Not sure if anyone has requested versioning before, but it’s a must-have feature in the programming industry, and I probably don’t have to explain how it works.
In general, it would be nice to be able to keep track of different versions of the same 3D design, so if I need to roll back or branch out the design, I can easily do so without worrying about messing up the existing design. And instead of blindly syncing across devices, a check-in check-out function would help prevent an unwanted sync. Maybe there is a way to integrate GitHub into Shapr3D, I don’t know, but it would be a nice feature to have.
Hi Side,
that would in fact be nice - is going into the direction of Product-Data-Management.
But to be honest I think versioning would be the 3rd to 4th step on the way. First we would need subfolders for the designs in Shapr3D, then file-properties that we can fill and search for…
The thing about versioning is that this will cause a way higher storage-load on the Shapr3D-Cloud, causing additional cost - would you be willing to pay a little extra money per month for a versioning-feature?
If not: Have you ever thought of saving your “versions” locally via the “export”-function (that in case of the Shapr3D-file-extension is more a save-as than an export - but that is is another story)? That comes with no cost, but the obligation to make your own data-backup.
I think sooner or later such functionality will be implemented by the team of Shapr3D, but some future-features will come at a cost and I would like to advertise for sensibility for the cost-effects of newer, bigger, better features in the community.
In the end the most important thing is that Shapr3D is profitable and thereby sustainable over the long run.
Hi Matt,
I agree with you. I actually don’t mind paying for this feature because, quite frankly, I find the exporting function quite annoying. Every time I export the file, I have to manually append a date to the file name, kind of doing versioning manually. There may be a better way to do this, I don’t know, but imagine you have to do this multiple times a day.
I also agree with you that this versioning feature needs to be profitable for Shapr3D, but I think there are multiple ways of doing this, they don’t have to go all out at the beginning. They can start out with a very basic versioning service, maybe something similar to Apple’s Time Machine, allowing users to backup native Shapr3D files in their local drive, and let them set the backup frequency, and be able to roll back to any point the user desire. This service alone would be enough for me.
If Shapr3D wants to go all out, then it would be the GitHub style, I think, with full cloud service, check-in check-out system, roll-back, branch-out, the whole nine yard, you know. And they can definitely sell this service to professional teams. One thing about this professional versioning service is that once a team signed up for it, it would most likely be a long-term thing, coz it’s not easy to migrate these files to another service.
As handy as the “sync” option is, I really would prefer an option to save to either our local network drive so we can properly file version. Syncing to our local network drive would be far better, for us, in the long run.
TBH, exporting (with the multiple steps that it entails) is problematic for us. This isn’t just a “oh, it would be nice to have” feature, versioning is a requirement in our industry.
Not asking for Shapr3D to implement this, we have our infrastructure already in place. We use desktops (with iPads on occasion) and the problem with Shapr3D’s cloud is it creates a failure point — changes could be made, implemented, but not been properly versioned. That can be disastrous in our industry (where rollbacks are about as common as rework).
As it is, we are exporting in Shapr3D format and running GIT to store to a local network repository. We should have a one-click solution to it like the sync. As it stands, it is very clunky.
