3D Viewer using Mendix

Mendix serves as a good starting point for developing your own 3D visualization app.

JT (Jupiter Tessellation) is a popular lightweight 3D model visualization format ideal for product design collaboration and visualization, data sharing, CAD data exchange, and long-term data retention. Transmission and storage requirements of 3D models are more demanding, so JT files may take the benefit of compression. This format is structured to support visual attributes, Product and manufacturing information (PMI), and Metadata. The 3D Viewer App lets the end-user upload, store, operate and visualize the 3D JT files and 2D drawing files with the widget supporting the JT format well.

• PS Tree – A hierarchical tree view of the items that form a model. Allow the end user to toggle the tree node for controlling the model parts to be loaded into the Viewer.
• PMI Tree – A hierarchical tree displays the product’s manufacturing information, model views and design groups.
• Section View – Create a section cut on the model thus providing a section view from various angles.
• Mark-up Builder – Create a 2D markup on a model; annotate/draw/add a comment and save the annotated screenshot.
• Measurement – Perform measurements of parameters like distance, angle, line length, radius, and area on the 3D model.
• Explode Slider – Create an exploded view of your assembly.
• Tool Bar Item Snapshot – Take a snapshot of the current Viewer and save it to the local machine.
• Tool Bar Item Camera Orientation – View the model from different camera orientations.
• Tool Bar Item Selection Mode – Select a model part, edge, face, and body.
• Tool Bar Item Render Mode – Toggle between different model render modes.

The 3D Viewer offers ready-to-use toolbar item widgets that allow you to give the user a richer mode inspection experience. It mainly provides:

• An Uploader widget to enable users to upload a JT model.
• VisServerAction java action acts as a proxy to enable the app to upload the model into Mendix File Storage and load the model from there.
• Viewer widget to visualize the JT model.

The 3D Viewer app service provides a set of widgets to visualize JT models as well as a set of nanoflows and Java actions to bring in the data stored in Mendix file storage. The special Container3D widget provides context information for other 3D widgets to interact with each other and hence is placed in the main container outside other 3D widgets alongside the Uploader and Viewer widget on the page where the 3D model will be loaded and displayed.

• Understandability and Accessibility: The 3D viewer application offers an easy and quick process to upload and inspect the interior structure of a model by adding standard section planes.
• Accurate Visualization: The app enables the user to create a section cut on the model providing a section view from various angles thus catering to a seamless visualization.
• Visibility: The app supports large and complex assemblies leading to a simplified communication process for specialists from various fields working on a project.

Three-dimensional modeling is an appropriate way to avoid discrepancies, the 3D Viewer App provides a considerable process for the same in an excellent manner.

3D Viewer is one of the use cases of Mendix that acts as a tool to eliminate the need to create a new 3D-rendering engine.
You can use the drag-and-drop functions to get the job done. 3D visualization has been working as a catalyst in many domains and is on the fast track to growth and is in a continuous state of flux. It is imperative that people involved in it make the best use of it and keep looking for incremental improvements. The exciting journey has just become, and the future holds immense possibilities.