Anyone using Augmented Reality?

[daleFFXHA]

Is anyone aware of any 3rd party App for iPad that can import a model for visualizing in Augmented Reality? With today's hardware, this seems like such a simple ask, but I've been looking around for an hour and can't really find anything. Solidworks has an eDrawings app for iPad which sort of works - but I'm wondering if there's something more mainstream that I'm missing? This would be such a useful tool, and I can't for the life of me figure out why this isn't far more common. Anyone?

[rishabh.bisht]

Hi @daleFFXHA ,

We have support of adding USDz as an Exportable format, for a Fusion design in our current roadmap.

You can natively open a USDz on an iOS device (iPhone/iPad) and look at it in AR view.

Do you think that would serve your purpose? 

Augmented reality viewing with USDZ 

Augmented Reality (AR) is all the rage these days, and has some real practical applications in the product development lifecycle. We wanted to give the community a way to start the journey around AR for design reviews. As a simple first step, we’re adding an USDZ as an exportable format to Fusion 360. USDZ is an AR file format developed by Apple and is quickly becoming the standard format for AR applications across the industry. This will allow you to create an AR experience on an Apple device. We are looking at other ways we can add AR experiences to Fusion 360 and are interested to hear how you envision yourselves using AR in your design process. 

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[daleFFXHA]

YES! That would be perfect. AR is an amazing feature for quickly getting a context of scale. Scale for me is one of the hardest things to have a consistent and accurate feel for during the design process. Plus there’s just being able to see the things you’re designing from a different perspective, which is always useful.

One request would be to be able to export the USDz file directly from the Fusion360 app. If it’s done from the desktop app, it’ll be another step to get it to the ipad or iPhone.

Any idea when this will be implemented?

[rishabh.bisht]

Thanks for your feedback, really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts with us.

I can not share any timeline at this position, but this is something which is definitely on our radar. 

[Innovationlab_CarlosRego]

I use AR visualisation all the time in my work.

Currently I always need to export the F360 file as OBJ or FBX, and open them in another software (Vectary) to apply materials and export it to USDZ.

On the Mac or iPad you can use Apple's Reality Composer app to quickly add additional features to your USDZ file (e.g. animation, physics).

As it was already mentioned, USDZ files are natively supported on iOS devices so you just need to open the file and you're ready to go.

Currently you have a very silly limitation in OBJ and FBX export as F360 does not support the export of materials with the file, and even the UV mapping is quite often messed up and I need to correct it in Vectary. If F360 supported a more complete export of OBJ and FBX, thing would be simpler and you could even just convert the files to USDZ with Apple's Reality Converter app.

[oyvindTMNSU]

Any news on this??

[ajay.menon7UH3E]

Hello all,

We are researching on Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) immersive workflows to bring additional value to our customers.

Your feedback is incredibly important as we enhance our current capabilities. We thank you for your time and we truly value your direct and honest feedback.

Please follow this link to the AR/VR Survey:
Take the Survey

Or copy and paste the URL below into your internet browser:
https://autodeskfeedback.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9QwzDho0NsUTIwe

Ajay Menon
Sr. User Experience Designer

Autodesk

[keqingsong]

@daleFFXHA @oyvindTMNSU @Innovationlab_CarlosRego  you guys should check out the Coming Soon section of the recent April product update what's new 🙂 https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/blog/april-2021-product-update-whats-new/

[Innovationlab_CarlosRego]

I know, I know 🙂
Look forward for the update

[oyvindTMNSU]

Great! Any timeline?:)

[keqingsong]

All I can say right now is that it’s coming soon 😊

[oyvindTMNSU]

I literally some days ago bought Simlab converter to usdz to do this. But that's life. Looking forward to get it integrated with fusion 360!

[mspecdesign]

I've exported an OBJ and imported it into gravity sketch on the oculus to try to get a feel for it which was ok, but still not ideal.

a dedicated app for this on the oculus store with some fixed scale functionality would be great, this would be bloody amazing for showing clients prototype models.

i can invisage a virtual showroom floor where you could move through looking at cad models and various interactive options like fly out text/ specs

[keqingsong]

That's true, but I'd argue that AR for sharing out prototypes is currently more accessible than VR. The sales of VR headsets is definitely on the rise, but it is not as mainstream as smart phones and tablets. I don't want to discount your statement, it's totally valid, but just want to add some color on why we went with AR and USDz first. 

[Innovationlab_CarlosRego]

Having both systems in our office, I can attest that AR has proved to be a much better option for our product simulations than VR.
Beside the cost of the VR equipment, the set up of a VR simulation is much more time consuming than an AR simulation.
But for me one of the key advantages of AR is that I can share a photorealistic USDZ file in seconds with a client, living on the other side of the world, and he is able to instantly perform the simulation on his own work space or even on a local store.
VR has its own place for specific simulations such as architecture or transportation design but nowadays AR has definitely the edge in cost, usability and convenience.

[rishabh.bisht]

Export to USDz support is now available as part of May 2021 Release. 

[oyvindTMNSU]

GREAT! Looking forward to test it

[Innovationlab_CarlosRego]

Great news 😄

The USDZ export is smooth and fast. It will save me a ton of time in my set up of AR simulations.

The only issue that I found is related with the automatic translation that F360 is doing of transparent materials which is not good and looks too milky. I was trying to find a way to create a transparent material in F360 specifically for AR but couldn’t yet find a way to do it properly.

In other software such as Vectary, I need to set up the transparent material to work well for AR since USDZ does not support transparency properties such as refraction. To give you an example, if I just apply a regular glass material in Vectary and export the USDZ, I will get a full opaque material. To overcome this I need to set up the roughness, transparency, reflectivity and metalness parameters to achieve a realistic transparent material.

Can you share any tips about which F360 material could be the best starting point to create a similar transparent material?

It would be great if the F360 team publish an article in the F360 blog about how to properly set up textures in F360 for AR. I trust that there will be many F360 users that might not be familiar with these particularities of AR and might get a wrong and mislead idea about the great potential of AR.