Testing, Testing, thmb thmb thmb Is this thing on?

Going through and testing 3D formats is kind of a wild ride. 3D pdf works, except in Chrome because Chrome uses the Foxit viewer (which I also had installed separately), and Foxit doesn’t display 3D PDFs. You can disable/enable the Foxit/Adobe plugins by typing “about:plugins” in the address bar, and just clicking the right links, which should be obvious. But the weird thing about the finished PDF is that it is backwards (opposite handed) from my original, and seems to rotate backwards as well.

And then of course is the ability to save eDrawings as HTML code, which you can put in your website, but it only works for IE, and even then it’s a bit touchy.

There’s also 3Dvia, but you have to have a 3Dvia publisher to put your own models on your website, and a special (but free) 3Dvia player to view it.

There’s Autodesk Quickshare, but by god, it’s slow.

The David 3-D Scanner thing was cool, but in the end, I couldn’t get it to show my models. Ugh.

So, he says, chuckling, what is a SolidWorks blogger to do? Nothing is really standard. Nothing really works reliably, unless you consider that Chrome is still only a fraction of the installed base of FireFox and Internet Explorer, and there is a bit of a workaround for the Foxit thing, for those willing to tinker a little. So. I guess it’s 3D PDF for me. It’s as standard as it gets at this point in time. You can view the file format as a standalone file. But then there’s the backwards strangeness. Wazzupwiddat?

8 Replies to “Testing, Testing, thmb thmb thmb Is this thing on?”

  2. Did everyone see Google’s “do no evil” no-way-to-opt-out privacy policy revamp announcement?
    http://www.google.com/policies/faq/

    Most people probably don’t mind and would rather the convenience gained, which I can understand. But some see no personal benefit to having a full history of search terms, gmail items, youtube stuff, picasa photos, and even “plus” thrown into the same permanent-record basket (myself included).

    Besides, I really like Firefox, and the ease of customization included, as well as the control over content I’ve got (or snooping).

    If you don’t like the permanent Google tracking, there are alternatives. I like Duck Duck Go lately.

    Reply

  6. Actually, Matt, it looks like installations of Chrome recently passed those of Firefox:
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/01/chrome-vs-firefox-google-mozilla_n_1123168.html

    I tried the embedded eDrawing thing many years ago, but really couldn’t stomach the inevitable hang while the code downloaded, and especially the IE-only problem (which is outlandish). Is this Active-X dependent, or some other area of the non-compliant, security-nightmare area of IE? No thanks.

    I wonder if anyone’s really working on a simple, reliable, non-proprietary-locked 3D web format? The scene seems rather dismal to date, and has been for a long time. I use Foxit reader as my own preference, since Adobe’s reader is so ridiculously bloated (slow, background processes, etc.), though I still have a current Adobe copy for form-filling, 3D viewing, and other specialties. eDrawings remains (by far) my favorite means of communicating 3D content with clients/vendors/partners quickly and reliably (thanks, Rick Chin).

    Reply

  8. It would be nice to have an edrawings viewer that would work on an ipad. What is DSS Solidworks thinking…

    Solidworks must not like me, I am no longer able to post on the forums. Must be a cloud problem.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.