Scenes in 3DBI.
Scenes are predefined camera positions. By adding scenes to your 3DBI model users can quickly navigate to predefined locations without having to manually manipulate the camera. In this tutorial you will learn how to add scenes to your 3DBI model.
- Autodesk® Revit® as the BIM application.
- 3DBI for Revit as the custom addin that is able to export Revit geometry and data to a format readable by our 3DBI visual.
- Microsoft® Power BI®
- 3DBI, the custom visual we developed for Power BI, shipped with the Revit addin.
1 – Add perspective views to Revit model.
The first step to get started exporting a Revit model to Power BI, using 3DBI, that will include predefined scenes, is to add 1 or more perspective views to the Revit model. Since 3DBI for Revit version 1.2.618 it is also important that the views you intend to include as a scene has its name prefixed with “3DBI_”. This is an extra check that has been added to the tool to give you fine grained control over which perspective views to include as scenes and which not. A valid name for example is “3DBI_Kitchen”, without the quotes.
2 – Export with 3DBI.
In order to include scenes in the exported .3dbi model it is necessary to select the Export Scenes option.
Once the export has been completed 3DBI will show a list of all exported ids.
3 – Use the demo dashboard as a template.
After exporting, the quickest way to get your model and data into Power BI is by opening the “empty_dashboard_with_viewer_and_data_source_preloaded” .pbix file that comes shipped with the extension. To quickly find that file, hit the “Open 3DBI visual directory with examples” button in the tool’s help page.
Once opened you can load in the exported data by altering the location the ROOT data query is pointing to.
Afterwards you can also specify additional data fields to load in from the exported .json file by altering the elements query.
With the data part being setup the final step to take is the actual import of the 3D model into the 3DBI viewer. To do so, accept the 3DBI license agreement, assign the IDs to the Object Identifiers field and finally hit the “Insert Model” button and specify the exported .3dbi model.
If all went fine, you should now notice a Select Scenes button on the bottom left hand side of the visual. Pressing that button opens a dropdown from which you can then select one of the scenes that have been exported from your Revit model. Selecting a scene should automatically reposition the camera according to how the camera was initially positioned in Revit.
