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Three.js AEC Viewer Progress on Two Fronts

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by

Jeremy Tammik
in ,

Along with our everyday workload, my colleagues and I are busy playing with the View and Data API and the powerful

WebGL based viewer that is on the verge of release.

Meanwhile, very significant progress has also been made on the public domain and open source

vA3C three.js based AEC viewer.

The Autodesk View and Data API WebGL Based Viewer

I mentioned that I presented the Autodesk View and Data API and viewer technology at the

July basel.js meetup.
My colleagues have been showing it off in many other places all over the world.

It is still not fully public.
You can request an API key today.
The request currently still needs to be manually confirmed.
If you are really serious about getting into this and gathering some experience right away, please let us know.
We can accommodate dozens of pilot testers, but not hundreds.

The fully public release and automated confirmation of API key requests is expected no later than September 8-10, the date of the upcoming
apigee conference in
San Francisco.

Another important milestone for me personally will be the
hackzurich hackathon,
‘the largest hackathon Switzerland has ever seen’, held October 10-12, which
Philippe Leefsma and I will be attending.

Here is a blurb about our topic by
Cyrille Fauvel:

Bring Complex 3D Models to WebGL in a Simple Way

WebGL is a very powerful technology for enriching the web with graphics. How can we get it into the hands of the creators? We discuss some aspects of building 3D models and how to bring them to life on the web through a smooth streamlined pipeline, providing coders, designers and artists alike a strong and powerful web graphics tool. In addition to easily bringing your 3D models to the web, the viewer (based on three.js) includes an API allowing close interaction with the 3D model and querying element metadata. We demonstrate how WebGL experiences created with the Autodesk View and Data API engine can be elevated to the next level by making 3D models even more immersive and engaging with practical hands-on demonstrations and samples.

So much for the exciting (near) future perspective from the corporate CAD world.

Now, for a look at the other end of the spectrum:

Significant Progress on the vA3C Project

As said, significant progress has also been made on the grass-roots, public domain and open source

vA3C three.js based AEC viewer that
was initiated at the

AEC hackathon in
New York in May.

vA3C is an open source, browser-based 3D model viewer for AEC models that uses three.js to render 3D geometry in the browser.
vA3C enables authors in the AEC industry to easily publish their 3D design work on the web, for free.

Here are my previous posts on the topic:

The vA3C viewer has made huge progress since its initial implementation, mainly propelled by the inexhaustible Theo Armour, who also originally initiated the whole project.

The main new enhancements include:

  • Huge collection of new sample models
  • Editing geometry, lights, camera, etc.
  • Adding models
  • Export

The new capabilities mean that this project enables a poor man’s Navisworks and more, for free, today: export 3D BIM models from any authoring software of your choice, combine them all into one view, edit the composite model as you please, access all metadata you like, link to any additional data sources of your choice, and export the result for further use.

Pretty cool, huh, for such a small team – mainly Theo, as far as I can tell – in such a short time – twelve weeks.

This goes to show many things, among others the power and flexibility of JavaScript, HTML5, and all the new cloud and web technologies.
You can achieve things in a matter of weeks that previously took years to accomplish.

For more information, please refer to the following documentation and samples:

The future is looking bright, interesting and exciting, at least on this technical front.

Sadly, other areas are full of suffering.

Death suffering from burnout

Syria, Iraq, Islamic Nation, Gaza, Libya, Ukraine, Boko Haram, Ebola…! I can’t stand it anymore! – Typical burnout! You should take a break! – zeitimblick

Addendum – Letting Go of Suffering and Striving for Peace

The most important place I know of to start striving for peace is within my own self.

First of all, I recognize my own suffering and aggression.

As the Buddhists say, the root cause of suffering is

clinging and rejection.

My main hope for transforming my own pain is self-observation and acceptance of what is.

I pray:
Lokah samastah sukhino bhavantu – may all beings everywhere be happy and free.

Continued….

Comments

2 responses to “Three.js AEC Viewer Progress on Two Fronts”

  1. theoa Avatar
    theoa

    Hi Jeremy
    Thanks for the nice thoughts regarding the vA3C Viewer.

    You can achieve things in a matter of weeks that previously took years to accomplish.
    May I expand this thought of yours a bit? How’s this:
    You – as a designer, architect or PE – can achieve things in a matter of weeks that previously took – highly skilled computer science pros – years to accomplish.
    Another aspect is that coding is going from being a drudgery because most things you try seem to fail to being more like a game that’s fun because you keep succeeding in writing lines of code that just seem to work.
    The new capabilities mean that this project enables a poor man’s Navisworks and more, for free, today
    Perhaps the goal should be that Navisworks is complemented by the FOSS apps such as vA3C Viewer. An office of professionals requires stable, mature, professional tools – such as Navisworks.
    The FOSS viewers on the other hand are more useful for experimentation and to circulate designs further out and into the minds of people not directly involved with AEC.

    I am just back from a week in our Yellowstone National Park, observing bison, grizzly bears, elk, wolves and chipmunks. Survived five days with no Internet.

    Rev 6 of the vA3C Viewer should be out in a few days. It adds Drag and Drop capability as well as far more robust file opening capability. Once opening files becomes stable then it will be possible to really start adding features and trying out crazy fun things.
    In the meantime it would be great to have access to some more Revit files with BIM data that have been converted to the Three.js JSON format. This would really help with testing and feature development.
    Perhaps we could talk this over in the vA3C Google Group?

    Again, Jeremy, thank you for insight and your willingness to think outside of the box when it comes trying to solve the issues of helping more people live and work in safe, affordable and well-designed structures.
    Theo

    Reply
  2. Jeremy Tammik Avatar
    Jeremy Tammik

    Dear Theo,
    Thank you for your appreciation and sharing your valuable experience here.
    You say: “… it would be great to have access to some more Revit files with BIM data that have been converted to the Three.js JSON format. This would really help with testing and feature development. Perhaps we could talk this over in the vA3C Google Group?”
    Yes, of course, I would love to.
    Just point me where, please, or start a new thread for the topic.
    I will love to help, and hope that it should not be a huge effort to update the existing Revit exporter to achieve that.
    Thank you!
    Cheers, Jeremy.

    Reply

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