ODA adds on to Revit and visualization tools

A new onslaught of ODA releases is upon us. Next up is the BimRV SDK 2020, update 2 and Visualize SDK 2020 Update 2. BimRV is the ODAs toolkit for Revit support in other programs and Visualize, as you might have guessed enables large 3D models to be visualized and streamed.

The Open Design Alliance has changed the name of its BIM SDK to BimRV. The organization is building a suite of BIM tools, which will include support for IFC, and enable files to be combined and integrated with tools such as Autodesk’s Navisworks through BimNV. BimRV is focused on Revit interoperability and enables other programs to read and write .rvt and .rfa files. The ODA is adding on to the capabilities of its Revit interoperability tools by enabling customers products to create non-hosted families that will interoperate with Revit. In addition, Sergey Vishnevetsky, ODA’s development director says they’ve worked on their Common Data Access (CDA) API which opens up access to the BIM model tree and object properties. As a result, ODA members can create BIM viewers that support model and property inspection in BIM and CAD formats.

In an earlier release, BimRV added export support for JSON and OBJ files. And the organization has continued its work on parametric element creation. Their ambition is to enable the generation of Revit files from any program.

The Visualize toolkit has been updated with support for progressive meshes enabling mesh generation at variable levels of detail. This capability will enable large models to be streamed online and is part of the ODA’s ongoing work adding support for point cloud data.

What do we think?

Head over to the ODA site for more information on their work, which has been growing to encompass a broad range of CAD capabilities in an effort to enable better integration between tools. As companies attempt to make their intellectual property work for them in digital twins, connected machines, visualizations, model-based design, etc. interoperability is the key to success for customers and their suppliers. This is something we talk about in our CAD Report 2020, if you’ll excuse a little horn tooting.