AutoCAD Plant 3D/Navisworks in VR

I had the opportunity today to work with a friend, Corey Arledge at Eledeco Inc., to get a Navisworks model up and running in a HTC Vive headset. One of the most exciting Navisworks plugin for Plant 3d is the Iris VR Prospect. The Iris VR plugin to Navisworks makes running a VR session push-button easy.

The workflow is fairly straight-forward and the Iris VR has the best Navisworks plugin installer I’ve ever seen (it just works…).  Here’s a helpful link to the details about what gets integrated with Navisworks + VR.

Here are the steps to get going:

1. Install Navisworks
2. Install Prospect
3. Push your Navisworks model to VR (I recommend using a nwd file)
4. Connect Headset
5. View VR

Install Navisworks

First, you have to use Navisworks Manage, so make sure that’s installed. It’s a large install (~10GB) so give yourself plenty of time. Once installed Navisworks Manage is available on the desktop or through the Start menu.

Install Prospect

Prospect is available for a 45-day trial from Iris VR from here: https://irisvr.com/prospect

Once installed is available on the desktop or Start menu under Iris.

Pushing Navisworks to VR

Once you have your model loaded in Navisworks, click the View in VR button.

The sample Plant 3d project model only took about 2 minutes to generate. Performance varies based on model complexity and size.

Connect Your Headset

We used SteamVR for connecting the HTC Vive. You’ll need to make sure your headset is connected through that, and the SteamVR app can talk to the IrisViewer application.

View VR

Once your headset is connected, click View in VR in the Prospect app to launch the VR viewer. For this write-up I’m not connected to a headset, but you can see the view that would be pushed to your headset.

We did get the loading screen for an extended period of time (~15 minutes) on the test model. Make sure you allow yourself plenty of wait time based on your model complexity. The plant sample model loaded in a couple minutes at most.

This being my first experience with VR with the HTC Vive, I’m not sure if the controls are typical or not. The left paddle held the settings for controlling your model. You can point your right paddle at the menu on the left and trigger click to open up saved views, and access markup and measurement options.

My perspective on VR has been that it’s still at the gimmick stage. However, with the ease of being able to do a one-button push from Navisworks, and with how intuitive the controls are, it’s safe to say Navisworks + Iris VR is a great platform for capturing design feedback, and experiencing the facilities in a whole new way.