Spread3D - Create interactive 3D Presentations

Laurent Diaz · 16 Jul 2012, 08:43

**Update: Spread3D 1.2 is out!**Check this post.

In a few clicks, Spread3D turns your SketchUp models into interactive 3D web experiences you can easily integrate in your blog or your website.

The exported web pages are powered by the popular Flashplugin running on all Mac and Windows desktop computers.

[flash=640,360:3jnp8wvc]http://www.youtube.com/v/SZAmNcP2Dvw&hl=en&fs=1[/flash:3jnp8wvc]

Spread3D is available in two versions:

A Free Edition for hobbyists, students and SketchUp enthusiasts
A Pro Edition with more features (animations, 3D texts, 3D buttons, sounds, logo, password protection, interactive walk...) and no commercial use restriction

If you want to learn more about Spread3D:

Play with our showcases to see what web 3D means!
Have a look to our detailed video tutorials to get started quickly
No website? Use DropBox (see tutorial) or StatiCloud to share your 3D experiences online

You can download the free edition and a trial of the pro edition directly from our website (Windows installer only as of now, Mac users: kindly wait we are working hard for you!).

HFM · 16 Jul 2012, 09:21

I think you should take some time to finish/improve your product. It's buggy when trying to move and the quality isn't that good.

Laurent Diaz · 16 Jul 2012, 09:43

Did you download and try Spread3D with your models?
We are in beta for several months and we have dozens of customers happy with the output. They use it as an effective way to share or document their models.

It is true that you cannot expect the same 3D quality than in a video game as we are dealing with web technologies which have their own limitations.
However, if you compare it with similar "standard" sharing technology (like 3D PDF for instance), I think we are much more reliable and stable...

HFM · 16 Jul 2012, 10:22

I tried your showcase, and while orbiting around a single [small] object is fine, the bigger models stutter across the screen and the walk through feature leaves your camera shaking.

Laurent Diaz · 16 Jul 2012, 11:20

Well Hover and Walk are the two most intensive features and you can have performance issues on some configurations or with some laptop drivers (the Flash player team is increasing the number of supported configurations at every release...).

Do you mind sending your machine + browser configuration to "support at spread3d.com" so that I can see if anything can be done?

Please note that we have successfully tested our product with low end computers (laptops with integrated graphics cards for instance) which are not even able to open the original Sketchup models!

Trogluddite · 16 Jul 2012, 12:56

Looks very handy - just the sort of thing I need for client presentations.
So far it works pretty well on my system (Dual-Core E5200 2.5GHz, 1Gb RAM, G45 Mobo graphics) - tested with the demo's, and a random sample of my SU models.

Hopefully, I'll have time for a more thorough test later in the week, but I have noticed a couple of niggles...

Models exporting without textures. The textures on the demo models look fine, so maybe this is just a "Free" edition limitation?
Z-plane clipping on very small or large models. I use SU for product design - actual size items have many parts measuring only a few mm, but I often model 1000 times bigger to get around the "small faces" problem (i.e. mm->m). Zooming in too far on "actual size" models, or zooming out to see all of a "supersize" model results in nasty clipping (much more so than within SU). Re-scaling gets around this easy enough, but if the z-limits cannot be altered, maybe there should be some kind of warning whenever the imported model is over- or under-sized.

But all-in-all, I'm impressed so far - particularly by how simple it is to use (for modeller and 'client').

Laurent Diaz · 16 Jul 2012, 14:31

Hi Trogluddite,

Thanks for your feedback: I am glad to know you find Spread3D easy to use. We have done our best to make a software you don't need to learn!

Regarding the issues you raise:

the Z-clipping problem is indeed there if your model has non-standard scale. To fix that, our next release (end of this month for Spread3D Pro) will include a control to adjust it.
Texturing should work in Free Edition also (including complexe cases like distorted textures). I have just checked with a couple of models but maybe one of your textures use a format we do not support yet... Do you mind sharing one model (or a part of it) having the issue to our support mail address (support at spread3d.com)?

Aerilius · 16 Jul 2012, 15:38

That works great!

Only you're putting a little limitation to your users (that actually doesn't exist), why write not:

@unknownuser said:

running on all M̶a̶c̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶W̶i̶n̶d̶o̶w̶s̶ desktop computers that have Flash.

Laurent Diaz · 16 Jul 2012, 15:53

@aerilius said:

Only you're putting a little limitation to your users (that actually doesn't exist), why write not

I see that you are under Linux but we haven't tested our software on this platform. That's why we didn't put desktop computers in general.

GITsro · 16 Jul 2012, 17:53

We are using Spread3D (Pro version) for our business webpage to enable customers and interested parties to watch 3D models of houses and roofs without the need to install (and/or to learn how to use) SketchUp. After the first weeks of experience, we can just state, that it's amazing easy to use (for the publisher and for the user on the webpage), and the feedback from our customers is a hundred percent positive one. Spread3D is just the tool, which we were missing, since we use SketchUp for drafting and designing roof constructions or buildings. Even it's the first version, for us there are no bugs or problems known until now. For us, totally worth the money - and the support is helpful and stunning fast. We simply can recommend this tool 100%.

@hfm said:

...the bigger models stutter across the screen and the walk through feature leaves your camera shaking.

This happens to me also on my notebook (especially when it's connected to my external screen with 1680x1050), but on my office machine (even with on-board GPU!) all is fine, and even in complex models I get fully smooth animation. On both machines is running the newest FlashPlayer, so I suspect, that the FlashPlayer doesn't support some notebook GPUs fully (if so, it's out of influence of the Spread3D makers...).

jcchambers · 16 Jul 2012, 17:58

I'm very impressed with Laurent's work (and his quick willingness to assist new users). I'm planning construction of a new home in another state. This tool allows me to show prospective building contractors my thoughts on the plan. I can also easily keep the family, located in other parts of the country, up to date on how the plan is shaping up.

Many of these folks don't have sketchup or viewer and aren't necessarily willing to install it just to view my drawing. And I don't have to email changes to everyone. I just upload latest plan and everyone with the link can stay up to date. (Kind of wish it would work on my android tablet, but guess it doesn't have the right version of flash)

I haven't figured out how to use the walk/look around tool in sketchup (maybe I need a joystick or something), so don't even try in Spread3D. The results are plenty detailed enough to display my plans.

Thanks Laurent!

JClements · 16 Jul 2012, 18:14

I have been testing it on some models I have created for equipment used in water treatment plants (with piping, pumps, concrete channels, even Google Earth imagery) and experimented a bit with embedding the viewer into a web page via iFrames. I am just a neophyte in web page creation and do not use any sophisticated software (Xara) for making web pages but the results worked (I only have had issues an IE-8 bug when displaying multiple frames on one page). I have been very pleased overall and compared to other products which import models into PDF formats. I find the ease of use and rendering far better.

Some of the distinctive pluses:

1- Lighting settings (reflectivity, sun position, and ambient lighting ) yield attractive results; better than the SU viewer. It is very intuitive and fast to set up.

2- Password protection and Copyright notification. This is something I have wanted to do for a few years when allowing models to be viewed. Although I suppose it is not totally hack-proof, it is a real asset for marketing product or giving designs to clients for review. You don't have to let the SketchUp model out of your hands.

3- I believe 3D sound could have a lot of potential for giving non-text narrative or adding "ambiance" to a model scene.

4- Pre-canned animations is a nice feature and, unlike the SU Viewer, it doesn't require explaining to the user where to find the animation function in a menu NOR are you RESTRICTED to just one animation sequence of the entire model.

5- The camera transitions between scenes seem to be much smoother than the viewer.

6- Company branding via importing logos (with positioning options) and assigning hyperlinks to them is more icing on the cake.

7- Templates, although only two are available now, has a lot of potential for building a model presentation more targeted for specific clients. I'd hope to see more templates in the near future. May be there would be a way to build your own template/UI.

8- Simple control of the width of edges or turning off edge display completely without have to change settings in the SketchUp model.

9- Prompt and attentive customer support.

Regards, John

Trogluddite · 17 Jul 2012, 08:15

@laurent diaz said:

Do you mind sharing one model (or a part of it) having the issue to our support mail address (support at spread3d.com)?

I'll see if I can post an example - just need to check with boss/clients first as the models are not truly mine to share.
Think you're right about the format. After checking a few more models, it seems that some of our stock company logo images etc. are the tricksy ones - if I convert them from TIFF to JPEG and re-texture, the models work just fine (the TIFFs are very old, I have no idea if they have any compression applied).

bsusala · 11 Sept 2012, 00:38

Awesome tool, I've done an "experience" in some minutes... Amazing. Would be even more amazing if would exist some sort of Interaction tool, though. Is it in your development plans?

Laurent Diaz · 12 Sept 2012, 06:36

@bsusala said:

Awesome tool, I've done an "experience" in some minutes... Amazing. Would be even more amazing if would exist some sort of Interaction tool, though. Is it in your development plans?

Nice to know you like Spread3D!

What do you need in term of interaction?
As of today in the Pro version, you have more navigation tools and you can create buttons opening an image, a webpage, changing the viewpoint or playing an animation (moving objects and/or camera). Our next steps will be to add components selection and more specific interactions for walkthrough.

Let me know if you have some other ideas!

bsusala · 12 Sept 2012, 20:19

By interaction I meant like the "Interact with Dynamic Component" Tool. Okay, sorry, I didn't read thoroughly that in the Pro version does exist that. That's excellent! Being able to post online the status of a project, and present it with an interactive navigation, is priceless and a very very effective presentation. BTW, I do not know any other tool doing that, and in such a simple way - really excellent work. I'll post here any new improvement idea it may arise, first of all I want to use Spread3D extensively to see its capabilities.

Laurent Diaz · 13 Sept 2012, 06:52

Looking forward to getting your feedback!

If you want to test the export fully in Spread3D Pro (the trial doesn't let you export), you can contact me. I will give you a temporary license.

markpyvi · 25 Sept 2012, 16:19

Not sure, so I ask. Is this all possible with tablets/mobilephones? I mean: creating file from my SU model in my desktop PC and my clients can view/observe it in his tablet/mobile phone?

JClements · 25 Sept 2012, 16:32

For those attending the BaseCamp 2012 in Boulder, I have a license for Spread3DPro and it is my intention to bring a laptop with it installed for anyone interested trying it out.