A) Sketch Mode
Currently, the comment just takes the image of the situation, but you need to describe in the text of the comment what it is about. The image only gives information about the position but no further context about the issue. I have mentioned the sketch mode in the past, where people can signal with arrows/lines/text/clouds/e.g. what they want to do in the screenshot - similar to the BCF paint action. This sketch mode is necessary to make communication/comments/issues meaningful, as sketching is the most important language of the designer.
B) Paste Image from Clipboard
I mentioned the paste image from clipboard to add alternative graphics to the comments in an easier way. Currently, you need to upload a file with more than a few clicks and keystrokes. Dalux has a good function. If you would allow the paste from clipboard in your comments function it would make the experience exponentially better.
C) Move Indicator
Currently, the indicator of the comment is placed where the last click happened. Sometimes, someone wants to rearrange it to place it better. This does not work. Make the indicator object (plus) movable. Correction: it works with additional shift+left mouse button clicks. Usually, you would expect deselecting. Instead, you move the indicator. Might be good to allow for deselecting and show move arrows at the indicator.
Could also be useful if there was an option to either display the comment as current (âInitialsâ sign) but only able to see one at a time, you could imagine a view collating all comments or keeping a smaller / simpler display of the comments visible. Sketch below showing the idea,
this would give a global vision of the project and comments easy for design review / technical coordination / client engagement / future development of the project / âŚ
What I forgot to mention at that time when I wrote, but what came up to me when I walked around in our office and thought about you guys.
We are using editor.js for our knowledge Hub development to let people write down best practices in the webpage and indirectly mongodb/minio.
Editor.js also has already most of the functionalities (attachments, textstyle, video, embed, image from clipbboard. The only down side ⌠it is madness with dependencies as each module (the plugins for editor.js) was created by different people. Still worth to take a look at this open source development.
I have used editor.js in the past, and as a standalone, it is very helpful - as you mentioned, integrating it is a separate matter. We can consider it, but there is probably a framework-specific solution the team would favour.
These feature would be great! We are currently using Trimble Connect as a model coordination tool, itâs beautiful because it basic :D. Iâd like to move us over to Speckle but functionality like annotations, red lines etc. are really important in communicating - crude example below. We use this ALOT.
Another feature would be great in Speckle are saved live views.
Taken from Trimble Connect again, saved live views allow the user to go back to the exact state when the live view was taken, so any modified visuals (colour changes) section cuts, hidden elements etc are restored to that state for ease of taking the viewer right to the topic being discussed. We use this with ToDoâs and work with a lot of little components, being able to clean up the view for the person who the comment is aimed at helps with clean communication.
In most of the platforms those markups are stored in the snapshot image of the issue (BCF schema) and cannot be shown in the actual 3d view.
Some tools offer 3d markups like what was shown above by @ChrisT. Trimble connect is actually a good example, as people really love to use the markups there.
In the majority of plattforms those markups cannot be attached to issues and act as a parallel world of commenting designs. Either you do Issues and explain in text (maybe modify the screenshot if you are allowed to) or use the 3d markups (which tend to be unorganized and cannot be tracked that good. It is a bit of a downfall that no software company so far developed something combined.
This is how it looks in Autodesk Construction Cloud
As described above, coordinating and collaborating is not just about the chatting ⌠probably the minority is, as people donât work synchronosly on issues. Sketching is the language of the designer, and this is one of many reasons why the majority of designers loves PDF over any 3D viewer tool.
Hope what I wrote above makes sense, if not give me a call
As an addendum, from all the plattforms we tested for issue management and model-based commenting, none was liked by our regular engineers. If all the platforms out there would merge with their best functions it would have a higher likelihood of being used though
A user can use markups/annotations in the live view, the images are essentially drawn on a plane that is selected prior to adding it. The markups can then be saved to a ToDo (if desired), which takes the user back to that original scene state, which could be an old version of the model, with section various markups, colour coded elements etc.
1 - Scribble - drawn on the plane of a object, so if I rotate the view the scribble will not rotate to face the viewer.
2 - This is an annotation tag, itâs dynamic and rotates to face the viewer, it also scales.
3 - Initial ToDo scene (click on this image and it goes to that scene state)
4/5 - These are follow on comments with new scene states, the cool thing with this is to that a various parties can continue the query with developing context (new models, news ways of looking at the model etc)
We use this quite a lot with internal commenting, from design to manufacture. It does the job ok, but could be better, for example: sometimes I donât want to go back to the original scene state, Iâd prefer to see the new models in the query location.
It wouldnât be easy to have this workflow without being able to drill down to the fine detail and be able to get back to that view quickly (via the saved scene state). As an example, I could be looking at a screw that is in the middle of a project, if I needed a modification of this, I would want to guide the assigned user of the ToDo to that exact place, so that that there is no ambiguity in finding it.
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