Update 2020-02-28: Spider 3D Browser Road Map

Accomplishments

• The Spider 3D Browser made good progress
• Ben Welle may have new well-funded projects
• Did very little work on LT "maxim"
  • Industry, tasks and benefits must be understandable by normal people
  • "Illuminate and energize the validity of your construction design intents"
  • "Re-imagine your building projects using validated engineering apps"

Objectives

• Discuss ways of the Ladybug Tools team members to communicate more effectively
  • Basecamp? GitHub?
  • Bi-weekly "all-hands" communication
    • Online and written
  • Building a "mesh network" where all members chat with each other
    • Avoiding the "star network" where all talk passes through a middle person
• Discuss ways of making current Ladybug Tools efforts more understandable to non-programmers such as bosses and managers
  • Building up to the start of a sales and marketing effort
• Discuss Spider future
  • See below

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Spider 3D Browser Road Map

Prelims: Three.js Hamburger

• Current dev stream in obscure repo

Concept

• Build a unified 3D model visualization and "re-mixing" platform

For the developer

• A single app for building and testing the many issues of dealing with visualizing and analyzing multiple data formats in 3D

For the advanced designer

• Re-mix multiple 3D models from various sources for visualizing and analyzing

For the normal worker

• Industry- or format- or task- specific versions that are simplified subsets of the master app are spawned

Management questions

• What are the naming considerations
• What about a new repo: "Spider-2020"?
• How to get others involved?

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The following are loose summaries of the objectives for the various modules

Sample files on Github browser

• Concept make it easy to access and view sample files hosted on GitHub

• Access and list of names of folders and files in GitHub repositories using GitHub API

• Sample files of the following types currently supported

  • gbXML
  • Honeybee Schema JSON
  • Dragonfly Schema
  • OBJ

• To be added: Other 3D in JSON formats, RAD, STL GLTF, FBX and perhaps more

• Updates the browser window.location hash which triggers a standard JavaScript event

Open and save files

• Open XML, JSON, text files
• Listen for and respond to:
  • location hash events
  • fileReader events
  • Drag and drop events
  • Fetch files if suitable name indicated location.hash text
• Provide access to the FileReader to open local files
• Respond to drag and drop events
• Decompress ZIP files
• Save Files to disk
• Compress and save files to disk
• Provide statistics on time to load, file sizes, progress indicators

Create assemblies of 3D files

• Enables opening, displaying and saving assemblies of all the above file types
• Enable to loading of multiple files
• Allow for URL, position, rotation scale and other meta data parameters for each of the files
• Load and save assemblies details in JSON lines format

Embellish and augment the data

• Enable projects to look pretty or to look more physically accurate
• Access maps, images, terrain data and adjacent building data and add to assemblies
• Enable toggles between "pretty" views and physically accurate views

Solar calculator and weather data visualization

• Add Sun path, Sun range, analemmas and and similar visualizations
• Add access to EPW and DDY data
• Add output of useful statistics
• Read latitude and longitude as embedded in model data files

Allow for differences and changes

Diffs

• Compare and display differences in 3D between two or more 3D data files
• Add Git or Git-like capabilities to all files
• Emit change event notifications and/or messaging
• See working demo: gbXML diff engine

Changes

• Allow for building changes such as openings, roofs and shades being open or closed
• Tree foliage in summer or winter
• Temporary tents and structures

Add colors, bitmaps (textures), videos and other visual effects

• Allow for coloring, texturing and animating any surface using data supplied by engineering apps
• Allow for saving and re-presenting such visualizations

All access by normal people

• "Mobile first" - enable access on phone, tablet or computer
• "Don't make me wait" - runs and displays data NOW!
• "Don't make me think" - I look at it and I know how to use it
• "Don't make me change" - Let me decide when to switch to a new upgrade

Encourage use of data simplifications

• Pollination data, gbXML files, RAD files are generally simplifications of far more complicated CAD files
• The CAD files often contain large amounts of proprietary intellectual data that offices do not wish to be made public
• The simplifications may be useful in a variety of instances
  • for envisaging piping, escape routes, signage etc
  • Providing a level of detail small enough to be useful at city scale rendering
  • Providing a structure for AR and XR uses

Generate new data files as parametric components

• Ability to generate objects for all supported 3D file formats parametrically
• Provide sample files of procedurally generated structures

Seamless data access

• Provide seamless linking two way between 3D models and JSON or other source data
• Enable mouseover and click/touch interaction

Visualization options

• Choice of cameras and camera controls including WebXR
• Generate stills and videos by algorithm
• Add Shader capabilities

No source file, test, or single module is identified. Start by reviewing the linked Three.js Hamburger preliminary project and the gbXML diff engine demo, then narrow the roadmap to one concrete deliverable. Done cannot be defined until that module and its acceptance criteria are selected.