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Viewing a Navisworks File on Your iPad

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by

Mikako Harada
in ,

By Mikako Harada

Many of you probably heard about BIM 360 Glue by now. It has an iPad application. Being able to view and manipulate a model with your finger tips on your mobile device is truly break through. One tip that I learned from my colleague in Japan is that if you have BIM 360 Glue iPad application installed, you can open a Navisworks nwd file attached to your e-mail in your iPad. (I must confess that our Navisworks API liaisons did told me about this viewer capability, but I wasn't simply getting it.) 

After you install BIM 360 Glue mobile app for iPad, if you tap nwd file, you will see an icon to open it in BIM 360 Glue (image below):

Glue1a

You can then view it in the Glue app, and use your fingers to scale, rotate and zoom in/out. You can also view properties and use the measuring tool. Below show a sample image of using measure tool:  

Glue2a

The app is free!  If you haven't experienced BIM 360 Glue mobile app, please try it. And don't forget to try out Immersive View (one of little round buttons at 12 o'clock around lower left corner). For more information, I refer to an article on the Beyond Design blog.

Comments

15 responses to “Viewing a Navisworks File on Your iPad”

  1. Rigel Networks Avatar
    Rigel Networks

    Hey Mikako,
    Is there any way i can create a plugin for Navisworks in .net which will export geometry & objects and then I am able to read from IOS ?
    I want to export data model created in my Navisworks manage and able to see on IOS but I dont want to use BIM 360 Glue IOS app , Is there any other way i can do ???
    Your help will be appreciated ??/
    Thanks
    Tech@ Rigel

    Reply
  2. Mikako Harada Avatar
    Mikako Harada

    Hi Rigel,
    No straightforward way. You may try exporting to FBX or DWF and use other tools like FBX SDK or DWFtoolkit to extract geometry. (I need to warn you that I don’t know those SDK and support might be limited to Forum only as oppose to through ADN.)
    Xiaodong also wrote the following post:
    http://adndevblog.typepad.com/aec/2012/05/get-primitive-from-solid-of-navisworks.html
    It might give you an idea.

    Reply
  3. eochoa Avatar
    eochoa

    I downloaded it and it will not let me open my model due to an error saying the model is to large (322,964KB) whats the largest file it can open?

    Reply
  4. Hellan Avatar
    Hellan

    I am expecting more interesting topics from you. And this was nice content and definitely it will be useful for many people.
    ios App Development Company

    Reply
  5. Mike Avatar
    Mike

    You can also open files you have in your A360 drive from the A360 app. Click on the file and choose to copy it to the Bim 360 Glue app.

    Reply
  6. Ruben Montanez Avatar
    Ruben Montanez

    What if it says file is too big?

    Reply
  7. Ruben Montanez Avatar
    Ruben Montanez

    Did you ever figure this out? I’m having the same issue.

    Reply
  8. Mikako Harada Avatar
    Mikako Harada

    Googling, found this on the product page:
    https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/bim-360-glue/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/BIM-360-Glue-The-model-is-too-large-to-open.html
    Maybe try suggestions listed on the page.

    Reply
  9. Pablo Mancheno Avatar
    Pablo Mancheno

    BIM 360 glue, is excellent for managing, coordinating and reviewing nwd files if they are synchronized with the ipad, I manage to manipulate and open truly large files of process plants, refineries, generation and brings a lot of versatility to the construction work. It would be excellent if it were possible to touch a point of the geometry and to give me rectangular data of the point, that would allow me to work with project data with respect to 0.0,0 of Plant.
    https://estudiobim.bimanch.com

    Reply
  10. MEGAN W Avatar
    MEGAN W

    FOLLOWING THIS QUESTION… CAN YOU DOWNLOAD IT FROM DROPBOX?

    Reply
  11. Mike Zieris Avatar
    Mike Zieris

    please let me know how to if you figure this out. I am trying to view my project , someone told me to upload file online to something maybe …..freedom then somehow loads to glue i can not figure it out even how to get a file to bim 360 glue

    Reply
  12. Aaron Wagner Avatar
    Aaron Wagner

    Does this still work? Some field engineers are reporting that it no longer works for them.

    Reply
  13. Mikako Harada Avatar
    Mikako Harada

    I just tried installing it on my iPad (Pro iOS 14.3) and tried with a little gate house sample. (while thinking that this post is quite old.) To my surprise, it works. You may contact product support team to verify if it is officially supported or not.

    Reply
  14. Abin Anilkumar Avatar
    Abin Anilkumar

    can we open NWC file in glue

    Reply
  15. Johnny Touch Avatar
    Johnny Touch

    File size depends on the amount of RAM storage in your iPad. Newer models have more.

    Reply

Leave a Reply to Johnny TouchCancel reply

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