Models
Upload your project's 3D models, keep their versions, tag them, follow their conversion and look at them in the 3D viewer.
The Models section holds the 3D files a project works with. Each file you upload becomes a model, and Gamma converts it in the background into the format both the web viewer and the GAMMA AR app open, so an element has the same id and position in the browser and on site.
Anyone with access to models can open them in the 3D viewer, read element properties and see issues and markers where they were placed. Project admins also choose how models are converted and follow conversions on the Jobs page. The section's pages are Models, Views, Search sets, Tags and, for project admins, Settings. Views, which group models that open together, and search sets, which find elements by their properties, have pages of their own in this guide.
Who can do what
What you can do with models depends on the Models level in your permission profile on the project (No access, View, Create, Edit, Full control). Each level includes the ones before it. Some tasks belong to project admins (organization owners and admins, and admins of this project), whatever their profile says.
| Task | Needs |
|---|---|
| See models, open the viewer, read element properties, download files | Models: View |
| Upload models, create folders | Models: Create |
| Upload a new version, move a model to another folder, set a model's tags | Models: Edit |
| Delete models and folders | Models: Full control |
| See tags | Anyone on the project |
| Create, edit, reorder and delete tags | Project admin |
| Convert or Convert again a model | Project admin |
| Change the model import defaults (Settings) | Project admin |
| Use the Jobs page: logs, Cancel job, Retry | Project admin |
With the default profiles, Manager has full control of models. Contributor, Field, Partner and Viewer can only view them. Views and search sets follow the same Models level.
Upload models
Open Models and go into the folder the files belong in. Files you upload are filed in the folder that is open.
Click Upload models and pick one or more files. The file name becomes the model name.
Under Import options, check the project's defaults. Anything you change here applies to these files only.
Click Upload (or Upload N files). The files go up one after another, and each line shows its progress.
Accepted formats are ifc, dwg, dxf and dgn, up to 5 GiB per file. A BCF file holds issues, not a model: import it on the Issues page with Import BCF instead. Other extensions, empty files and files over the limit are refused before anything is sent. If some files fail, the sheet stays open to show which; the others are already saved.
Every upload starts a conversion straight away. The Conversion column shows Queued, Running, Succeeded, Failed or Canceled, and the list refreshes by itself while one is in progress.
Formats the converter cannot read yet
glTF, FBX and USDZ files can no longer be uploaded, because the converter does not read them; versions uploaded before still list and download, and their conversion fails with the reason. DWG, DXF and DGN files are converted as one model. A model whose conversion failed cannot be opened in the viewer.
Organize models in folders
Folders only sort models. They do not change anything about them.
- To create a folder, use New folder in the folder tree, or New folder in a folder's menu to create one inside it.
- To rename or move a folder, choose Rename or move in its menu.
- To move a model, open it and pick another Folder on its Overview tab. The change saves immediately.
- Only an empty folder can be deleted. Move its folders and models out first.
Look at a model's details and versions
Click a model in the list to open its sheet. It has three tabs:
- Overview: folder, tags, format, size, version number, who uploaded the current file and when, and the conversion status.
- Versions: every file the model has had, newest first. The current one is marked Current, older ones Discarded.
- Conversions: every time a version was converted, newest first, and who started it. Project admins can open the job from here.
To download the file as it was uploaded, use the download button on the current version's row.
Upload a new version
When the design changes, replace the file rather than uploading a new model, so views, search sets and issues keep pointing at it.
Open the model and click Upload new version.
Pick the file and check the import options.
Click Upload. The model keeps its name, whatever the new file is called.
Until the new version's conversion succeeds, the viewer and everything that reads the model's elements keep using the previous version; if it fails, the model stays there. Once it succeeds, the older version is discarded: its row stays in Versions as a record, but its file can no longer be downloaded.
Issues raised on an older version keep its number; their elements are looked up in the current version, and the issue sheet says so.
Open the 3D viewer
You can open the viewer from:
- a model's sheet, with the Open in viewer button next to its name (only once a version has been converted),
- a view's page, with Open in viewer in its header, to load all its models together,
- a search set's page, with Open in viewer in its header, to see its elements highlighted,
- a marker, to look at it where it was placed,
- an issue, to see it where it was raised.
The viewer opens over the page you were on. Close brings you back to that page as you left it, and the models stay loaded, so reopening is instant. Full screen in its header fills the screen. It needs a current Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari with WebGL.
Move around
The toolbar has two navigation modes.
- Orbit around the model: drag to turn it in place about the point under the cursor, or about the model's centre when the cursor is off it; right-drag or Shift+drag to pan, middle-drag to pan three times as fast — to cross the model rather than nudge it — and use the wheel to zoom toward the point under the cursor. Keep zooming near a surface to pass through it. Double-click a point to orbit around it.
- Walk through the model: click the model first, then use W A S D or the arrow keys to move, Q and E to go down and up, and drag to look around. Hold Shift to go faster.
The toolbar also has Fit to view, a Section box (per axis, how much of the model to keep) and X-ray, which draws walls, floors, roofs, windows and doors see-through and lets clicks reach what is inside.
The orientation cube in the bottom-left corner turns with the view: the face toward you says where you are looking from — Top, Bottom, Front, Back, Left or Right, Front being the view from the south looking north as the model was drawn. Click a face to look from that side at the same point, as far off as before.
Navigation speed, the gauge in the toolbar, sets how fast walking (W A S D), panning and zooming go: 0.5×, 1×, 2× or 4×. Shift still makes walking faster on top of it. The viewer remembers the choice on this browser.
Select elements and read their properties
Click an element to select it. Its name, category and properties appear in the Selection panel. Ctrl+click (⌘+click on a Mac) adds an element to the selection, or removes it if it is already selected. Click empty space to clear the selection.
Properties are read from the model's newest converted version. If your profile lets you see element statuses, the panel also shows each selected element's status, and if you may set statuses, Set status changes them for every selected element; see Progress.
Several models, issues and markers
The rail on the side of the viewer has these panels:
- Models: tick or untick a model to show or hide it. Opened on a model, Add a model adds any other converted model of the project. Opened on a view or a search set, the viewer keeps to its models: you can turn them off and on, but not add others. When models are shown together, they are lined up against the first one, which for a view is its main model.
- Search set: only when the viewer was opened on a search set — highlight or isolate its elements. See Search sets.
- Markers: the placed QR markers, searchable by name, number or key. See Markers.
- Issues: located issues, with the issues list's filters plus Storey. A pin or row opens the issue. At most the newest 5,000 are shown.
- Selection: the properties of the selected elements.
Follow the selection, in the Markers and Issues panels, decides what picking one does, from the list or by clicking its pin. On, the camera moves to it: an issue is seen from where the AR app stood when it was raised, a marker from in front of its printed side. Off, it is highlighted and the view stays where you left it. The viewer remembers the choice on this browser.
Tags
Tags file models by name and colour. Tags keeps the project's list of them, each with a unique name. Project admins create them with New tag, edit, reorder (by dragging) and delete them; everyone else can see the list. Deleting a tag takes it off every model that carries it.
- To tag a model, open it and tick the tags under Tags on its Overview tab. Each tick saves immediately.
- The models list shows each model's tags in its Tags column.
- To list the models carrying a tag, open Filters on the models list and tick it. Ticking several shows the models carrying any of them. Like the search, the filter looks in every folder; picking a folder clears it.
Model import settings
Project admins set the defaults every upload is converted with in Models → Settings:
- Process 2D content: keeps lines and annotations so they show in GAMMA AR. Requires GAMMA AR 8.2 or later.
- Use Autodesk material colors: uses the colours of the Autodesk materials instead of a default colour. Of the formats you can upload here, this applies to DWG.
Each switch saves on its own and affects only uploads and conversions from then on.
Jobs: following conversions
The Jobs page is for project admins. It lists every conversion, newest first, together with the project's exports (issues PDF, markers PDF, status report; see Exports), and you can filter it by status and type or search by subject or worker. Click a job to open it:
- Overview: status, start and end times, the worker that ran it, and the attempt number.
- Report: what the converter found, such as object count, storeys, categories, file size and warnings.
- Outputs: the converted files, to download.
The log icon on a row opens the converter's log, live while the job runs; scroll up to pause it and click Follow to catch up. Cancel job stops a queued or running job, and Retry queues a failed or canceled one again. Nothing is retried automatically.
To convert a model again, for example after a converter update, open the model, go to Versions and click Convert again on the current version. It uses the project's import settings as they are now.
Other members only see a conversion's status on the model.
Good to know
- Deleting a model removes all its versions and their files, and takes it out of every view and search set. This cannot be undone. The project's Activity keeps a record of it, as it does of uploads, new versions, renames and moves.
- One conversion at a time per version. A version being converted cannot be queued again until that conversion ends.
- Your organization's own storage. If your organization connected its own storage bucket, new uploads go there. While that storage is disconnected, files stored in it cannot be downloaded or opened in the viewer.
- API. Everything here can also be done through the API reference: folders, element properties and jobs. Views and search sets have their own sections: views and search sets.