Showing your Inventor files in Virtual Reality?

[jgjYRRKE]

Hi all.

Can anyone help me out with VR?

I would like to show my Inventor files in VR, but find it to be quite a challenge.

Im gonna try VRED trial when the Oculus Rift S head set arrives.

It seems like it is somewhat straight forward, but sadly very expensive.

Neil Cross (TFI) made some great videos about it on Youtube.

First i tried playing with Unreal Engine, but it seems like the most non-user friendly program ever.

I learned myself to use 3Ds MAX (basic), but Unreal engine throws me off.

I consider using irisVR Prospect, but could use some tutorials on Inventor to Prospect workflow.

Cant seem to find any online.

Can anyone reccommend a userfriendly VR software that do not cost an arm and a leg?

[Mark.Lancaster]

@jgjYRRKE 

I will tag @cbenner to see if he can offer any input on this subject matter.

[cbenner · Accepted solution]

Thanks, @Mark.Lancaster ....

@jgjYRRKE 

We went round and round for a while also.  When we got started we went with Stingray, which then became 3DS Max Interactive, and now is slowly going the way of the dinosaurs.  We tried Unreal also, and I have to agree with you on that one.  Some people love it, but I found it very difficult to pick up out of the box, which is how I prefer to learn software.

We have landed on Unity.  I found that it is not only more intuitive, but there is a ton of good YouTube tutorials out there.  There is a lot you can do with free and/or purchased Add Ins, that do not require any programming skill.  However, I have found that learning some basic C# is also going to be helpful, so I've been taking some online classes in that.  Our workflow now takes us from Inventor into 3DS Max.  With really large assemblies I derive them first and then bring into Max.  I have found that this greatly reduces the poly count with only minimal model degradation.  There are lots of other methods to research though, and find what works best for your models.  From Max, I export the FBX files and then open in Unity.  There is some tweaking of materials that needs to be done, but you can usually get a very nice representation going pretty quickly.

Make use of places like GrabCad for props and such, like buildings, vehicles etc.  Also look for free (for now) add ins like VRTK (virtual reality tool kit).  These can offer a lot of tools and pre-sets that will get you rolling.

Where I am still trying to get better, and thus can't offer much advice, is in getting things really photorealistic looking.  I'm still playing with lights and materials to that end.  But when you only get to play with it for a few dats at a time every couple of months.... it's hard to learn.

Anyway... that's what I am doing.  I recently created a "show room" of several pieces of our equipment that Sales took to a trade show. 

[johnsonshiue · Accepted solution]

Hi! As far as I know, Autodesk works closely with Unity to deliver AR-VR experiences. Here are some related links.

https://unity.com/solutions/automotive-transportation-manufacturing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIIWzlweWvw

Many thanks!

[jgjYRRKE]

Thank you for your time guys.

It seems like Unity is worth looking into 🙂

The fact that there is tutorials gives me hope 😄

Now i have a place to start looking.