Development of Browser based 3D viewer and 3D Mobile Device viewer

Business Challenge:

In today’s engineering world when your design teams are not just separated by the Model parts they are designing but also by the locations where they sit, it is important to share models instantly, letting your co-workers see and work on suggested changes in real-time. The challenge can be resolved by working with a browser based 3D Model visualization and collaboration tool. The database of designs can also be maintained on such a tool and in this way, knowledge is not limited to one expert and designers need not re-create the design every time.

With this need in mind, our client approached ProtoTech Solutions to design a browser based platform to store past projects which could be retrieved by the sales and design teams while preparing quotes and process chart for new projects. The 3D Models would need to be viewed in a web browser as well as on mobile devices.

Solution:

Browser based 3D viewer
The team at ProtoTech developed a 3D web viewer by integrating a proprietary data exchange SDK (Software Development Kit). In the developed application, users can:-

• Safely and securely store all legacy files on their browser
• Search for past projects
• Share and collaborate with other stakeholders
• Draw a bounding box around any CAD model and use the measurement tool for faces or vertices to calculate surface area or volume
• Translate any CAD model to any other on the cloud & view all of your models
• Compare revisions of the same project or a project with similar geometry

Mobile 3D Viewer:

The team used Open source 3D framework to develop a mobile application (iOS and Android based). Users can perform measurements, check bounding box and perform all 3D interactions on the 3D Model. The mobile application provides freedom and flexibility to the sales/design team to prepare and provide quotes on mobile devices.

Project execution:

1. The client was working with another large Indian IT company for its product development but that company lacked a 3D background. ProtoTech transformed the basic 3D viewer to a fully functional advanced 3D web and mobile viewer within a very short time. The team was flexible enough to adopt the existing process and managed to work well with other development teams
2. The team held weekly update meetings and provided daily progress reports
3. The team significantly reduced the managerial overhead for the client who is very happy to engage with ProtoTech on ongoing development work.