October 2020 Matt Kirby
While we love the plethora of specialized, domain-specific applications that are used to create today’s design, planning, and management deliverables, we don’t love the fragmented data sharing fallout. Whenever project files are stored locally or in shared drives, the challenges become pretty predictable: Outdated file versions or incomplete data sets that set teams up for misinterpretation, rework, costly supply chain issues, or workflow bottlenecks.
In this industry, time is money - and neither can be wasted to ensure successful project delivery. So to help achieve that goal, Trimble is committed to providing you with the collaboration tools that your team needs to get the job done - on time and on budget.
As you may have noticed, our new 3D Viewer was released late last year. This was a complete rewrite that provides users with a way to load and view models faster than ever before. It works on both desktop and mobile browsers and gives you the ability to do things like:
- Create clash reports to detect structural conflicts within the model
- Assign a specific View or ToDo item to a team member
- Share the model via a live, single-source-of-truth link with anyone — whether they have a Trimble Connect license or not.
But that’s not all. Here are our picks for the top Trimble Connect enhancements that will help teams improve collaboration and productivity:
- Microsoft Office 365 Integration - users with Office 365 Business licenses are able to edit documents and save changes directly to Trimble Connect. Office file content can be changed without downloading the file to your local machine and re-uploading after completing your edits.
- Measurement Tool- No need to rely on 2D drawings to find exact dimensions. With this tool, you can easily measure the distance between model elements directly inside the 3D Viewer.
- Layer Management Tool - Not interested in going “drawing-less”? Why not use drawings and models together? The new Layer Management feature allows you to view the geometry of multiple layers of 2D and/or 3D project files at the same time.
- Attachments Panel - This tool lists all of the attached files, ToDos, and URLs that are attached to your model elements and allows you to easily visualize linked objects in the context of your 3D model.
While these features have proven to be very useful for project teams, perhaps the biggest upgrade to Trimble Connect is the addition of our Workflow Extensions (Property Sets, Content Browser, and Organizer).
- Property Sets (Workflow Extension) - Allows you to easily view BIM data in the design context. With this extension, you can create custom property sets and assign them to any model element, without having to access the original authoring tool.
Recent additions to the Property Sets Workflow Extension include:
- Content Browser (Workflow Extension) - Review data and interact with model content by displaying properties in a grid view. The Content Browser enables you to group objects by different properties, configure and control the visibility of columns, and export data for easy reporting.
- Organizer (Workflow Extension) - Stay organized by defining breakdown structures and grouping objects together as you see fit. For example, you could create groups by project phase, object type, location (floors or sections), and more.
If you haven’t already, explore the new version of Trimble Connect and begin collaborating with your teams and stakeholders!