Using a SolidWorks design, I show here how easy it is to upload a design that all team members can access.

Here is the Power Painter 3D Model I Published from SolidWorks in the video.  I also need to give credit to the SolidWorks team for the design–nice work!

It doesn’t get much easier!

This is a great way to share and show off your 3D models and collaborate on your 3D designs with others.

See all of Cliff’s Clips on the 3DVIA-TV Features Page…

Be sure to reply to this post with your embedded examples and ideas for future tips and tricks.

As mentioned in our first Tips & Tricks post, DCC stands for Digital Content Creation.  It is the industry term defining the use of 3D applications like 3DVIA Shape, Maya, 3D Studio Max and XSI  and the creation of 3D content for use in films and real time interactive applications like games and virtual training. In this blog, I’ll cover the best file format to upload to 3DVIA, as well as some of the processes you can use to get the best results.

File Format

A small industry by comparison, 3D is still not without its industry standard format disputes.  There are well over a dozen established 3D file formats.  Recently however there has been a push to develop an industry-wide format that would work for all DCC applications.  The most widely used are also the oldest formats, often dropping support for newer functions due to their age.  Formats like OBJ and 3DS format, were created long ago (in a galaxy far away)  and cannot possibly contain some of the newer and now standard information in a 3D file.

The OBJ and 3DS File formats are the old work horses of the industry. Unfortunately, sometimes they don’t handle transparencies and smoothing groups that well, which makes their use a bit random in quality consistency.

The DAE File format is an open source format, in use by or supported by all the major DCC applications and fully supported here at 3DVIA.  If possible, this is the format we recommend you use when uploading your models to the website.  You can find information about the Collida DAE exporter from Feeling Software’s website.

Textures

The best practices for creating textures for use on 3DVIA can be found here.

Processing and Set up

Our player has basic lighting, so in order to showcase your model at its best, add as much lighting information as possible into the textures.  Using hand-painted highlights and shadows, all the way to baking the lighting and occlusion information into a file and layering it on top of your texture is the best way to show off your model on 3DVIA.

Most DCC applications will let you bake the lighting information onto a texture file, but if you can’t, you can simply add some highlights and shadows to your models texture.  Just grab a color,  make it a little darker or lighter and paint!  Its very similar to hand painting miniatures for table top games like Games-Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000.

A model always looks better in its environment.   Something as simple as adding a ground plane to showcase the shadows will add much realism and weight to your model.   If you go further, you can create a small diorama or piece of terrain for your model to sit on.  Always remember not to overdo it, the focus of your attention should be on your model not your setting!

Shaders

The standard staples are the best when it comes to displaying your work online. Lambert and Blinn shaders can handle a large variety of options. The 3DVIA Web Player currently picks up on Diffuse, Ambient, Transparency, and Specularity with more support for advance features currently in the works. Only the diffuse channel can have a texture map. As a general tip, however, go through your shaders before exporting and if you see your ambient value is set to 0 (or ambient color set to black), change it or move the slider up to 40% of the way. This will ensure your textures show up with rich color under the default lighting. Kind of like TV star needing make up to be on stage!

Construction

As I’ve discussed in this post, there are two types of rendering, Pre-Rendering and Real-Time Rendering. 3DVIA’s web player falls into the Real-Time Rendering category, just like the games we all play everyday. It’s optimally rendering the view on the screen 30 times every second (also called the frame rate).

As artists, we do everything we can to maintain a good frame rate when we are working on a model for use in a Real-Time Rendering application. Along with the tips I’ve covered in “Staying on your Polygon Diet” blog post, pay attention to your texture file sizes as these are the largest contributors to your overall model file size.  Anything you can do to reduce the size of your uploaded file will help the player display your model more fluidly.

Lastly, remember that the 3DVIA Player has the option to view your models in wireframe.  There are many DCC artists out there, and we have a tendency to judge not just by looks but also by quality of construction. Always check the poly flow of a model, and give it a final pass over before you upload.  If you want to learn more as to why polyflow is important, check out one of my previous posts on the subject here.

That’s all I have for DCC tips for now,
This is Juan, Signing Off.

There are well over two dozen different 3D applications with a variety of tools and complexity in use by 3D artists around the world today. Our website, 3DVIA supports the majority of these programs through a few key file formats and texture formats.  In this series of articles we will discover the best ways to upload and show off your work, and discuss individual tips and best practices for 3DVIA Shape, DCC and CAD users.  In this first blog, we will cover the general tips that work for any user.

Vocabulary:
DCC- Digital Content Creation- A term describing 3D animation tools like Maya and 3D Max.
CAD- Computer Aided Design- drafting, engineering and architecture tools like CATIA.

General Tips
I’ve spoken before about the different requirements of Real Time Rending vs. Pre-rendering in this post “Not All 3D is created Equal” and along those lines you can see how a more complex model would take up more resources when being displayed over an online medium in Real Time.  The following are a few ways you can help keep your model file size down:

Model Construction
There are a few techniques that I have covered in this previous post “Staying on your Polygon Diet” that will help greatly with file size and complexity. 

Textures
- The majority of a model’s file size may come from your textures. Using a compressed format like JPG or PNG is the key.

- Keep your texture sizes at or below 1024 x 1024 pixels. The size and resolution of a texture greatly affect the file size of the texture.  3DVIA.com automatically reduces in size and quality any texture greater than 1024 x 1024 during the upload process.

- If you are using Photoshop, a good tip is to use the “Save for Web & Devices..” save option and use 60% quality.  This will reduce the file size greatly, while maintaining quality.

- When using repeatable textures, crop the texture down to a single iteration. all 3D programs tile textures across an unlimited spectrum, so you only need the smallest building block for a repeatable pattern.

General Tricks
There are a few less well known tricks that will allow you to get the most out of 3DVIA. Most of these involve the use of 3DVIA Shape Remix and the 3DVIA Player.

3DVIA Shape Remix- This is one of those unique things that put 3DVIA above the rest. We’ve talked about Remix and about the requirements to allow your models to be used in a Remix before but the main ones are:      
                                   -File size after upload to 3dvia.com is less than 2mb
                                   -Model is public.

NOTE: If you think you’ve done everything right to allow the model to be usable in shape but are still getting the message in the model information window “Not Usable in Shape(?)” click on the question mark for more information on the reason its not usable.

Lets say your model is too big and you can’t or don’t have time to change the textures.  What you can do is upload the model in smaller parts, and then “assemble it” online with 3DVIA Shape Remix!

3DVIA Player- Very few people know that the player has some powerful built-in capabilities, and we’ve made all these tools available from the radial menu:

•  Adding a shader- You can can cycle through a selection of shader included in the 3dvia player by pressing and holding the middle mouse button and moving the mouse to the Shader button.  Repeated use of the button will cycle through all these shaders:                                  
                                    -Cartoon Shader
                                    -Sparkling Shader
                                    -Fresnel Environment Shader
                                    -Double Sided directional Shader

Changing the models position-  Sometimes your model displays at a weird angle or position.  You can fix this!  When you middle mouse click, you not only open the radial menu but you also set a marker for were you want the camera to focus on and rotate around.  Using this same marker, you can select a point on the model indicating this is the direction you want to face downwards and select reposition model from the radial menu.  The player will automatically reorient the model using your market as its new “ground level”

Saving your Settings-  All of this would be for naught if you couldn’t share it with your friends.  As long as you are logged and you own the model you can save the shader and position settings by selecting “Save the current settings” from the radial menu.

NOTE: As of this moment the ability to update / change the thumbnail is not possible, but it is something we are all looking forward too, as soon as I have an update I’ll let you guys know.

Next up we will look at Tips & Tricks for Shape, DCC and CAD Applications, so stay tuned!

-Juan

3DVIA has 120 groups (at last count) that users have created! They are a great place to easily find a bunch of models that get your motor running and to meet like-minded 3D modelers to talk about what your special interests. Each of the 24 images in this post are direct links to existing groups. Just hover your mouse over the image and you’ll see the group topic. (Some are more obvious than others.)

This post is a quick intro to 3DVIA Groups and how to find them.

We’ll also be doing regular spotlight blogs on specific groups to help show them off and attract new members who may not have known about the treasures they hold.

How do I find 3DVIA Groups? It’s as simple as 1, 2 or maybe 3…

This image shows just the top of the home page. Go to each numbered section below to see where it takes you and to find out more about 3DVIA Groups. Each of you will find your own best way to get to your favorite groups!

The fastest way to find find what you’re looking for is to type a keyword into the search box and then change the drop-down list to “Groups” and then click on “OK”. This is what you’ll see if you type in “trucks”:

You can see that each Group snapshot shows how many models, how many members and how many discussions there are in that group.

Another fast way to get to 3DVIA Groups is to simply click on the “groups” link in the main “Search, Upload & Share in 3D!” box. This will take you to the Groups page where you’ll find the whole list in alphabetical order. You can use the “Group Search” box to narrow your search further using names or tags by themselves.

Yet another way will take two clicks; 1- click on the “Community” tab, which will take you to the main Community page:

Then 2 – click on the “Groups” sub-tab and you’ll be at the “Groups home” page.

Here, you can also “Browse by categories” for yet another way to find what you’re looking for. The “Last updated groups” feature can be reached in options 1 and 2 too. Just look for “Recent Group Activity” to see what’s been going on.

So, now you know how to find Groups and , hopefully, you’ll find something that blows your hair back or you’ll start your own group. Improvements to features and capabilities are in the development schedule, so feel free to make suggestions too.

In order to keep the fun factor up and the frustration factor down, this post provides some useful tips to export your CATIA models so that they can be easily uploaded and shared on 3DVIA.com.

Dassault Systemes’ CATIA is a creative tool that is highly respected throughout the world for its wide-ranging capabilities. Fortunately; Fabrice Pinot, member of the CATIA Solutions team in Suresnes, France, has kindly offered some valuable information to help make it as easy as possible to export your CATIA V5 models in a way that allows them to look their best on 3DVIA.com.

So, in his own words:

There are 2 options that are very important for the 3DXML exports from CATIA V5 to 3DVIA.com.

First is the type of 3D mesh which is used for the geometry. At the present time, the supported mesh in 3DVIA.com is specified in the following option, it is a mesh in ASCII code.

The second option deals with 3D Accuracy:

For products; where all the parts have roughly the same size, such as consumer goods or hi-tech products, we recommend setting a fixed accuracy from 0.1 to 0.2.

Fixed 3D Accuracy sets a fixed sag value (from 0.01 to 10), which is used for calculating tessellation on all objects and does not vary with object size. The sag value defines the chordal deviation for curves and surfaces. The “curve chordal deviation” represents the maximum distance between a polyline (”chord”) whose end points lie on a curve and a point on the curve:

For detailed models of cars, boats or planes, we recommend setting a proportional tessellation of 0.1 to 0.2 as you may have small parts and huge ones. In this case tessellation is calculated according to object size: the larger the object, the coarser the tessellation. For the same 3D accuracy setting, the tessellation on small objects is always finer than on large objects. Please note that the toggle does not represent a distance, but a parameter, as the actual sag will depend on the object’s size.

Of course, in both cases, the finer the parameter, the larger the 3DXML file. Uploaded files are limited to 10MB on 3DVIA.com. If your file is bigger, then toggle this 3D accuracy parameter in order to be below this value.

Other tips:

Products originally created in CATIA V5 have the Z axis as the vertical axis, so there are no modifications to perform to have them appear in the proper orientation in 3DVIA.com. If this is not the case, it is always possible to insert this product into a newly created one and rotate the inserted model with the 3D Compass.

Textures created in CATIA V5 are supported, do not hesitate to use them. It gives a better aspect of your product at a minimum cost.

SPECIAL NOTE: These suggestions are valid for V5R18 and V5R19SP1. V6 compliance and tips are in the works. Stay tuned.

Thank you Fabrice, for making it easier for 3DVIA.com users to upload their CATIA models!

3DVIA.com is a place where all of those creators and their 3D models can come together to show their results, explore other parts of the 3D model creation world and to learn from each other. Imagination and fun drive the users, which makes 3DVIA.com a place to enjoy yourself!

SolidWorks is an excellent tool for creating 3D models. Those models are used throughout the conceptualization, development, manufacturing, marketing and sales of many of products that we use every day. It is also a creative tool that is used for lots of fun projects. Many SolidWorks models have been uploaded to 3DVIA.com already (you can find them all at one time using this link).

One thing you may notice about some of the uploaded SolidWorks models, is that the models aren’t oriented in a natural way. They’re often lying on their side or on their back. This post is meant to help you avoid that when you upload your SolidWorks models.

The first image shows a model (by “anonymous”) as oriented in SolidWorks after I downloaded it from 3D Content Central. After I created a 3DXML file in SolidWorks (by using the drop-down list in either SolidWorks 2007 or 2008 to “Save as type:” 3DXML), I uploaded it to my free 3DVIA.com account. The second and third images show the results when I displayed it in first the 3D XML Player and then the 3DVIA Player.

What happened? It all comes down to where your axes are in your SolidWorks model. SolidWorks uses the Reference Triad to indicate this. The following is from SolidWorks Help (with my highlight of the triad).

If you don’t see a triad at all in your models, use the simple 1-2 steps shown in the image above to turn the triad back on.

The image below shows the DEFAULT SolidWorks triad on the left, and the way we want it to be oriented on the right.

Depending on your default part and assembly template files, your triad may be in a totally different orientation. Whatever spatial orientation your files are in, you can download and use the appropriate SolidWorks assembly file template below to easily get good upload results without changing your own templates.

sw_2007_3dvia_upload.ASMDOT or  sw_2008_3dvia_upload.ASMDOT

Just be sure to put them where you can find them and use “Tools>Options>System Options>File Locations>Default Templates” to make their location easily accessible within SolidWorks.

Each template’s default opening screen has the triad placed correctly and a standard view added (just hit the space bar to see the list), so that you can easily go back to the “3DVIA Upload” view.

Whether you have a SolidWorks part or assembly, the fastest way to get it oriented correctly is to open a new assembly using the new downloaded template. If your model is already open and shows as a choice to insert into your new assembly, then select it and click the green check. This will put the model at the origin in your new assembly.

Or, you can split your viewing screen (”Window>Tile Horizontally”), so that you can see your model and the new assembly. Click on your model’s title in the Feature Manager Design Tree and drag and drop it onto the origin in the Feature Manager Design Tree of the new file. Don’t worry about orientation, just get it in there.

Save it with some appropriate name so that you won’t forget that it has been re-oriented.

Now, go into the Feature Manager Design Tree of the new file and right click on the name of the item that you brought in and then click on “Float” in the resulting list of choices.

All of the mates you carefully set up in the parent model will stay locked as you spin the model to the orientation that you want it to show up on 3DVIA.com using “Rotate Component” or “Move with triad”. You are only trying to get it in the ballpark, not exactly where you want it.

I use “Rotate Component” because I can whip it around in all three axes, rather than one at a time. While you do this, your reference triad should not move. Do not use “Rotate View” or you’ll have to go back to the pre-set view to correct your triad position.

Next, you’ll need to mate the planes to match your new view. This will ensure that your model sits on the floor, rather than being at an odd angle. Depending on your naming conventions, you may have “Front, Top, and Right”; “1,2, and 3″; or goodness only knows what else. Just match up the closest plane in the model to the closest plane in the assembly. Create coincident mates one by one until your model is locked in .

Now, after a ctrl Q and a save, you’ll be ready to save it as a 3DXML file. Please note that the shadows still won’t show correctly until the file is saved, closed, and reopened.

When your 3DXML file is uploaded to your model selection at 3DVIA.com, it will display correctly in the thumbnail and in both 3D players.

There are always many ways to do anything in SolidWorks, so feel free to follow your own path, based on your own experience. This is just one reliable way to get good results.

Please be aware that 3DVIA.com has an upload file size limit of 10MB, so be sure to check the size of your file before you try to upload it. The upload process will assume that the file is within the limit, so it chugs merrily along (while you wait and wait) and then, at the end, if it’s too big it gives you an error.

If your file is too big you can zip it and (as long as the resulting zip file is now less than 10MB) you should be OK to upload.

Now you can quickly modify and upload your SolidWorks models to 3DVIA.com and know that other folks will see them the way you intended. Have fun exploring all of the other models – there’s a lot to see.

P.S. Feel free to contact me directly if you have questions or suggestions.