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How far can we customize the workflow ?

Discussion in 'Unity Reflect' started by nawash, Jul 2, 2020.

  1. nawash

    nawash

    Joined:
    Jan 29, 2010
    Posts:
    166
    Hi all,
    First let me give you some context:
    In term of generic vision, I believe that this is the time for doing amazing things in what I call an united vision : A building (factory, residential building, ...) is located on a site (GIS). The building is conceived and validated (AEC/BIM), it contains tangible objects, industrial machinery (PLM/Dassault Systèmes/Siemens). At each of these points there are a lot of metadata we can leverage to add value. All that can be visualized, checked, modified, trained on and maintained using interactive 3D and especially VR. We now have the tools to build this united vision. That's why I like focusing on 3D and Metadata interoperability and interactivity programming.

    In that context, I think Unity AEC tools and Unity in general is great.

    My question :
    Is it possible to customize the reflect app production workflow with custom managed/unmanaged plugins ? If yes, at what stages can we do this ?

    Thanks
     
    nawash, Jul 2, 2020
    #1

  2. DavidMenard

    DavidMenard

    Unity Technologies

    Joined:
    Jun 3, 2019
    Posts:
    121
    Hey navwash,

    Great question! I'll try and give you a complete answer, but the possibilities are so broad that I might miss some points, so don't hesitate to keep the discussion going!

    So let me start with the broadest answer. Unity and Unity Reflect are both development platforms at their core. This means that you can pretty much develop anything you can develop in C#, in Unity, and Reflect offers a bunch of additional features to help you get there faster. So as far as "what's possible", the answer is anything! And the workflow can be customized as far as you need it to be, with no exaggeration.

    Now the next question that usually comes up is "ok, but how difficult is it?". Reflect is the first step towards making all of this easier to integrate, and as we move forward, we'll keep making it easier to implement these kinds of solutions, leading to the complete digital twin vision that you described.

    Now today, you will definitely need some programming skills to achieve everything you've described, and a lot of it will be dependent on the problem you're trying to solve. But in the end, there's nothing you mentioned here that's not possible!

    Finally, as a more direct answer: You can customize Reflect with both plugins to feed data into it (like our Revit plugin) or write your own application to ingest the data (like our Viewer). We don't support custom data types in Reflect just yet, but you can encode whatever data you need into metadata for use on the other side.
    The other limitation is that we don't current support a live-link back into the design application (ex.: Viewer->Revit), so if you want to do that, you'll have to do it yourself for the time being.

    Hope his helps!
    David
     
    DavidMenard, Jul 6, 2020
    #2

  3. nawash

    nawash

    Joined:
    Jan 29, 2010
    Posts:
    166
    Hi David,
    That awesome. That's exactly the answer I was waiting for.
    Can't wait to implement nice data workflows and interactive applications using Reflect.

    Just a more business oriented note: most of the industry customers I've met have no idea what is possible and how far we developers can go to make their live easier. I'm sure you guys at Unity can guide them unleash the full power of your tools and the developers skill sets combined.

    Thanks
    Nicolas

     
    nawash, Jul 16, 2020
    #3