We have just added a short how-to about using of Shapr3D’s export function and Microsoft’s free 3D Viewer app to check out your designs in situ. All you need is a device that has a rear-facing camera – they are not that common yet, but there are a few out there, including the entire Surface Pro lineup of Microsoft. This is a feature that many of our iPad users (including myself!) find useful during their design process or even for customer presentations, so we wanted to make sure all of you know that the same is possible on Windows as well.
Let me know if you tried it and share your screenshots here. The badly lit ones in the article were actually taken by me, so I’m pretty sure you can do better
@Peter_Gy is there a way, or will be a way, to export AR viewable files to android devices? I often want to share my USDZ designs with Android users, but it won’t work.
If you have any advice it’d be much appreciated!
I’m going to be honest with you: I haven’t found a good way to do that yet. Even though Google’s ARCore platform is powerful and there are many good AR applications out there for Android, I have not found an acceptable generic OBJ / STL / 3MF / USDZ viewer on Android yet. Any tips from others out there would be appreciated.
I’ve had the same issue in searches. I wasn’t sure if there was going to be a Shapr3d AR export option with ARcore compatible files in the future, or simply hope Android adapts the USDZ format.
Does android natively support/view glTF or FBX? Could these possibly be a supported AR export option in Shapr if so?
I have done only limited research and I am by no means an experienced Android developer, so take my answer with a grain of salt. But for me, it looks like adding support for those file formats would be an important step but not solve the problem by itself – we would still need a website or an app that wraps the experience with useful controls and triggers the AR view. The Google app itself has a built-in AR viewer called “Scene Viewer”, but AFAIK you can’t just point it at a glTF file and have it open it. Unfortunately I can’t promise we’ll have the capacity to create and maintain an Android viewer app in the short term – though we’ve been exploring our options around doing it on an iPhone.
One viable option would be going through SketchFab, though it requires a paid license if you want to keep your designs private or want to use it extensively. It works nicely on the web and on iOS with OBJ or IGES files exported from Shapr3D, but I have to admit I never tried their Android app. I’ll nick my girlfriend’s phone later today and give it a go but I’d be interested in your experience if you decide to try it.
I guess I’m searching for something I can present to Android users that’s as elegant as opening a USDZ file on iOS.
I’m in an even smaller boat than you, as I know almost nothing about the Android environment, much less development.
Thanks @Peter_Gy I’ll look more into it a bit more.
