about proof is not a sign the topic is easy. It is the sign that almost everyone is pretending together.

The people who take the work seriously always end up wanting verification, for themselves first. That is how you can tell them apart.

6 days ago | [YT] | 2

BIMvoice

Five companies send a proposal for the same project.

All five say they understand BIM and can deliver IFC. They show similar projects and list the software they use.

From the client's side, they all look competent.

Then one company can say something the others cannot.

“The people responsible for our openBIM deliveries hold the buildingSMART Practitioner certification. They have been assessed on information requirements, IFC, IDS, BCF and model validation.”

Maybe the client never asked for the certification. Maybe it is not mentioned anywhere in the tender.

Still, when five similar proposals are on the table, one company can prove the competence everyone else is asking the client to trust.

Does that guarantee the contract? Of course not.

But do you really think it makes no difference?

If I were the client, it would make my decision easier.

1 week ago | [YT] | 4

BIMvoice

Before an IFC delivery can be validated, someone must define what “correct” means.

That is where openBIM authority begins.

One sentence can decide what information every consultant must produce, how every contractor must deliver it and what gets checked before the client accepts it.

Writing “deliver an IFC model” is not enough.

Which objects must be included? Which properties are required? Which values are allowed? At what stage must the information exist? How will the delivery be validated?

If nobody defines this clearly, the whole supply chain starts guessing. Everyone delivers what they think is correct, and the problems appear months later when the models are combined, checked or handed over.

When the requirements are precise and machine checkable, the situation changes. Teams know what must be delivered, software can validate it and discussions become evidence instead of opinions.

This is where openBIM becomes more than exporting IFC.

Most BIM professionals spend years becoming faster at producing models. Far fewer learn how to define information needs, express them through open standards such as IFC and IDS, and verify the result across different tools.

The buildingSMART Practitioner certification is designed around this level of applied competence. It is not only about knowing what IFC, IDS and BCF mean. It assesses whether you can use openBIM standards to define requirements, produce information, coordinate deliveries and validate results.

That is why I do not see it as another BIM certificate.

It gives experienced professionals a clear target for moving from following project requirements to shaping and verifying them.

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 1

BIMvoice

Every time I needed a different Bonsai version, I was wasting ten minutes before I could even start.

Maybe I wanted to do real project work, record a tutorial, use a newer feature or test a bug fix. The process was always the same.

Disable one version, enable another, restart Blender, realise the dependencies were wiped, reinstall them and start again.

Or try to remember which Bonsai version I had installed on which Blender version. I used to keep two or three Blender installations for this, and it was always confusing. Sometimes a Bonsai update would stop working on the older Blender, so that setup would break anyway.

It was driving me nuts.

Then I found out Blender already solves this. You can tell it to use a different folder for its settings and extensions when it starts.

So now I have four Bonsai environments.

All four now run on the latest Blender 5.2 LTS.

Stable is my backup in case I break something.

Unstable is what I normally use for real work.

BonsaiPR is where I try fixes and new features before they are approved and merged.

Development is where I test the code I am changing myself. I fix a bug, open Blender and test the result immediately, without waiting for a new Bonsai build.

I need all four because I also work on Bonsai fixes. Most users will only need two. Unstable for normal work and BonsaiPR when they want to try a newer feature or fix. Add Stable as a third if you want a backup.

For me, that means four icons. One click each. They can all run at the same time and they do not mess with each other.

And I only installed Blender once.

You can install several Blender versions and keep one Bonsai inside each, but that takes more space. It can also leave you using an old Blender just because you need an old Bonsai.

I prefer to keep the same current Blender and change only the Bonsai environment.

This is not only for developers testing code. If you use Bonsai seriously, sooner or later you will need another version.

Most people stay on Stable because changing versions is a mess. The problem is that Stable can be light years behind Unstable and BonsaiPR. New features and fixes can exist for a long time before they reach it.

With this setup, you keep your normal Bonsai untouched and open BonsaiPR whenever you need something newer. Try it, finish the work and go back to your normal version without reinstalling anything.

I put my setup on GitHub for free. The Mac setup is the one I use. There are Windows instructions too, but I do not have a Windows machine and could not test them myself.

You can also give the repository to Claude, ChatGPT or another AI assistant. Ask it to follow the instructions, install everything and help you when you hit a wall.

github.com/BIMvoice/blender-bonsai-environments

Even if you only use one Bonsai version today, this setup keeps you covered when you eventually need another one.

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 18

BIMvoice

A BIM title can hide a competence gap.

The title tells you the responsibility, not whether the person can meet it.

None of those titles proves that the person understands IFC, IDS or IFC model validation.

The role tells you what they are responsible for.

It does not prove that they can do it.

If the role is responsible for openBIM delivery, the tender should ask for evidence of openBIM competence.

A buildingSMART Practitioner certification could be one accepted form of that evidence.

4 weeks ago | [YT] | 4

BIMvoice

I give away everything I know for free.

Inside BIMvoice Academy there are full courses on IFC, IDS, Bonsai and openBIM workflows, made by me and four other instructors who teach from their own project work. Practical exercises, real files, and a community where real questions get real answers every week. Thank you Menno, Lloyd, Stefano and Yuri for your dedication and for the amazing materials you created.

People ask me why we do not charge for it. The honest answer is that the industry's problem is not too few paid courses. It is that most people never get past the buzzwords to the practical part, and that keeps the whole field smaller than it should be.

The BIMvoice Academy access is free and stays free: www.skool.com/bimvoiceacademy

4 weeks ago | [YT] | 6