VIM WebGL Viewer
Documentation
https://vimaec.github.io/vim-webgl-viewer/api/
Live Demo
- Small Model Demo - Residence
- Medium Model Demo - Medical Tower
- Large Model Demo - Stadium (Warning: slow download times)
Overview
The VIM WebGL Viewer is an open-source high-performance 3D model viewer built on top of the popular Three.JS WebGL framework that specializes in loading extremely large AEC (Architectural/Engineering/Construction) models represented as VIM files.
The VIM WebGL viewer combines the Three.JS library with several common loaders and utilities, to reduce boilerplate code. It can be simply included via script tags or consumed using esm imports.
The VIM file format is a high-performance 3D scene format that supports rich BIM data, and can be easily extended to support other relational or non-relation data sets.
Unlike IFC the VIM format is already tessellated, and ready to render. This results in very fast load times. Unlike glTF the VIM format is faster to load, scales better, and has a consistent structure for relational BIM data.
More information on the vim format can be found here: https://github.com/vimaec/vim
Using the Viewer from a Web Page
Virtually the simplest usage of the VIM viewer is the following example:
<html>
<head>
<title>VIM Viewer</title>
</head>
<body>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/three@0.133.1/build/three.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/vim-webgl-viewer"></script>
<script>
const viewer = new vim.Viewer()
viewer.loadVim(
'https://vim.azureedge.net/samples/residence.vim',
{
rotation: { x: 270, y: 0, z: 0 },
}
)
</script>
</body>
</html>
Running Locally
- Checkout repo
- Run
npm install
to install all dependencies - Run
npm run dev
to launch a dev-server and watch for change - Navigate to http://localhost:3000 in your browser
Folder Structure
docs
- this is the root folder for the GitHub page athttps://vimaec.github.io/vim-webgl-viewer
. Thedocs\index.html
file is meant demo the latest stable patch release, while thedocs\index-dev.html
Is meant to test the latest dev release.src
- contains the TypeScript source code for the viewer and loader.dist
- created by running the build script for creating a distributable package. It contains five items after running thebuild
script:dist\vim-webgl-viewer.es.js
- an EcmaScript moduledist\vim-webgl-viewer.es.js.map
- Typescript source map file map for the EcmaScript moduledist\vim-webgl-viewer.iife.js
- an immediately-invocable function expression (IIFE) intended for consumption from a web-pagedist\vim-webgl-viewer.iife.js.map
- Typescript source map file map for the IIFEtypes\
- A folder containing Typescript type declarations for the package.
For Contributors
Making a Pre-Release
- First develop and test the feature using
npm run dev
- Login to npm if needed using
npm login
- Assure that
git status
is clean - Use
npm run release-dev
to create a pre-release NPM package. - Change the
docs/index-dev.html
to use the newly published package. - Use
npm run serve-docs
to test the npm dev package locally. - When satisfied merge current PR into
main
.
Making a Patch Release
- Make sure the dev release is working properly at
https://vimaec.github.io/vim-webgl-viewer/index-dev.html
- Login to npm if needed using
npm login
- Use
npm run release-patch
to create a patch release NPM package. - Change the
docs/index.html
to use the newly published package. - Push the the new
docs/index.html
tomain
. - Make sure
https://vimaec.github.io/vim-webgl-viewer/index.html
is working as expected.
Scripts
The following scripts are defined in the package.json, and can each be
executed from within VSCode by right-clicking the script name, or from the
command line by writing npm run <script-name>
where <script-name>
is the name of the script.
dev
- launch a dev environment using Vitebuild
- compiles an IIFE JavaScript module and ES module using Vite and the configuration file, placing the output in thedist
folder.bump-dev
- increments the pre-release version of the NPM package, with the iddev
. This will update thepackage.json
version number with a pre-release tag and number value (e.g. 1.0.0-dev.42). It will also create corresponding tag and commit it to Git.publish-dev
- publishes the current package to NPM with adev
tag, as opposed to the default taglatest
.serve-docs
- launches a web-server with the docs folder as the root folder, for testing a published NPM packages (tagged develop or latest) locallyrelease-patch
- Increments the patch number and publishes an NPM package using the default tag (@latest
). Intended to be called from themain
branch only after the pre-release package has been created and tested.release-dev
- Increments the prerelease number and publishes an NPM prerelease package using the@dev
tag. Intended to be called from themain
branch after the features has been tested and built locally.eslint
- Runs eslint and reports all syntactic inconsistencies.documentation
- Generates api documentation atdocs/api
.declarations
- Generates typescript declrations atdist/types
.
Contributing:
- Source code is formatted using prettier-eslint using the standardjs format.
- On VSCode it is recommended to install ESLint and Prettier ESLint extensions.
The Sources and Dependencies
The distributable files do not contain the underlying source for Three.JS to avoid duplication. Please include Three.JS on your own.
Camera Controls
Keyboard
W/Up: Move camera forward
A/Left: Move camera to the left
S/Down: Move camera backward
D/Right: Move camera to the right
E: Move camera up
Q: Move camera down
Shift + direction: faster camera movement
+: Increase camera speed
-: Decrease camera speed
F8: Toggle orbit mode
Home: Look at model
Escape: Clear selection
Z: Look at selection
Mouse
Hold left click + Move mouse: Tilt/Pan camera
Hold right click + Move mouse: Truck/Pedestal camera
Mouse wheel: Dolly Camera
Left click: Select object
Ctrl + Mouse wheel: Increase/Decrease camera speed
Touch
One Finger swipe: Tilt/Pan camera
Two Finger swipe: Truck/Pedestal camera
Two Finger pinch/spread: Dolly Camera
(https://blog.storyblocks.com/video-tutorials/7-basic-camera-movements/)
Vim
The Viewer
provides methods to load and unload Vim
s.
Object
is the highest level api and acts as a bridge between BIM
, G3d
and THREE
objects
A Vim
contains a Document
which contains the raw BIM
and g3d
information parsed from the file.
A Vim
contains the Settings
used when loading was called.
A Vim
contains a Scene
which contains the generated THREE objects to render the Vim
.
All raw G3d
and BIM
data is stored using the BFast
format.
mesh.ts
Takes G3d
data and THREE.BufferGeometry
and generates THREE.Mesh
s.
geometry.ts
Takes G3d
and generates THREE.BufferGeometry
How To
Frame camera on an element
const vim = viewer.vims[0] // or keep vim reference from load
const object = vim.getObjectFromElementId(ELEMENT_ID)
viewer.camera.frame(object)
Highlight an element
const vim = viewer.vims[0] // or keep vim reference from load
const object = vim.getObjectFromElementId(ELEMENT_ID)
const wireframe = object.createWireframe()
this.viewer.renderer.add(wireframe)
// To remove hightlight
// this.viewer.renderer.removeObject(wireframe)
// wireframe.geometry.dispose()
Change Color of an element
const vim = viewer.vims[0] // or keep vim reference from load
const object = vim.getObjectFromElementId(ELEMENT_ID)
object.color = new THREE.Color(1,0,0)
// Revert to original color
// object.color = undefined
Replace or add behavior on click
// Capture default behavior
const defaultClick = viewer.onMouseClick.bind(viewer)
// Override the onClick callback
viewer.onMouseClick = (hit) => {
// Call the default behavior
defaultClick(hit)
// Add extra logic here
console.log('My extra behaviour with this entity')
console.log(hit.object.getBimElement())
}
Load from a custom http request
// Make request as usual
const xhr = new XMLHttpRequest()
// Specify response type ArrayBuffer
xhr.responseType = 'arraybuffer'
xhr.open('GET', url)
xhr.send()
xhr.onload = () => {
// Load vim by passing the array buffer
viewer.loadVim(xhr.response, {
rotation: { x: 270, y: 0, z: 0 }
})
}