How to add camera views to the BIMx Hyper-model

[Csaba_Kezer]

Did you know that you can predefine different navigation options for your BIMx model? By placing camera views into the Archicad project you can add movies to help your client explore the BIMx model. It is also possible to limit the navigation only to these videos/camera views. This article will guide you through this process step-by-step.

1. Add cameras to the Archicad project

Choose the Camera Tool from the Toolbox and place cameras on the Floor Plan view to the points from where you would like to show your building in 3D. The first click defines the position of the camera and the second click sets the direction where the camera looks. You can tweak the view settings further by changing the parameters in the Camera Tool's Settings dialog.

By placing the second Camera, Archicad automatically defines a camera path for you connecting the placed cameras. This path can be continued with adding further cameras.

Once you are finished with your camera path you can define a new path (or new separate camera view) by clicking the New button on the Camera Settings palette.

2. Save the Camera path as a View

To save the Camera path as a view simply drag & drop it in the Organizer from the left to the right between the Project Map and the View Map.

3. Set model navigation options at BIMx file export

Place the Camera path, or multiple Camera paths into your BIMx publisher set simply by dragging and dropping them in the Organizer from the View Map on the left to the selected Publisher Set on the right:

When selecting a Camera path in the publisher set you can control its settings by clicking on the Options… button:

In the BIMx Export Options / Gallery options there are two possibilities to choose from:

• Add cameras as separate gallery items (each camera in the camera path can be opened separately and there won’t be any connection between them)
• Create a single movie for the gallery (The camera will go through the path with the set speed and frame rate and display it as a movie.)

You can select the Add cameras as separate gallery items option for one of the camera paths and select the Create a single movie for the gallery option for the other camera path in your Publisher Set. This way you will have separate 3D models in your hyper-model. One of them will have the gallery items saved with, the other will have the movie saved with. More information about BIMx Export Options can be found here.

4. Export your BIMx Hyper-model

You can do this in two ways:

1. Using the Publish BIMx Hyper-model... from File menu (See details here.)
2. Using the Publisher (See details here.)

 

5. Check the camera views in BIMx

BIMx Web Viewer and Desktop Viewer

When you open the hyper-model in BIMx Desktop Viewer, you can select which model you want to view: the one with the gallery items or the one with the movie (or yet another one):

When opening the model that has the movie saved with, the movie will be played when you click on the gallery preview:

When opening the model that has the separate gallery items saved with, you can access them in the Gallery menu:

 

BIMx on iOS and Android

After opening the BIMx model on your mobile device, open the camera set you saved with the Publisher Set. The Camera views can be found in the Gallery menu. Depending on the chosen export option you can either have separate gallery items or a video to display here.

6. Gallery items as presentation slides in BIMx

The Gallery items you saved in Archicad and viewed in BIMx can be used as slides in the presentation feature in BIMx on mobile devices. Read more on this here.