Patrick Fritsch Posted November 6, 2013 Share Posted November 6, 2013 To all, what is a good method to share my VW model with my client. During the design development stage I often don't get into dimensions for everything and i'd like them to be able to navigate, measure and note the model to their liking. Thought Nomad did this, but their does not seem to be a "client" viewer. Previously, I use to send my sketchup models to clients and since it had a simple and free program version I could do this easily, but now I'm doing most of my design development in VW instead of Sketchup, so I'm stuck on this simple sharing concept. Any suggestions appreciated! 1 Quote Link to comment
Patrick Fritsch Posted November 7, 2013 Author Share Posted November 7, 2013 Bringing this back up, I can't imagine I'm the only one who want's to do this!? Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee PVA - Admin Posted November 7, 2013 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted November 7, 2013 So far I know of nothing that lets them note and return the model other than simple images/PDFs. The Vectorworks viewer will let them view the files fully now (they added Unified View to the viewer at long last) but I am fairly certain they would not be able to save. I know this role is the direction Nomad is headed in, but not how long until it gets there. Quote Link to comment
Jim Smith Posted November 7, 2013 Share Posted November 7, 2013 I know there is a thing called a 3D PDF but I don't think VW supports this function. There maybe a programme that will take your VW file and make a 3D PDF that can be marked up in Acrobat. Quote Link to comment
Monadnoc Posted November 7, 2013 Share Posted November 7, 2013 (edited) I haven't tried it myself, but the free opensource Meshlab software can import DAE or 3DS and export U3D (for a 3d pdf). It runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux. Worth a try. It's been on my list of programs to check out for a while. http://meshlab.sourceforge.net It would be very very nice if VW could export U3D itself. Edited November 7, 2013 by Monadnoc Quote Link to comment
bcd Posted November 7, 2013 Share Posted November 7, 2013 VW really needs to export directly to 3d pdf - it seems so obvious to me. The benefits to NV, the users and our clients are compelling. Quote Link to comment
Monadnoc Posted November 7, 2013 Share Posted November 7, 2013 Yes, VW needs to get on the train. Pretty much all of the other CAD programs already export directly to U3D. Bentley/Microstation was the first I think (they helped develop it). Here's a link to the Wikipedia article on it. Read through the list of programs that export to it at the bottom. Every player is on it (including Allplan and Archicad), except VW: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_3D Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee PVA - Admin Posted November 7, 2013 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted November 7, 2013 (edited) Wishlist request submitted. (Specifically for U3D as an export format.) Edited November 7, 2013 by JimW Quote Link to comment
Monadnoc Posted November 7, 2013 Share Posted November 7, 2013 Thanks. It sure is nice having you on board JimW. Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee PVA - Admin Posted November 7, 2013 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted November 7, 2013 Doing my best, I hope to see the results of all these wishlist requests soon. The point where I'll start to see the fruits of the recently restarted forum collaboration still a bit away in the production cycle, but within a few months it should get interesting. I can't openly speak about development specifics until they're given the green light, but I'll share everything I can. Quote Link to comment
bcd Posted November 7, 2013 Share Posted November 7, 2013 I too have to say thanks Jim - and to those enabling you to commit time/resources to the collaboration. I really appreciate the insight and information you're contributing and the confidence you're building. Quote Link to comment
michaelk Posted November 7, 2013 Share Posted November 7, 2013 Patrick Last year I played around with the demo of this: http://www.ar-works.net/u/ And I was pretty impressed. It does two things really well: 1. It gives the client access to visibility settings of the layers and classes you want the client to be able to see. This allows you to have option 1, option 2, etc and the client can just toggle between them. 2. It gives sliders for LIVE sections on all 3 axes. So the client can peer into the interior from any direction. It has some features that allow you to present the drawing remotely, but I found the best features was to provide a 3d model the client could play with on their own. mk Quote Link to comment
Assembly Posted November 7, 2013 Share Posted November 7, 2013 Our way of sharing the model is to use gotomeeting.com. We present the model to the client. They can direct us to show views they are interested in. We can note, they can take screen shots. Quote Link to comment
Patrick Fritsch Posted November 7, 2013 Author Share Posted November 7, 2013 Thanks for the ideas I'm going to try a couple of these. Quote Link to comment
Kevin McAllister Posted November 7, 2013 Share Posted November 7, 2013 You might find that this is what NV will start promoting - https://www.bimplus.net/en/About-bim-plus/ Its sort of beta at the moment. I just noticed it on the Architosh news site. Kevin Quote Link to comment
M5d Posted November 7, 2013 Share Posted November 7, 2013 BIM+ is IFC in the cloud. When the software arrives it will be interesting to see how effective it is, but; before it can be used, you must first tackle IFC export, which brings up the usual cost benefit questions. I'll go out on a limb and say, that like IFC anything it's not a practical or a financially viable pathway for small scale projects and would amount to a very heavy overhead for Fritsch's stated objective. It's not a free service either, unless you're an Allplan subscriber, which funnily enough, is also the native interface for BIM+. Quote Link to comment
Jeffrey W Ouellette Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 Guys, We have a partner for this very thing: CadFaster It works really well. Quote Link to comment
VincentCuclair Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 VW really needs to export directly to 3d pdf - it seems so obvious to me. The benefits to NV, the users and our clients are compelling. If only people would listen to me more :grin: http://techboard.vectorworks.net/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=25398&Number=120992#Post120992 Quote Link to comment
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