3D Models from manufacturers worldwide

[jemagnussen]

Hi all,

Any good ideas on how to get all the manufacturers on a global scale to place download sections of their products on homepage or even better in a global 3D Warehouse as Google's?

I have in vain tried to convince manufacturers like Hitachi, Liebherr and others to give access to low poly 3D models of their equipment. We are in the business of producing methods statements and we find that 3D drawings for visualizing the processes on a construction site is so much better than any other means we have used so far. Sketchup is really useful and easy to work with compared to many other 3D CAD packages, but there is a serious lack of models to download of real equipment and to scale so it is possible to show true to scale models in different positions when making methods statement and workability analysis.

Does anybody have any success in getting manufactures to give access to their products in 3D?

One should think that manufactures were eager to use the platform to promote their products, but it rather seems like they are afraid that the 3D models are used to make cheap copies of their products – not that I believe that a copy of a 80 ton excavator comes cheap regardless of being a copy or not and what prevent anybody from taking the same data from a real product and copy…?

Best regards
Jesper