Prepare CAD/BIM files with individualy movable objects in Arkio

When loading CAD and BIM files to Arkio we combine all the geometry into one object to boost performance on mobile devices. Models exported from Revit, SketchUp and Rhino can have thousands of individual objects that will be too complex to render at the same time by a mobile processor.

If you want to make some of your CAD/BIM instances individually movable in Arkio some additional preparation steps would be needed to make the instanced model more manageable.

Using a workflow involving our Arkio for Unity plugin you can use Unity's model hierarchy to sort your CAD and BIM files in a more limited number of instance Game Objects or Prefabs that can be loaded to Arkio in 3 steps

Step 1 - Prepare the source file

• Depending on your source software make special layers/filtering in the file for the objects that you want to move individually in Arkio. (e.g. some pieces of furniture that you want to move in a SketchUp file are assigned to the "Furniture" layer)
  • Keep the number of movable objects below 200 if you want Quest performance to not be affected
  • You can clean things up a bit in SketchUp and put components together in one component if you eg want to combine assets that belong together (like a desk, chair and PC)
• You can now turn off the movable "Furniture" layers and make an "Architecture" export of SketchUp to Arkio using our plugin.
• Saved a special version of that SketchUp file that only contains the movable objects (so delete all the geometry that already got exported and save the file as a new Sketchup "Furniture" file

Step 2 - Prepare the Unity instanced file

• Open Unity and import that "Furniture" Sketchup file at the 0,0,0 origin and the correct scale (meters should be the default and you can double check if the location is good by also loading the Arkio plugin exported "Architecture" file)
• Once loaded in Unity, you can right-click the blue prefab name of the SketchUp import and select Unpack Prefab
• You should now have a longer list of individual elements in Unity that will be exported as loose elements to Arkio
• Export this "Furniture" file from Unity to Arkio

Step 3 - Load the files in Arkio

• Place the Sketchup exported "Architecture" file pinned to origin in a new scene.
• Place the Unity exported "Furniture" file moveable origin in the same scene
• The resulting Arkio scene should now have one larger non-movable model from SketchUp and the individually placed loose elements from Unity all loaded on the correct place and scale. (If not in the same location you might miss an alignment step in Unity by loading the architecture model in Unity and aligning it with the loose furniture before unpacking the prefab)