Sharing your Advance Steel model with a client, project managers and site team

Over time the deliverables we give to our clients have evolved. Drawing boards and then posting the drawings is where it started, and then with AutoCAD and email, things turned digital. With Advance Steel we can now produce plan, elevation and 3D drawings of our model to communicate the designs.

Even with 3D views being the norm and provided for all jobs clients are always looking for more. If your client has Navisworks for example, then they can interrogate the 3D model. But not everyone has access to this type of software.

It is possible to share a 3D visual representation of your Advance Steel model with your client that they can view in any web browser, including on tablets and mobiles. This is done with the Autodesk Shared view tool, no software is needed at all.

Before you use the Shared View tool you need to clean up your model. Make sure your joint boxes, cameras, levels, model views have been turned off. Set your bolts and anchors to solid and, turn off any object features. Whatever your model looks like in Advance Steel that’s what will be seen in the Shared view.

To create the Shared view, go to the Collaborate tab on the ribbon, click Shared Views and this will open the Shared View palette. Give your Shared view a name, you also at this point can choose if you want to share the object properties.

When you click the Share button this will upload an online visual representation of the model to the Autodesk Online viewer, this is linked to your Autodesk login information. Once uploaded you will get a notification pop up in the bottom right of your Advance Steel, you will also get an email and if you refresh the palette you will see your Shared view.

When you open the link in a web browser anyone can then view this visual representation of the model, they can rotate, zoom in, click on an object to get its properties, measure, section the model, go into first-person mode and even walk around the model. It brings the design intent to life all done with no software just through a web browser.

If you want to try it for yourself have a look at our PowerPack summer school here – https://autode.sk/3RqWmNh

Not only is this a great tool for your clients/customers but it can help our project managers and site teams. These Shared Views have all the Advance Steel properties (if you choose to share them) so if the site team are missing a mark number or wants to know what bolt goes where they can check the Shared view on a tablet or mobile phone.

If you want to share a link with anyone, click the share button in the Online viewer or the 3 dots in the palette and then choose “Copy Link” Anyone can view the file, they don’t need any Autodesk licenses or accounts. The 2 things to note are the link is not a live link, so if anything changes in the model you will need to create a new link. The second is the link is available for 30 days, if you get down to say 3 days remaining it is possible to extend the link back to 30 days.

If your client does have an Autodesk account, they can even raise comments in the Online viewer, and you will get an email instantly informing you comment has been added.

The final cool thing you can do with a Shared view is add it your GA drawing as a QR code. I have to thank Mark Hubrich from the Autodesk forum for sharing the workflow of adding QR codes to a drawing and Adrian Mangan for sharing the workflow of using an AutoCAD plugin that automatically generates the QR code. This means that if someone has a printout of your GA drawing they can see this 3D visual representation of the model alongside the 2D drawing.

If you are not already using the Shared views function with every job it should be something you look to add to your workflows to take your project deliverables to the next level.