xeokit-viewer
xeokit-viewer is an open source BIM viewer for the Web. It uses the xeokit SDK for hardware-accelerated graphics, and is cross-platform, cross-browser, and geared for visualizing large, real-world BIM models.
The viewer is developed by xeolabs and OpenProject GmbH, and is integrated within OpenProject's BIM construction project management software.
The viewer is also usable as a stand-alone viewer. Simply fork this repository, add your own models to the .app/data directory, then host it via GitHub Pages. You can also just download the repository to your own HTTP server and serve everything from there.
To serve your own models with this viewer, all you need to do is convert their IFC STEP files using open source CLI tools and drop them into the viewer's data directory. Read the guide below for more info.
The viewer is bundled with the xeokit SDK - see the xeokit licensing page for licensing details.
.
Contents
Features
- Uses xeokit SDK for super fast loading and rendering of large models.
- Works in all major browsers, including mobile.
- Loads BIM geometry and metadata from the file system.
- Loads multiple models, at arbitrary position, scale and rotation.
- Configure custom appearances for IFC types.
- Supports IFC2x3 and IFC4.
- 3D and 2D viewing modes.
- Tree view with three hierarchy modes: containment, IFC type and storeys.
- X-ray, highlight, show, hide and slice objects.
- Customize with your own CSS.
- JavaScript programming API - load models, move camera, show/hide/select/xray objects etc.
- Implemented in JavaScript (ES6), with no external dependencies (other than xeokit).
Demos
| Live Demo | Model Source |
|---|---|
| OTC Conference Center | Details |
| Holter Tower | Details |
| West Riverside Hospital | Details |
| Schependomlaan | Details |
| Schependomlaan Ground Floor | Details |
| Duplex | Details |
License
xeokit-viewer is bundled with the xeokit SDK, which is provided under an Affero GPL V3 dual-license, which allows free use for non-commercial purposes, with the option to buy a licence for commercial use. Please see here for commercial licensing options.
Creating a Viewer
In the example below, we'll create a BIMViewer, with a Server through which it will load project and model data from the file system.
We'll configure the Server to load the data from the .app/data directory.
We also configure our BimViewer with DOM elements for the four parts of its UI:
-
canvasElement- a<canvas>for the 3D canvas, -
explorerElement- a<div>to contain the explorer panel, -
toolbarElement- a<div>to contain the toolbar, -
navCubeCanvasElement- a<canvas>for the NavCube, and -
busyModelBackdropElement- an element to use as the backdrop for the busy-loading modal dialog, which will block events on the viewer while the dialog is showing.
Configuring the BIMViewer with separate places to locate these various elements allows flexible integration into your web page.
For example:
const server = new Server({
dataDir: "./data"
});
const bimViewer = new BIMViewer(server, {
canvasElement: document.getElementById("myCanvas"), // WebGL canvas
explorerElement: document.getElementById("myExplorer"), // Explorer panel
toolbarElement: document.getElementById("myToolbar"), // Toolbar
navCubeCanvasElement: document.getElementById("myNavCubeCanvas"),
busyModelBackdropElement: document.querySelector(".xeokit-busy-modal-backdrop")
});In our app/index.html page, the elements look like this:
<div id="myViewer" class="xeokit-busy-modal-backdrop">
<div id="myExplorer" class="active"></div>
<div id="myContent">
<div id="myToolbar"></div>
<canvas id="myCanvas"></canvas>
</div>
</div>
<canvas id="myNavCubeCanvas"></canvas>See app/css/style.css for how we've styled these elements. See css/BIMViewer.css for the CSS styles that BIMViewer applies to its internally-created HTML.
Configuring the Viewer
Configure your viewer using BIMViewer#setConfigs:
myBIMViewer.setConfigs({
"saoEnabled": "false",
"saoBias": "0.5",
"saoIntensity": "0.5",
"backgroundColor": [1.0, 1.0, 1.0]
});The available configurations are:
| Property | Type | Range | Default Value | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| "cameraNear" | Number | [0.01-0.1] |
0.05 |
Distance to the near clipping plane |
| "cameraFar" | Number | [1-10000] |
3000.0 |
Distance to the far clipping plane |
| "saoEnabled": | Boolean | - | false |
Whether or not to enable Scalable Ambient Obscurance |
TODO
Customizing Viewer Style
The app/index.html file for the standalone viewer contains CSS rules for the various viewer elements, which you can modify as required.
Modal Busy Dialog
As mentioned above, the viewer displays a modal dialog box whenever we load a model. The dialog box has a backdrop element, which overlays the viewer. Whenever the dialog becomes visible, the backdrop will block interaction events on the viewer's UI.
Within our app/index.html page, the main <div> is the backdrop element:
<div id="myViewer" class="xeokit-busy-modal-backdrop">
<div id="myExplorer" class="active"></div>
<div id="myContent">
<div id="myToolbar"></div>
<canvas id="myCanvas"></canvas>
</div>
</div>
<canvas id="myNavCubeCanvas"></canvas>As defined in css/BIMViewer.css, the backdrop gets the following style, which allows the dialog to position itself correctly within the backdrop:
.xeokit-busy-modal-backdrop {
position:relative;
}If you need to tweak CSS relating to the dialog, search for "xeokit-busy-dialog" within css/BIMViewer.css.
Tooltips
Tooltips are not part of the core JavaScript for the viewer. Instead, viewer HTML elements are marked with data-tippy-content attributes that provide strings to show in their tooltips.
For example, the Toggle 2D/3D button's element looks like this:
<button type="button" class="xeokit-threeD xeokit-btn fa fa-cube fa-2x" data-tippy-content="Toggle 2D/3D"></button>In the app/index.html file for the standalone viewer, we're using tippy.js, which automatically creates tooltips for those elements.
Customizing Appearances of IFC Types
The viewer loads colors for the various IFC element types straight from the IFC model, except where overrides are defined in the configuration file src/IFCObjectDefaults/IFCObjectDefaults.js.
You can add or remove configurations in that file if you need to customize the color or pickability of specific IFC types.
For example, to ensure that IfcWindow and IfcSpace types are initially visible, transparent and pickable (ie. able to be selected by clicking on them), you might configure that file as shown below:
const IFCObjectDefaults = {
IfcSpace: {
visible: true,
pickable: true,
opacity: 0.2
},
IfcWindow: {
visible: true,
pickable: true,
opacity: 0.5
}
};
export {IFCObjectDefaults};Sometimes IFC models have opaque IfcWindow and IfcSpace elements, so it's a good idea to have configurations in there so that we can see through them.
Programming API
BIMViewer provides a complete set of methods to programmatically control it.
Using these methods, we can query what models are available, load models, interact with the 3D view, control the various tools, and drive the UI itself.
Let's start off by querying what projects are available. Since we're using the default {@link Server}, this will be the JSON in ./data/projects/index.json. We'll just log that information to the console.
myViewer.getProjectsInfo((projectsInfo) => {
console.log(JSON.stringify(projectsInfo, null, "\t"));
});The projects JSON will be similar to:
{
"projects": [
{
"id": "Duplex",
"name": "Duplex"
},
{
"id": "Schependomlaan",
"name": "Schependomlaan"
},
{
"id": "WestRiversideHospital",
"name": "West Riverside Hospital"
}
]
}Let's now query some info on a project.
Model Database
The viewer loads models from the file system by default. These are contained within the ./data directory, which also contains a number of sample models to get you started.
Each model consists of an .XKT binary geometry file and a JSON metadata file which classifies its IFC elements.
Models are grouped within projects. Each project can contain multiple models, and has a JSON index.json manifest which lists its models.
At the root of ./data is a JSON index.json manifest that lists all the projects.
The directory structure is designed to support RESTful queries, ie:
| Query | Path |
|---|---|
| Get all projects | GET ./data/index.json |
| Get project | GET ./data/WestRiversideHospital/index.json |
| Get model geometry | GET ./data/WestRiversideHospital/electrical/geometry.xkt |
| Get model metadata | GET ./data/WestRiversideHospital/electrical/metadata.json |
Shown below is a portion of the ./data directory, showing the directory structure.
./data/
└── projects
├── index.json
├── Duplex
│ ├── index.json
│ └── models
│ └── design
│ ├── geometry.xkt
│ ├── issues.json
│ └── metadata.json
└── WestRiversideHospital
├── index.json
└── models
├── electrical
│ ├── geometry.xkt
│ └── metadata.json
├── fireAlarms
│ ├── geometry.xkt
│ └── metadata.json
├── plumbing
│ ├── geometry.xkt
│ └── metadata.json
├── sprinklers
│ ├── geometry.xkt
│ └── metadata.json
└── structure
├── geometry.xkt
└── metadata.json
The index.json at the root of ./data shown below. The id of each project matches the name of that project's subdirectory.
{
"projects": [
{
"id": "Duplex",
"name": "Duplex",
"position": [-20, 0.0, -10.0],
"scale": [1.0, 1.0, 1.0],
"rotation": [0.0, 0.0, 0.0]
},
{
"id": "WestRiversideHospital",
"name": "West Riverside Hospital",
"position": [20, 0.0, 0.0],
"scale": [1.0, 1.0, 1.0],
"rotation": [0.0, 0.0, 0.0]
},
//...
]
}The index.json for the "WestRiversideHospital" project is shown below. The id of each model matches the name of that model's subdirectory, while name is the string that's displayed for the model in the viewers Models tab.
{
"id": "WestRiversideHospital",
"name": "West Riverside Hospital",
"models": [
{
"id": "structure",
"name": "Hospital Structure",
"default": true
},
{
"id": "electrical",
"name": "Hospital Electrical"
},
{
"id": "sprinklers",
"name": "Hospital Sprinklers"
},
{
"id": "plumbing",
"name": "Hospital Plumbing"
},
{
"id": "fireAlarms",
"name": "Hospital Fire Alarms"
}
]
}Adding Your Own Models
To add your own project to the database, you need to:
add a new project directory within ./data,
- add a subdirectory within that for each model, containing each model's
.XKTand metadata files, - add a
index.jsonmanifest of the models within the project directory, which lists the models, and - list your project in the
index.jsonat the root of./data.
Loading models from a custom source
To load models from a different source than the file system, configure
Building the Viewer
Initialize:
sudo npm install
Building ES6 module in /dist/main.js:
npm run build
Then, within index.hml, we use the module like so:
import {Server, ViewerUI} from "./dist/main.js";
const server = new Server({
dataDir: "./data/"
});
const viewerUI = new ViewerUI(server, {
//...
});