Optimizing imported geometry

A 3D model can contain too much data to process for your source software exporter or import destination. You can learn about model size restrictions for hardware on this page On this page we're going to give some tips on how to optimize and troubleshoot your exported models for exporting to Arkio.

3D views

When using Arkio's plugin for Revit, Rhino, Sketchup, and Unity. Your active 3D view will be exported to Arkio as a glTF/GLB file. All geometry that is visible in your 3D view will be exported so you can prepare a part of the models that you would like to work with in Arkio.  You can also use this for troubleshooting any issues you have with models that fail to export from our plugins or fail to import in Arkio.

Section box

The easiest way to control your export is using the build-in section box tool from Revit as this limits the export to the objects inside the section box bounds. Using the section box you can easily prepare several saved views with smaller sections of your model. If you want to load extremely large files in Arkio it can help to cut down the model per building, wing, atrium, or courtyard so you will be able to see more detailed geometry on devices with limited rendering budgets. 

It can also help to troubleshoot geometry causing any import/export issues as you can pick a part of the building that you suspect has some geometry that might give import/export issues and make a smaller section box around the model first.

Often geometry that is far away from the origin of your modeling software will cause issues when exporting so making a section box around the main building fixes any export issues. Far-away geometry can also cause other issues in your original modeling tool so it's best to fix this before it causes any issues or lost work.

If you have issues loading a model it helps to section a building into smaller fragments to see what parts still load well. When you have a part of the building that does not load you can further narrow down the section box to find the exact geometry that is causing issues. We'd love to learn more about this geometry to help improve Arkio so please contact us at support@arkio.is if you have exporting issues with certain geometry.

Worksets, layers, (sub)categories

When working with CAD/BIM tools you often organize your geometry by Workset/Categories (Revit), Layers (Rhino), Tags (Sketchup), and Hierarchy (Unity). You can disable many of the objects you don't need before you export to Arkio to simplify the export for mobile devices and troubleshoot what geometry might be causing issues.

Model export preparation - best practices

When exporting large scenes you can follow the following steps to make your models look and perform better in Arkio across all your devices. These are best practices for most 3D modeling applications and are sorted by priority of effect on performance

• Use a 3D section Box to crop only the part of your scene that you need.
• Turn off Worksets, layers, (sub)categories and geometry you don't need 
• Make use of Revit's built-in detail visibility settings (Course, Medium, Detailed)  to reduce the details of elements inside Revit families
• Use families/components/blocks without imported geometry, to prevent invalid geometry and unneeded details like 3D text, screws/bolts. These objects will slow down your original modeling tool and will also affect your device performance with other tools
• Avoid overlapping or thin surfaces and objects that might result in Z-fighting. If plan to work on large scales in Arkio, try to use minimum thicknesses of 30mm for solid objects to prevent the geometry behind bleeding through.
• Keep large architectural elements visible like floors, walls and ceilings adding more details from there as these elements don't add much geometry and help divide the building for Arkio's dynamic occlusion.
• Apply fewer materials. This will keep your modeling software faster and will also improve performance when bringing your models to other rendering tools. A useful workflow for this in Revit is making a multi-category material schedule organized by name and volume so you can spot rarely used materials in your project

Manual Mesh optimization

If your model has too many triangles and you are not using our Arkio's Revit/Rhino/Sketchup/Unity plugins to optimize and export your 3D view you can optimize your mesh models manually using 3D mesh editing software like Blender, 3D Studio Max or mesh optimization tools like Simplygon.

Using Blender you can import the mesh and apply a "Decimate" modifier to easily reduce your geometry up to 5% of its original size. After applying this modifier and exporting your geometry to GLB these optimized models can be loaded to Arkio to better fit your device's render budgets

Files exported from other modeling tools can be several million triangles so the import process can take a while in these tools but the triangle stats and wireframes can directly point you to unneeded dense geometry in the model and allow you to optimize the model before loading it to Arkio.

You can best look online for tutorials on how to optimize your 3D mesh files as this requires some knowledge of the above-mentioned tools.

Models not loading in Arkio

When a model cannot be loaded in Arkio there might be something wrong with the data in that model. If you have 3D models that still load correctly in Windows 3D Viewer, online viewers, or tools like Blender it might be an issue with Arkio's importer. You can contact us at support@arkio.is if you have a model that does not load as we love to learn about this to improve our importers and plugins.