Showing Multiple Floors in Path Animation

March 20, 2017

New feature we have added for wayfinding applications is accordion style floors when using path animation. This means, that all floors will be visible on the screens when showing the path through multiple floors.

In 3D Wayfinder you will see all floors as they exist in real building, so they are just simplified 3D models of the real floor-plans. When switching between floors, new floors will drop into scene on top of the previous floors or fly away, if going downward with the path. All floors are exactly covering previous ones, so basically whole 3D building models are sliced by floors.

Now it is possible to keep the floor plans apart from each other, so you can see all floors at the same time. This is useful mainly for wayfinding, so it is easy to remember the whole route. But we will definitely develop this “accordion” mode further, so it can be used also in other applications. For example in BIM applications, it is possible to highlight objects in all floors at the same time. Or visualize the whole factory with multiple floors or create multi-layer metro station animations.

Animation_floor_animation_in_3D_wayfinder_optimize

Currently the distance between floors is configured under settings. In future we will add features for separating the floors by dragging the floor-buttons apart. This makes the browsing of 3D buildings much more flexible.

To use this accordion style path animation, go to Settings in Administration panel. Then find Path->3D->Leave a offset between floors. For example use 50 as an offset, and then see how it looks.

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New Responsive Template for 3D Wayfinder

March 7, 2017

New template is now available for all 3D Wayfinder users. Template called “Iglu” is responsive HTML5 based template for 3D Wayfinder with clean and modern design. It is open-source and uses our newest AngularJS framework based template.

There is a new default template for all 3D Wayfinder projects and it’s called Iglu. Currently this template can only be used to view 3D projects. But rest assured we’re working on the 2D version as well. The 2D template will have exact same layout and styles as the 3D version. The main feature of this new template is the use of AngularJS. In addition to this there is one more major feature being added and it is responsiveness. This means that it can be viewed in both portrait and landscape mode. It will look good on all ranges and sizes of displays, be it a 55” kiosk screen or a 5” smartphone with WebGL support.

3D_Wayfinder_iglu_template_landscape_tablet

The template has three main sections which are the header, the map and the menu. The header has the building logo and button for activating the navigation menu. Below the header is the map that has map controls on it: floor buttons, zoom buttons, shortcut buttons.

3D_Wayfinder_iglu_template_potrait_mobile_map

Navigation menu

When the navigation menu is activated it will cover the right side of the map on larger screens and the whole map area on smaller screens. Currently the navigation menu has three tabs – the alphabetical listing, the category listing and search.

3D_Wayfinder_iglu_template_potrait_mobile_directory

Our new template covers all main features, needed for wayfinding:

  • Map navigation controls
  • A-Z list of all locations
  • Categories
  • Location info
  • Search

Although the template suites very well for wayfinding kiosks and mobile applications. It is also good for just showing and browsing 3D architectural models.

Here can You view a demo project based on the new template:
http://static.3dwayfinder.com/projects/demo/Iglu3D/

The Iglu template is based on our 3DWayfinderNGTemplate and it is open source (Github: https://github.com/3dtech/3DWayfinderNGTemplate).

The template uses 3DWayfinders AngularJS service. 3DWayfinderAngular (Github: https://github.com/3dtech/3DWayfinderAngular) – to communicate with our JavaScript Wayfinder API. So 3D Wayfinder functionality is easy to use in all AngularJS projects. The Iglu template is a clean and nice example of using AngularJS with 3D Wayfinder.

Our old default template called “default” is still available. It can be selected from menu or used direclty in wayfinder project URL: https://static.3dwayfinder.com/projects/demo/default/.
Template was made in co-operation with our development partner Iglu. Iglu is a young and innovative custom software building company in Estonia. Iglu’s core-competences are UX and modern front-end development.

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