Introducing the Forge AR|VR Toolkit

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One-click workflow from Revit -> interactive 3D
Targets Autodesk Stingray
LIVE 1.1 beta supports Oculus Rift & HTC Vive

Backed by a web-based content preparation service

High-end visualization, commonly used in Automotive
Collaborative features based on internal Forge service
Local & remote design review via avatars

Enough PPT, lets show you a few Forge powered experiences – all in web browsers so no app to install and maintain. All these are code samples your developers can leverage to quickly build your own custom tailored experiences for sharing design and engineering data securely – without sharing your source CAD files – and without the messiness of having to export and manage revisions of numerous file formats. Forge web services insures everyone has access to the most current data in the format they need – right now.

Click on each image to open the web page for demoing.

The first experience is what I call a Marketing experience – showing beautiful “products” on a web site designed to be “responsive” (looks good on most any mobile device). Explore the design, “explode” it. See how it fits together. Get a feel for the design. This is using the Forge View & Data web service… that allows you to deliver this kind of experience with models from 60+ file formats. Is this model from Inventor, Alias, SolidWorks, CREO or wherever? For your marketing team they likely don’t want to know and don’t care. They just need to see the model and get the data they need to build a great brochure or web page. And the Forge Platform is easy to use. Simple HTML5 and JavaScript. A web developer can build an experience like this in just a few hours.

The second experience is what I call “Manufacturing”. There is a mix of model, attribute data available by just clicking on a component in the model, model “structure” (an assembly tree) – and at times more importantly data in an external database that lets you know things like Manufacturer of a material, cost of the material – information coming from an ERP system. In this sample the data is in MongoDB up in the Cloud – but could just as easily be in SAP, Oracle, salesforce.com, NetSuite, SharePoint or where ever. The model, the part and assembly attributes, the external data all linked together enabling easy exploration and discovery by the “whole team” working on a new project/product. The kind of information that can greatly accelerate time to market – and eliminate problems such as in manufacturability and maintenance early in the process – without having to share the source CAD files. Again from any device – through most any browser – anywhere. I hope you are starting to get what Forge is about – a web services platform that “liberates” your design data – while keeping it secure at the same time – keeping a single source of truth for design data – and avoiding “revision hell” that results when design files are passed around. Enabling the right people to access the right data in the way they want/need to see it – anywhere anytime. Seamless/connected. Data at the center. Again the source of this design information can be from any number of CAD systems. You never have to share the source CAD model outside the engineering team – while delivering the information the folks in Marketing, Manufacturing or Maintennance (or Construction) need.

The third Forge powered experience – what I am calling Maintenance, shows mixing a 3D model with 2D. The model and drawings are linked. Picking an entity in one view highlights/isolates the entity in the other view. Making it very easy to explore and learn about a design in depth. The pie and bar charts are wired to the model and 2D drawings too – so pick on a pie slice or bar and the view changes in 3D and the entities are highlighted in 2D. Pick on entities in either view along with the Properties button – to see all the properties of the entity. Do various searches to find entities of certain types – doors, windows, pipes, and so on. The folks building or updating the factory floor can have access to the data they need - whether to improve a process, fix a problem, or maintain equipment. On most any device on most any browser. Easy.

Forge is being used by a number of large companies already to share design and engineering data across their organizations – and in some cases with their customers and suppliers/contractors. JE Dunn a billion dollar construction company in the southeast of the US. A company based in northern California that builds product many of you have in your pocket. COWI in Denmark. One of the largest IT services company in the world. A startup that uses Forge to turn photos of facilities and construction sites made by drones into models to track project progress - 3D Robotics. All using Forge to create competitive advantage specific to their industry and their company.

The Forge platform improves processes and breaks down silos by connecting information and streamlining workflows.
As the feedback loop gets even tighter, it becomes possible to respond even more quickly.
For this to happen everyone from deisgn through manufacturing and construction need both access not only to the right data, but the tools necessary to turn that information into something truly useful.
Autodesk’s Forge platform provides both the frame work and building blocks for the applications that will power the future of making things.

Today, the process of designing and making everything generates valuable information. This information is generated by multiple sources and can be lost or needlessly recreated through siloed workflows and linear processes. The sheer number and distribution of players and tools further complicates workflows and creates inefficiencies.

Forge makes those connections.

Forge web services work with many different design and engineering formats – Inventor, SolidWorks, Fusion 360, AutoCAD, SolidEdge, PTC CREO, CATIA, STEP, IGES, SketchUp, IFC, OBJ, FBX… over 60 design and engineering formats in all. You can use Forge to securely deliver just the information you want to share in the format the user needs quickly and easily – and deliver to most any device. Viewing, BOM, tessellated data for marketing and simulation, materials/volumes/weights/part numbers for costing and ERP, STL files for 3D Printing and more. Using industry standard technologies like HTML5 and JavaScript, and a REST web service architecture, your software developers or consultants can quickly and easily build sharing and collaboration experiences into your intranet, extranet, or wherever – prototyping a sharing experience in a few man days and delivering in a few man weeks.

Today challenges

Bringing design data into real-time interactive engines often involves a clunky, off-line data preparation process, which is a problem:
It’s often manual. You need people to carry out these conversion steps, tweak the data appropriately, and make decisions along the way. This usually also means that the process is slow.

It’s expensive, since you need people with special expertise in visualization tools and optimizing data for real-time use.

It’s one-way. If you make a ton of changes in data prep, what happens when the original design data needs to change upstream? Often all that work tweaking the data is lost.

And all that is before you even get started having to design and implement the ways that people will experience and work with that design data inside your interactive engine.

Meet the Forge AR|VR Toolkit.

The Forge AR|VR Toolkit is a collection of technology that can help you to build new immersive experiences around Forge data.

We don’t believe there’s one single workflow or toolset that will do the job for all customers and all use cases – the data pipeline and the real-time experience interacting with the data need to be open to support the best solutions for each different situation.

19th-century stock exchange, now a conference venue with both modern & ornate spaces for events.

Toolkit Target audience

CAD Designers who need to collaborate, experiencing a design together virtually may let them solve problems more easily

Customers may understand their options better when immersed in the design

Field professionals can work safer, faster, and better when the BIM data is at their fingertips, in context of the real world.

Or maybe you have a truly new idea for an AR|VR experience that will revolutionize the way one can design and build.

The Forge AR|VR Toolkit may be for you if:

You’re a developer. Did we mention that this is a work in progress? The technology paths that make up the toolkit aren’t fully polished products yet – they’re working samples, demos and proofs of concept that are meant to give you a head start. You’ll want to take these raw materials and refine them for your own needs.

You’re already working with Forge. One thing that all the technology paths in the toolkit will share is that they will all interact with Forge. That means you’ll see the most value in exploring what the toolkit has to offer if your organization has already built other custom apps, services or internal workflows around the Forge data platform. If you’re not using Forge already, what are you waiting for?

Your organization wants to invest in building unique experiences around your designs. We're trying to give you some solutions for the nuts-and-bolts technical problems involved in building immersive design experiences. If you think that you can put this toolkit to work in order to solve a real-world business problem, we want to hear about it and we want to help.