Animation Manager
As with HOOPS Visualize, we’ve also added new animation capabilities to HOOPS Communicator, including a new animation manager. The manager uses a keyframe system, and includes constant (on-off), linear, and spline interpolation. Animatable attributes include translation, rotation, scaling, visibility, transparency, and color. This animation system is designed to meet various engineering animation needs, ranging from BIM 5D simulations, through Digital Factory animations, and Work Instruction authoring.
Physically Based Rendering
Physically Based Rendering (PBR) has been added to HOOPS Communicator to provide higher quality rendering. This can be used in three ways:
- Communicator supports glTF files (which contain PBR materials), when loaded through converter (or libconverter).
- The authoring libraries have added support for PBR materials, so users can add PBR information to their models.
- The Web Viewer now allows you to set PBR materials through the API for any model. This includes loading a standard CAD model (without PBR material) and applying PBR materials to easily produce a higher quality rendering.
Improved error reporting in Converter
HOOPS Communicator’s simple to use Converter now includes improved error reporting. Previously Converter only returned a basic pass fail, which was sufficient for single output conversions. However, for partners performing multiple operations in one call to converter this was insufficient to know which action (if any) had problems. Converter now includes a more verbose error reporting mechanism to alert partners which stage encountered problems.
Sketchup 2021 support
Support for Sketchup 2021 has been added to HOOPS Communicator.