Have You Ever Gotten VR from Your Model in 30 Minutes? Tenova Does It—Learn How

RAFFAELE SAMMARCO: So I think we can start. Good morning. And I would like to introduce this class. First of all, I would like to understand from you, did you survive the first day of AU?

I think so. Did you have your healthy breakfast this morning? OK?

So if you do everything, we are ready to start. First of all, let me introduce myself and Simone, my colleague. I'm a consulting project manager for Tenova. I am working for Autodesk Consulting since 10 years. And I work in EMEA region. There, we have lots of projects with Simone implementation consultant. Simone is responsible for implementing a new technology process with our customers.

Today's class is based on our experiences with Tenova. It's our customer in Italy. And it's a worldwide company. And on this project, we experimented the virtual reality with them.

These are the learning objects that we are going to face during the presentation. So we will see step by step and during the slides.

We can start with the project background. First of all, do you know Tenova? Please raise your hands. Oh, Tenova will be disappointed of this. OK, the team is there. OK.

We can start. Who is Tenova? Tenova is a worldwide supplier for technology based on an iron-steel product and materials for mining minerals. Covers the entire lifecycle from the mining to the production of metal sheet, piping, and so on. So it has lots of divisions, lots of several machinery, industrial machinery to do everything.

It's a very big company. It's part of the [INAUDIBLE] group. This is the footprint at the worldwide level. In this moment, we are working mainly with Italy, Germany, and part of South Africa, and India. But the activities related on this speech is on Italy and Germany.

This is just an overview about the services and the product that Tenova has. Imagine that here these kinds of machines are very, very big, because [INAUDIBLE] in the mining and try to keep the material, then the material was transported on a boat to the plant to where there is the metal-making. In India, the process to go to get the final products. So it's a very huge and complex company with lots of several business units.

How many of you know something about the EBA, Enterprise Business Agreement? Please raise your hands. Don't be shy. OK. We have in place this kind of enterprise business agreement with Tenova. This is an agreement about three years.

And in this agreement, there are several parts of the agreement. There is the products, the whole portfolio of products that they can use, consuming Token Flex. So it's a way to have large kind of products, [INAUDIBLE].

We have also a customer success management. So we have consulting services. We are in a consulting and [INAUDIBLE] consulting, so there we are able to support Tenova in this industry. The results of enterprise priority support.

This slide just shows you mainly the most activities. So they have enterprise priority support, consulting for the optimization, transformation of their current services.

Also, including, in EBA, there is an account team. It's there. And in the account team, there is also several persons that each one is responsible for one part of these enterprise agreements. The main one is-- as you can see there, the important things about the EBAs that in Tenova, they have one, single point of contact that is able to involve the several other colleagues to give them the best value. OK.

How do we work together? Do we work in this way? Since the beginning, we identified some goals that Tenova would achieve in the medium term, in three-year terms. We defined some success metrics to measure the benefits that we are able to deliver for them.

Then, all this information are put inside a document that is a flexible document called Customer Success Plan. In this document we have all the initiatives to achieve the result of the expected goals. And then we measure what we are doing, we are delivering with the business review meeting and also to track the results. OK.

This is [INAUDIBLE]. Why Autodesk Consulting? Because Autodesk Consulting work directly with this kind of account. This is an enterprise account. We call the name of the account. It's a big company. And Autodesk Consulting is able to work directly with this kind of account, because it has an expertise as people. It has knowledge on products, process, and so on. So we are able to maximize the results of the activities, reduce the risk, and try to adopt something that is feasible and sustainable for the customer.

We don't arrive and just say, OK, we can clean everything, we stuck to our products. We try to use an approach that is a progressive approach to start from one activity and increase our footprint inside of the customer organization.

As a customer-oriented team, we are mainly based on a delivery approach and a delivery methodology. Our delivery methodology is based on these five steps. Not all these five steps are required for the kinds of activities, but this is something that we use to fit the activities.

There is a kickoff meeting where we start talking about the activity. The alignment review, where we align on the solution that we are going to propose. Configuration and training is where we try to configure the solution inside of the organization. And training the user on the solution. There is then also the deployment support. It's a support that we give to the customer at the end of the training.

So the customer is able to work by their own, and if they need some support, we are there. And then there is the close-out meeting. It's where we summarize what we have done together in the presentation. And we find that maybe we track the results, we discuss the metrics, and compare what has been planned and what has been done.

All this information are collected inside an agreement that is for single activities. This agreement is called the Service Confirmation Order. It's where there is all the information related to the activity we are going to approach.

Project Background. As most of the companies, there is an heterogeneous situation inside the organization of Tenova. Some business units are most advanced, working in trading, Inventor, and so on. Others that are working maybe with the ecosystem are more based on 2D and so on. So there is a big difference since there's different business units.

Another needs that Tenova expressed since the beginning of this EBA is that they wanted to improve their processes and their interoperability, because they spend a lot of time using several software. They use also software from other vendors to move the exchange geometry, exchange information from one software to another. Usually it's very time-consuming due to several constraints.

There is also constraints about version, but I think this is something that happens also in your company, as usual. And last but not least is needs to communicate the value. So to communicate the value, this became a very important point, especially in this new social era, because we are talking about to have more facility communication in terms of explain the complexity of the machinery.

So the idea up to now is to use 3D video, but the 3D video is aesthetic. So you can create your video, but if your customer wants to understand what happened to the other side of the machine-- because there is a currency to respect-- the video does not respond to this question.

So the idea is to try to investigate more about these three points and to combine together. What happened? The compelling event that made this project possible happened on October 2017. We did The Future Of Making Things event in Milan, where some people from Tenova attended. And understanding about a speech on Autodesk Live.

So after this event, they decided to explore virtual capabilities to improve the sales proposal. Because other customers, they are maybe smaller than Tenova, are more advanced in this presentation for a sales proposal. Well, to get the video is too slow to face the market in time without the high level of competitors.

So to the end, we started with an SCO, as I said before. It's the SCO 04. And then I end the presentation to Simone.

SIMONE CAPPOCHIN: So good work. It's working? OK. So yes, we go more in the details regarding the technical solution. So first of all, do you know what is virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality? OK. So regarding the difference between this free approach regarding virtual reality, it's what we have implemented right now in Tenova is the possibility to visualize in a total virtual environment in a 3D model.

Regarding the augmented reality, it's the possibility to mix these such things so very [INAUDIBLE] information and by [INAUDIBLE] reality, mix these two [INAUDIBLE].

So as I said before, [INAUDIBLE] compelling [INAUDIBLE] was, yes, these events in Milan where Tenova see regarding virtual reality and, in a particular way, by regarding virtual reality based on Live Viewer. Do you know regarding Live Viewer, Revit Live Viewer? No. OK.

It's a very easy way to navigate the model in virtual reality. But the constraint is that it's developed for Revit. So they see this tool. We like it a lot, but the big issue was we needed to implement this technology for model not created with Revit, but with Inventor.

So the idea is to have Live Viewer but use this tool to navigate existing models and to have a very easy workflow. So we would like to use this workflow to avoid the need to create video. And if a customer join Tenova and would like to navigate this model, we can do this, for example, in three or four hours.

So I will go more in detail regarding the workflow. So the idea is to have some authoring tool as input. Only question-- what type of Auth tool do you use to create a-- use a-- I don't know, to create the model? Use Revit, use more Revit. OK?

In this example, we are starting from a tool like Inventor, like Plant 3D, Advanced [INAUDIBLE]. So the idea is that we can have a whole different tool. Why? Because in the process, go inside Navisworks. So inside Navisworks, I can also open Model, Create, also with [INAUDIBLE], not an Autodesk tool.

The idea is that from Navisworks, we create an FBX file. Why FBX file? Because FBX is file for visualization.

We take this model and we go inside 3ds Max and Max Interactive. Do you know regarding this tool, Max and Max Interactive? Raise your hands. OK. So we use this tool, and we combine this tool with Live. And we find our result to have Live Viewer. And this is interfaced to navigate the model.

What is the benefit? It's the possibility to navigate this model, for example, with a Live Viewer, but also the possibility to produce an X file to navigate this model with a PC. So it's very useful also if they need to share the content and with some customer that don't have Live but would like only to visualize the model.

So these are two examples of results. I give you also an example of a polygon of the model. So this was a simple one, the first test that we have done to prepare this model. This was a model that Tenova just prepared using Showcase. You know that Showcase now is a maintenance mode. And so this workflow give also the possibility to Tenova to reuse a lot of existing model with just the texter inside.

And this is another more complex model. This was all created inside Inventor. And the idea-- so this is a model based on Inventor. The environment is something that we created inside InfraWorks, for example. So we have also merged information from different tools, and we have created this possibility to visualize the model inside here.

So I will try to go more in detail regarding the process. I will do also a very-- I don't have a video. I will try to make the step in a very easy way.

So we need Revit, but we need Revit only to create a template. Why? This is the tool that is called Max Interactive. I don't know if-- as I will say before. And then from here, I can start to create a project for virtual reality.

As you can see here, I have a tab that is called Template, where I can choose the template to start the project. But inside this template, I don't have, at the moment, a template for virtual reality, for virtual reality based on Live Viewer. But what I have, I have from here the possibility, when I create a new project, to choose not only a Stingray project, but also this type of file format. This is the type of file format that is produced by Revit Live Viewer.

So the idea is this one. I have Revit. And inside Revit, I create a very simple [INAUDIBLE]. I need only to create one 3D element. I need a 3D view. And what I need to place is only a camera. So if I go here, show camera, I place one camera here and one camera from the other side. These are the only things that you need to do inside Revit. And you can do this for the first steps. Why? Because after, I can go here, view. I have this tab that is Go Live. And the idea is to use this tab to process the model and to create this template.

When the template is done-- so we are here. We see these first two steps. So Revit. I created this file. I used these Revit light services. Now I'm ready to move inside [INAUDIBLE] tool. I'm ready to move inside the Max Interactive and 3ds Max.

So inside Max Interactive, as I said before, what I need to do is only to go here, add the existing project, and I can choose the type of file. And if I go on my desktop, for example, I have here, I have Revit Live. And you can see from here, I can open the model that we have created before using Revit.

So I can open this as a totally void file. Now I open in one moment this that is the example that I have created. But I need also 3ds Max. Why 3ds Max? Because as-- sorry-- as I said before, from Navisworks, we export an FBX file format.

But this FBX file don't have material that can be produced from different tool. So the idea is go inside 3ds Max to kind of assign the correct material. And after, use this model, connect 3ds Max with Max Interactive.

Another benefit is that inside 3ds Max, I have this functionality that is called Manage Link. Do you know regarding this functionality? Raise your hands. OK. So what means? It means this is not the only FBX file that I have imported inside 3ds.

But there is a link. If something changes inside the authorizing tool, I can update the model inside 3ds Max. And all the time that I have spent to assign material and so on, I don't need to reassign all these things, because I can update the geometry based on open material that I have assigned. So inside here, I have this model.

And the only things that I need to do-- I go one moment to the Material Editor. We have used-- inside here there is what is called a physical shader that have interactive shader inside here. So I can use inside 3ds Max the same material that are available inside Interactive. OK?

So I make a view. And this also is useful because it gives us the possibility to split big model in different parts. OK? And so I can inside here link one big model splitted in different part. So after it's more easier to transfer the model for 3ds Max inside the Max Interactive.

So I make-- for example, you have a very easy example. I go inside here. I take this model, I click on Open, attach this file, and then start to import the model inside here. Only a second. So [INAUDIBLE]. OK, waiting for this, I go.

When this is done-- at the moment, I don't know why it's taking so long-- I can connect 3ds Max with Max Interactive. So inside here, in the top of here, as you can see, there is a tab that is called Interactive. So also between 3ds Max and Max Interactive, there is a live link. If something changes inside 3ds Max, I can transfer this information directly inside Max Interactive. So OK, perfect.

So as you can see here, yup, I have imported another part of this model. And I can, yes, assemble this model inside here, because all these models are based on the same coordinate. So I have here [INAUDIBLE] that define the coordinate of a different model.

What I need to do now is I can transfer a model inside Max Interactive. So I have this tab here that gives me the possibility to connect 3ds Max and Max Interactive. So I can go here. And after, I can choose to transfer a model from here inside Max Interactive. So I have this functionality that give us the possibility to send all the model or to send only the selected part of this model. And this is the option that we have chosen for Tenova.

When the model is transferred inside here-- I go inside Max Interactive-- this is what I see inside. So this is the floor that we have seen before inside Revit. And this is the other model. So the idea is that inside this environment now, I can collect also other types of file formats.

And the only things that I need to do inside here are two topics. One is to use this tool to generate the [INAUDIBLE]. So clicking on this tool, automatically, Max Interactive applies the surface where I can make the navigation. And after, I need it to add a physical condition to this object.

When this is done, I can click here and I can, for example, test or run the project. So only a moment it now is.

So he open inside here. As you can see, this is the Live Viewer. So this usually is something that you see when we are working with Revit. But from here, I have the same possibility in a very easy way to modify the time and so on. And we have our [INAUDIBLE]. But from here, I can start now the functionality of tap and go to start to navigate the model.

So as I said before, it's possible to do this using the Vive device, but also, it's possible to do this to navigate the model, adding, for example, only a PC. So it's very easy. If I needed to navigate, I move around the model. OK.

So this is the [INAUDIBLE]. So the goal is to use this easy viewer. This viewer can be used connected with Vive. But using this viewer-connected model also not created with Revit. OK.

So this was from my site. So as we see, we see 3ds Max Interactive, 3ds Max. So what we need to do is connect, as we have said before, these two environments. And inside here I need only to assign the physical condition and create this [INAUDIBLE] mesh. And at the end, this is the result. So when I have created this one, I'm ready to navigate the model inside virtual reality. OK?

And then at the end, when all is ended, so I can test inside here, I can go inside the deployer. And from here, I can create also a package with an X file that the client can share with other customers. And an important thing is that if you share this XF file, another stakeholder can see the model but cannot take information from the model. OK? Because it's scripted as a type of file format.

Sorry, are we done here? As a best practice. So we use Navisworks to simplify the authored model tool. This is why, as you see before, we have a very big model. And the idea is that we cannot take all this model and put inside it Interactive, because it can take a long time. So the idea is to use Navisworks and a search set to split the model in different selection and export the different FBX file. So from a big model, I can have a different FBX file.

I export the FBX file using Navisworks. Why Navisworks? Because not all the tools have a possibility to export FBX file. For example, in Inventor, I don't have these capabilities. I can have these capabilities in other tools. So the idea is to use Navisworks, because open all the file can have this output. I assigned the material using 3ds Max. And after, assigned the condition using 3ds Interactive.

So I give a profile.

RAFFAELE SAMMARCO: OK. What was the result of this? We call it the proof of concept. We tried to prove that we are able to support Tenova to have, in a very quick way, their more existing model in a virtual reality. The result was so good that, internally , the CIO decided to present this virtual reality in an internal event. And to do this, we created a new SCO to add the second model for the presentation.

This workflow has been documented and then became a standard workflow inside the Tenova organization. So this is another good point. And then we created a new SCO that is an SCO about the process condition. So we support Tenova to move from a proof-of-concept to a standard process for each view.

For the moment, this SCO is still delivering. It's a focus set, obviously, as mentioned before, from Italy and Germany. And in this moment, we train in the [INAUDIBLE] two locations and 15 users.

What Tenova is doing in this moment with virtual reality? Tenova is using virtual reality for a sales proposal, as mentioned before, and also for fairs and events. The important thing is that, as mentioned by Simone, we have an Excel file, so we can distribute to the sales guys. And each one can run this virtual reality environment on their laptop, on every kind of device.

In the same time, as seen before, some machinery is very, very big. So obviously, this kind of workflow running with big machinery not for all. So we are stressing the technology and the system to understand where is the limits of the technology for their kind of machinery.

But doing this, we recognized that there is something that we have also to do on the design phase of this machinery, because we have to start optimizing, since the beginning, the model. Before, working on it later to cleaning maybe something, to reduce the size of the single pieces.

Another topic that we are-- so in this moment, we have an SCO that is going to start on this topic. And running this virtual environment environment, Tenova is starting thinking about how to use, in a very practiced way, the virtual reality.

One use is the collaboration in virtual reality. So the design review directly in a virtual reality environment. Usually Tenova has teams everywhere in the world, projects with Australia, India, South Africa. It sometimes spans a lot in design review meetings. People have to travel and so on. With this new topic that is popping up just a few months ago, we are working on this remote collaboration, using a virtual reality environment.

Last but not least, the benefits. Coming from Tenova from this experience, we compared, as mentioned before, with the video. Because before these activities, we used only to create video to try to communicate better with the customer. So the idea is that the input data is the same. What is the difference? The difference is that maybe video take about 40 days of work from rendering and also from the scripting, the stories, storytelling, directing, and so on.

Now with a normal model, an average model, they use just one day or less, because after they understand the user, repeating this kind of process or workflow, they reduce to less than half day.

And [INAUDIBLE] is a way that we use, in an EBA, to estimate the work in terms of services. For the video, you have always used 40 days to repeat for every machinery. In this case, with the virtual reality, you use maybe your 80 [INAUDIBLE] in 10 days for this analysis and proof-of-concept the first time. Then they are able to work by their own.

Other difference, as mentioned before, is that the video is an aesthetic experience. Virtual reality is more dynamic. Considering the beauty and the internal event, they realized that using the model, they realized that behind a wall, there is the business that you expect it to be.

Other things that is very important is that Tenova is an engineering company. It's not making video. So they used to send the video outside the company. So there is no knowledge inside the company about video, doing video, or something like that. The only things that are able to do is just creating something with Showcase or a little animation or something like that.

With this virtual reality, they do everything inside the organization. People start to design the machinery and thinking since the beginning to, how I can see this in a virtual reality environment?

Other things that are important, as mentioned by Simone, that video doesn't give nothing than a video. No data, no model, no nothing. With the virtual reality, we are able to give data inside the [INAUDIBLE]. But data are encrypted. So we are safe from this point of view.

And also, I have important things. That with the virtual reality, we are able to support Tenova to reuse what they produce since the beginning of the 3D that started here 10 years ago up to now. Obviously, more the models are older, more work may be to do to refresh these. But they can do this. So we don't have to start again to rebuild the model. We just use what is the existing ones.

And they only apply maybe the same optimizations since the beginning with the new one. So also, the quality of the design is improving to follow the virtual reality experience. OK. That's all about our project. Do you have any questions? No?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

RAFFAELE SAMMARCO: OK. These are our contacts. And last but not least, remember to fill the survey on this class. Thank you. Please.

AUDIENCE: Are you worried that Autodesk might cancel or discontinue the 3ds Max Interactive?

SIMONE CAPPOCHIN: Sorry, I didn't-- can you-- sorry, I got that--

AUDIENCE: Are you worried that Autodesk might discontinue to produce the Max Interactive?

SIMONE CAPPOCHIN: I know that, yes, [INAUDIBLE] regarding these things. And the idea is that it's not really discontinuing, but it's a tool that, at the moment, we are not to put inside the new capabilities. So the idea is that, as we have said before, we are using this to make an entry-level virtual reality. So if you need only to start to make virtual reality, we can use this tool.

As I mentioned before, also, Tenova asked us to make, for example, virtual reality for collaboration. So at the moment, this is not the capabilities that is inside our tool. But it's something, for example, that we are investigating with Holodeck and other type of technology. But the important things that we have given to Tenova is not the tool to visualize the model, but it's the process to prepare the data that go inside the visualization tool.

So if I go one moment back to this slide of a process, for example, so this is the main topic. So the idea is that if we need to change this type of technology-- so instead to use live and interactive, all this process still remain. For example, I mentioned before Holodeck.

Holodeck have a plug-in for 3ds Max. So I can maintain this process. And I have a double option here. So if I would like to, I have a very easy virtual reality. Not for collaborative virtual reality. I can use this tool, because they're still available.

If I need to use, for example, more advanced things, I agree with you. It's not [INAUDIBLE] to develop something inside Interactive. And at the moment, we don't have this capability. But we can integrate this with other tools. So the idea is this one, to have also the possibility to integrate with this process with other different type of tools.

AUDIENCE: Thank you.

SIMONE CAPPOCHIN: You are welcome.

PRESENTER: OK. So thank you for attending.

SIMONE CAPPOCHIN: Thank you.

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