BIM gets a boost in the latest Visualize, Exchange, Publish, and Communicator SDKs.
It’s a new year, and a new Tech Soft 3D. In 2020, the developer of engineering software toolkits acquired two companies, VKI and Ceetron AS, marking a dedicated drive into the computer aided engineering (CAE) market.
At the top of 2021, Tech Soft 3D is back to basics with the yearly release of the its HOOPS software development toolkits (SDKs). The release includes HOOPS Visualize 2021, HOOPS Exchange 2021, HOOPS Publish 2021, and HOOPS Communicator 2021. The biggest beneficiary across the new releases appears to be BIM.
“We’re committed to AEC & BIM and will continue making it easier for our partners to build powerful industry-leading applications in these markets,” said HOOPS Exchange product manager Lionel Vielly.
Here’s an overview of what’s new in the HOOPS 2021 SDKs:
HOOPS Visualize 2021
HOOPS Visualize is an SDK for 3D graphics rendering. For Visualize 2021, Tech Soft 3D focused on three areas of improvement: better BIM workflows, better performance, and better user experience. On the BIM side, Visualize 2021 adds new measurement operators for tessellated data and support for rendering issues that occur for models with large transformations relative to their size.
As for performance, Visualize 2021 includes an improved static model algorithm and FPS improvements for files with many hidden objects or files loaded through the HOOPS Exchange sprocket (the connector between Visualize and Exchange). For better user experience, Visualize 2021 also adds QT Quick support, improvements to text when outputting PDFs, and support for headless and virtual environments with a software-only version of the OpenGL2 driver.
See full details on HOOPS Visualize 2021 here.
HOOPS Exchange 2021
HOOPS Exchange is an SDK for CAD data translation, including all the major formats from CATIA, Creo, Inventor, NX, Solid Edge, SOLIDWORKS, and more. HOOPS Exchange 2021 adds support for all the latest CAD updates and specific improvements to BIM formats such as IFC and Revit.
Exchange 2021 also adds support for 3MF, an alternative to STL which provides richer data for 3D printing including color and material information. Finally, the new release also adds partial support for CATIA V5 Mates, with full support coming throughout the year.
See full details on HOOPS Exchange 2021 here.
HOOPS Publish 2021
The HOOPS Publish SDK is used for publishing 3D data in formats such as 3D PDF, HTML, and standard CAD formats. HOOPS Publish 2021 focuses its updates on manufacturing processes. Users now have access to a “zoom to selection” option when selecting items in a scroll-table, which does exactly what it says on the tin. Publish 2021 also adds new print capabilities that allow users to configure which views to print from the scroll-table.
See full details on HOOPS Publish 2021 here.
HOOPS Communicator 2021
Finally, HOOPS Communicator is an SDK for streaming 3D data to a web interface. Like its brethren, HOOPS Communicator 2021 targets BIM workflows, adding enhanced support for large translation matrices, measurement operators for tessellated data, and the ability to display 2D floorplans for IFC models. IFC models will also load much more quickly in the web viewer, the source code of which is now available to developers for finer customization.
See full details on HOOPS Communicator 2021 here.
HOOPS on ARM
Common to all four HOOPS 2021 releases is a beta build for the new ARM-based Apple Silicon chips, for which developers will need to port their applications for optimal performance. According to Tech Soft 3D, full support for Apple Silicon will be available “when we have sufficient hardware available to ensure the testing and quality levels meet our partners’ requirements.”
Finally, interested parties can now access a free 90-day evaluation of the HOOPS Native Platform (which includes all of the above SDKs except for Communicator) on the Tech Soft 3D website.
