The Viewer: Drawings in 3D and AR on the Web
The Viewer runs a parametric drawing in your browser: its labelled variables become inputs, and the drawing (2D) and its 3D (folded, extruded … by ParametrIQ's own 3D engine) are made again on the server as you change them. Choose a template from ParametrIQ's Parametric library, or open a drawing of your own (Open .piq…, or drop the file on the page).
The 3D pane
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| ▶ | Folds and unfolds the drawing, over and over; press again to stop. |
| The slider | Flat (left) to made (right). |
| Fit | Looks at all of it again. |
| The look | How it looks: Automatic is the appearance for the drawing's material; or choose one from the library (board, metals, woods, plastics …). See Appearances. |
| View in AR | The drawing life-size in your room, on a phone or tablet (below). |
| Share for review | A link for your customer to look at it, comment on it and approve it (Reviews). |
Augmented reality
View in AR asks the server for the drawing made 3D as it is now, with the look chosen, and shows it in a window with its own View in AR button. Tap it to place the model, life-size, on a floor or table:
- iPhone and iPad: AR Quick Look, from a USDZ model made on the server (it folds up as it opens). See AR proofs (USDZ).
- Android and other phones with WebXR (Chrome): the model in the room, placed where you tap on a surface it has found (hit testing), at its real size. Where WebXR isn't there, Android's Scene Viewer opens it instead.
- A computer: the window shows the model to turn, but no AR button; share it for review and open the link on a phone or tablet.
The model is a binary glTF (and for Apple a USDZ), as POST /export/glb and POST /export/usdz give them from the
SaaS API, so your own configurator can show the same in AR. Pages show it with Google's
<model-viewer>, the same viewer HTML proofs carry.
View in 3D from the website
On the website's industry pages, each library design pictured in 3D (one that folds up or is put together in 3D) has a View in 3D link under its picture. It opens the Viewer on that design with its 3D pane in view; on a phone it also opens the View in AR window, so one more tap puts the design life-size in the room. Clicking the picture itself opens the design in the Viewer as usual. A design pictured by its flat drawing has no link: one with nothing to make 3D, or only a thin sheet (a pane of glass, a rug, a gasket), which shows little in 3D.
The link is the Viewer's address with the design's path in the library and view=3d, as in
/viewer?t=Glass/Mirror&view=3d: use the same in your own pages.
Limits
Each drawing is made under a time limit (15 seconds unless the site sets another), and only so many at once: when the site is busy you are asked to try again. A drawing with nothing to make 3D (no cut lines and no layer with 3D settings) has no 3D and no AR.