topic Re: Web Friendly VBE in BIMx

Web Friendly VBE

Anonymous — Tue, 09 May 2023 11:15:12 GMT

I love the idea of VBE creating stand-alone walk-through models and would like to look at possibilities of embedding these into web pages. Unfortunately *.exe is a very "unfriendly" web format
Does anyone know if its possible to produce or convert VBE files to Flash or Similar formats. Otherwise, is anyone aware of any other ArchiCAD plug-ins that can achieve this?

Re: Web Friendly VBE

NCornia — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 00:47:57 GMT

I agree with you. With so many services going cloud-based this only seems logical. And as you stated .exe files are not web friendly. My concern when sending these to people is that it will either get filtered out as a possible threat and I am very wary myself of opening a .exe unless I know it is from a trusted/reliable source. It would be nice if Graphisoft setup a site that the models could be uploaded to and then a private link could be sent to the client.

Re: Web Friendly VBE

stefan — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 13:55:07 GMT

Look at Unity3D. Export a realtime project into a web-applet (requires browser plugin, but free and cross-platform).

http://unity3d.com

With some effort you can get ArchiCAD models loaded into it.

Re: Web Friendly VBE

Emre Senoglu — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 18:16:25 GMT

As Stefan already mentioned it Unity3D is a nice tool for interactive 3D models. It actually allows a lot more customization then VBE, so thats a big plus. The downside is however that you have to do all the work manually, such as illumination, character controllers etc. However, if you have basic knowledge of 3D modelling, it shouldnt be much of a problem. I'm still experimenting with Unity3D myself, and so far I've managed to actually export a 3D model from ArchiCAD to Unity. The process, however doesnt work directly from ArchiCAD to Unity, but you have to first export your model to Cinema 4D or similiar 3D modelling programs to bake the illumination (shadows, gi etc) onto the textures. Only then, you can import the model in Unity (accepts pretty much all of 3d files), add the first person controller, and publish it as a web build.

Here's one of the tests i've done: unity test
its still quite buggy, but I think it shows the potentials of Unity3D for architectural uses

Re: Web Friendly VBE

stefan — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 10:58:42 GMT

Emre, very nice lighting and visual quality on your model. The first-person controller you set up, however, I would suggest the following:

speed > slow down. Visitors don't know the project. They need to adapt to it. High speed is not good for this.

camera angle > too wide, which is nice to see more of the interior, but it distorts perspective quite a bit and makes it a more dizzying experience.

But the nice thing with Unity3D > you have control over this. You can tweak it.

Did you do the baking in Cinema4D? How did you separate between shadows and regular textures and have that survive in Cinema4D? I could not bake it into two separate maps (textures and lighting).

Re: Web Friendly VBE

Emre Senoglu — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 11:58:19 GMT

Stefan, you're right about your observations. Instead of scaling the model, I scaled down the character controller, and that always causes problems. I need to tweak the char controller, and the viewfield option.

About the baking process, yep, I did it in C4D by using the "bake object" command. In my opinion its easier than the bake texture tag. In your scene you should have the GI open, and all the lights/shadows set correctly. Then when you hit bake, in the end of the process the program creates you a new material with the 2 textures attached to it; luminance, and diffusion. Then you can easily use those 2 files in Unity by creating a Lightmap Material.

Try experimenting with bake object. Its fairly easy. C4D also allows you to bake groups, so instead of baking each wall and object, you can just pick the walls group imported from the archicad model and bake all the wall textures into a single file (well 2 files, one for tex. one for lum.) Note that you have to check the right options in bake object dialog to get the GI and the AO settings correctly.

If you still cant manage to get it done, I'll try sending you screenshots of the process 😉

Re: Web Friendly VBE

stefan — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 14:47:34 GMT

Emre wrote:
Try experimenting with bake object. Its fairly easy. C4D also allows you to bake groups, so instead of baking each wall and object, you can just pick the walls group imported from the archicad model and bake all the wall textures into a single file (well 2 files, one for tex. one for lum.) Note that you have to check the right options in bake object dialog to get the GI and the AO settings correctly.

If you still cant manage to get it done, I'll try sending you screenshots of the process 😉

I would love some tips.

I currently use following process:

http://vimeo.com/11049137
http://vimeo.com/11049171
http://vimeo.com/11049240

But it could be improved with separate textures. But I had difficulties applying it all correctly and having it transferred into Unity3D (that is, having two sets of UV coordinates survive the translation).

Re: Web Friendly VBE

Anonymous — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 11:16:38 GMT

Sticky world is a online collaboration tool which allows 3D models to be uploaded and navigated. You need to save the following files:
DAE
KMZ
ZIP

It only works with sketch up versions before 7....

Does anyone have a cost effective way of converting AC files to DAE? Or to sketchup 7 without paying for pro version?

Cheers

Matt

Re: Web Friendly VBE

stefan — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 08:46:17 GMT

mattb wrote:
Does anyone have a cost effective way of converting AC files to DAE? Or to sketchup 7 without paying for pro version?
Cheers
Matt

Blender (http://www.blender.org) is Open Source and can load 3ds files (e.g. from ArchiCAD 3D Window) and export them into DAE.

Cost: nothing.
Works on Windows and OSX (and Linux and ...)

You have to try to see if this workflow is usable, though.

Re: Web Friendly VBE

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 21:12:22 GMT

Alex wrote:
I love the idea of VBE creating stand-alone walk-through models and would like to look at possibilities of embedding these into web pages. Unfortunately *.exe is a very "unfriendly" web format
Does anyone know if its possible to produce or convert VBE files to Flash or Similar formats. Otherwise, is anyone aware of any other ArchiCAD plug-ins that can achieve this?

Hi Alex, we have something in the works that will hopefully solve this problem for you. but can't say much at this stage....