WebGL Export-Publisher - from Revit straight to the web

The Autodesk "appstore" site Exchange Apps offers an interesting add-on for Revit, which allows to easily export Revit 3D models into interactive 3D graphics for display in web browsers. You can simply present your 3D projects directly on your website. This method is an alternative to the web publishing tools in the Autodesk 360 cloud.

The plug-in applicatios WebGL Export-Publisher is offered as a 30-day trial version and after the trial period it can be licensed via the vendor's site. The price of the license is 30 Euro.

Similarly to other Exchange Apps tools, this application is very very simple to install. The plug-in is installed directly into the Revit environment, where you can run it from the "Add-ins" tab. You can begin to export your models using a simple dialogue.

The output of the conversion is a .html and a .wpm (WebGL-Publisher) file, plus a folder containing textures and JavaScript libraries that are automatically generated. Just copy the exported data to your server's web folder for publication on the internet.

The vendor claims support for all popular web browsers, so there should be no problem to display the models. In fact, not every browser supports the native WebGL JavaScript API interface, which is neccessary to display and run the output data. Therefore, it is necessary to manually setup some browsers. Read the vendor's technical information here. The downside of this application is that it does not always export the entire model correctly so some elements may be missing in your exported (published) model.

The application is very easy to use, to setup and to create exports. The output data is graphically pleasant, and it can be used as a presentation of your projects on the internet. You can judge yourself in the sample video:


L.Stanik, CAD Studio

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