How to Present with BIMx

[Emoke Csikos]

Introduction

Architects can present their design in an easy way that will surely astonish their clients. BIMx introduces presentation support both on iOS and Android devices. BIMx helps you deliver engaging, interactive design presentations on the fly. Thanks to the Presenter feature of BIMx, architects and clients can all enjoy a super-easy-to-use design pitch experience.

You can create animated presentations from Favorite views saved in the mobile app or present Gallery items (camera positions or a camera path) defined in Archicad. 

Presenting Gallery items is part of the free iOS and Android apps. However, creating Favorites is a PRO functionality that you can use either by joining BIMcloud or with an active BIMx PRO subscription. See BIMx License Types for more information.

The following article describes the two ways of creating presentations and how to play them in BIMx.

Compose the presentation from Favorites

• Open one of the 3D models or layouts of your Hyper-model
• Navigate to the desired position so that you get the exact view you want to present
• Align sun position in 3D as you wish
• Tap on the book icon to open the Favorites palette:

• Tap on the plus icon to save the current view as a new Favorite
• Name the new item
• Go on and save as many Favorites as you want to include in your presentation. 

You can modify the list of Favorites

• Tap on the Edit button to open edit mode:

• You can rename the items by tapping on their names
• You can delete a Favorite by tapping on the red "Delete" symbol on the left
• You can delete all of them at once by using the Delete All button at the bottom of the palette
• You can hide the items you want to keep but don't want to include in the presentation by sliding the green toggle to the "off" position
• You can change their order by dragging one by the reorder control on the right and moving it to the right position in the list
• Tap on "Done" to finish editing
• You can return to the home view (the one the model always opens with - this is defined in Archicad) by tapping on the "Home" icon
• Use Fit to screen and 1:1 buttons to help you navigate and define the best views of your Hyper-model

The followings are saved to Favorites:

• 3D:
  • Camera position
  • Shading (Cash Shadows/Hidden Line, etc)
  • Sun position and shadow intensity
  • Camera View Cone
  • Horizontal/vertical cut plane
  • Traced layout
• 2D:
  • Actual zoom with blue highlight in the preview image

Compose the presentation to Gallery

Gallery items can only be created in Archicad. See How to add camera views to the BIMx Hyper-model. Depending on the chosen export option, you can either have separate Gallery images or a video to display in the Gallery palette.

• You can view Gallery items not only in the mobile apps but in BIMx Desktop Viewer and in the Web Viewer application on the BIMx Model Transfer site or on BIMcloud too.
• In BIMx Mobile, tap on the book icon, and then on the gallery symbol to open the Gallery palette:

• Layouts cannot be saved as Gallery items
• You cannot modify their names and order in BIMx
• Gallery items cannot be deleted in BIMx 

Perform the presentation

Presenting Favorites (2D and 3D) and Gallery items (3D) works the same way in BIMx mobile apps.

• Tap on the "Screen" icon in the upper-right corner of the palette. This leads you to presentation mode and opens the selected Favorite or Gallery item in full screen. The navigation controls vanish, and presentation controls appear:

 

• Start playing the video by tapping on the "Play" button in the bottom-left corner.
• "Next" and "Previous" buttons on the left and right edge of the screen to manually switch between the predefined views of the presentation. After a few seconds, the controls disappear, so the whole screen is dedicated to the perfect display of the design. Despite this, the "Next" and "Previous" buttons are still sensitive, so you can use them by tapping on their area.
• The progress slider on the bottom of the screen helps you to jump easily to any Gallery item or Favorite since you get thumbnail previews as you slide your finger on the progress bar.
• If you saved a video (with a Camera path), tap the "Play" button in the preview image to start the presentation. 

Auto-play the presentation

• You can auto-play the presentation: tap on the screen, and the controls appear. Tap on the "Play" button on the left side of the progress slider at the bottom of the screen. BIMx will move through the presentation without any further user input.
• You can even loop the automatic playback function by using the "Loop" button on the right side of the progress bar (blue: on, grey: off).
• See a gallery video looped:

• You can exit the presentation at any time by using the "X" in the upper right corner of the screen. You can continue exploring the Hyper-model manually. You will be where the presentation was stopped.

Notes on Hyper-model update:

• Previously saved Favorites are kept and stored locally on your mobile device
• Previously saved Gallery items' content is updated if they are affected by the changes in the model
• Index images of Gallery items will not be updated