Virtual Reality with Inventor

RON JONES: All right, folks. We're going to go ahead and get started. Appreciate everybody showing up.

So the purpose of this class is, there's some new stuff with the product design and manufacturing collection that makes VR a little bit easier for working in Inventor or some other CAD programs. And we'll cover that in the presentation. But this is something I've seen a lot with my customers, is being able to utilize the product design and manufacturing collection to expand into a VR environment quite easily. And that's what we're going to showcase today.

This isn't going to be a in-depth workflow into how to use Max or Max Interactive. It's just to show you guys very quickly how we can get something into a VR environment and start seeing a return on our investment when it comes to a VR headset or VR hardware or something like that. So that being said, if we get into our agenda, there's going to be a little bit about myself. Of course, I'm Ron Jones. And Robert Savage over here, who's going to be running the computer.

Then we'll cover maybe an introduction into what is virtual reality. So maybe some of you don't know what VR is. So I'm going to give a 50,000-foot overview of what it is, how we can use it, the different types of devices, and even a horror story that I experienced a few months ago with a pretty expensive object in my living room. That's, of course, what happens when VR goes wrong.

So then we'll talk about the value of virtual reality for manufacturing, because as I mentioned, there is a ton of value in this technology for different facets of manufacturing, not just prototyping-- actually getting out on the shop floor and using it in a production environment. Then we're going to actually go through a high-level workflow, what that architecture looks like. And then we're going to turn Robert loose on the computer. We haven't rehearsed this, so hopefully it goes well. And we're going to have Robert show us how we get something into the VR environment.

So a little bit about me Of course, I'm Ron Jones. I'm an engagement manager with Advanced Solutions. I'm based in Carmel, Indiana, just north of Indianapolis. So my background is in the compressed air world. So I used to design packaged air skid systems using [? solar ?] air compressors. Also did some work in automation.

And probably the coolest job I ever had is-- show of hands, how many people have seen Cops or Live PD before? Have you guys seen when they take the guy after he's just ran and they trip him up and they throw them into the back of the police car and he's got that plastic seat? I designed the plastic seat.

And then if he fought them after that, generally there was a big metal cage that separated the officer from the prisoner. And if they ever bounced his head off that-- I was in charge of doing product development for that cage, as well. So I was in charge of 28 different products across eight vehicle platforms, those eight vehicle platforms being primarily police cars, obviously-- so Tahoes, that sort of thing. Probably one of the most interesting jobs I've had.

I was also in charge of warranty claims. So I had a call from a guy one time who said, hey, I was in a pursuit and the push bumper you made for an F-150 fell off. And I was doing 110 on the interstate. My first question was, no way. Second question was, how quickly can I get this back to the office and mount it on my wall? So we did an RMA, got that thing. And it stayed in my office for a year and a half, until I finally moved on.

I also have a Labrador named Juice. You can see him down there in the bottom right. I'm also a former police officer. So what's cooler than being able to work for a company that makes police products but actually being a police officer myself? So I did that for three years. So kind of a unique background.

And then finally, as you can see from the picture right up there on the top left, avid cruiser. We do about three or four cruises a year all over the country. Most notably, went to Cuba earlier this year. I know this is going to shock everybody, but it turns out socialism doesn't work.

[LAUGHTER]

I was surprised, as well. So now I'm going to let Robert pump in here and give a little bit of about him.

ROBERT SAVAGE: Well, like it says up there, my name is Robert Savage. I work with Ron at Advanced Solutions. I am an education specialist. I do training for 3D manufacturing as well as 3ds Max.

My background is mechanical design. I've been doing it longer than-- I've talked to several people here, and some of them, been alive. I actually started doing mechanical design in 1984 with AutoCAD release 2. So I've been at it a long time, used many different softwares. Big fan of Inventor. I also teach Fusion. Just did a Fusion generative design class before this one. And I've got a Fusion sheet metal class later today.

Now, one of the most fun jobs I've ever had was, I worked for a division of Northrop Grumman designing in their R&D department. This particular division did military and law enforcement bomb disposal robots. So I not only got to design them, but test them and even destroy some of them. So again, you can have a little bit of fun with this.

So I'll turn it back over to Ron, let him--

RON JONES: Perfect. So here's our shameless plug for the presentation, because we do work for Advanced Solutions. So Advanced Solutions is a platinum Autodesk partner. We are on the design software services marketplace. So if you just want to hear some more ridiculous jokes that I have, you can reach out to us and engage us for some services work, that sort of thing. We are in manufacturing solutions, AEC solutions, product lifecycle management, that sort of thing-- so a very diverse company. And you can check us out there, on the provider link.

I said that was the only shameless plug. It's not going to be. One thing, if I can say, please do your surveys. Please complete those for every class, especially this one. Give them the thumbs up and remember, those surveys do not stay in Vegas. So the high marks are appreciated.

So that being said, let's go ahead and get into, what is virtual reality? That's why you all came here, right? So VR is an interactive computer-generated experience. So it's often through headsets or even multi-projected environments.

I have some companies in the automotive world that have what are called virtual reality caves. It's not dark and moldy or anything like that. It's an immersive experience where you can visualize stuff, like cars, that are in pre-production states-- maybe different products, that sort of thing. More of what this class is going to cover is how we can use headsets and leverage that technology downstream in our manufacturing process.

So traditionally, when we think of virtual reality, we probably think of flight simulators. Everybody's seen the movie Sully, right? Where they engaged him against the simulators? That's primarily where VR has been used, is in flight simulators. If you ever watched the show, a long time ago, America's Army, where they put the gamers in the little virtual reality environment and they had the VR gun and everything-- for years, that's where VR has been key, is in gaming, media, and entertainment, and flight simulators and that sort of thing. Now that technology's becoming a lot more affordable and we're actually able to leverage it for manufacturing-- hence why all of us are here today. We want to see how we do it and what the benefit is.

So [? of ?] [? course, ?] when we get into the future of making things, I'm thinking about VR for the design process-- so being able to visualize models in an interactive experience before we even start prototyping. So this can be something that you're very early on in your design process. You've just got a solid model, and you can port that over into Max Interactive and be able to utilize an Oculus Rift or a Vive, or even your cell phone to visualize what that model is going to look like-- maybe even hold it up and touch it.

So that plays into my next slide, which is the types of VR devices. These are coming down in price dramatically. The top two that we generally think of are Vive and Oculus. Does anybody have those today, maybe?

How many of you use them today? Would you say it's more for home use, or are you guys actually using it for some sort of-- OK. Yeah, there is some great games. And we'll get into that on the next slide, as to what happened with my experience.

But something a lot of people don't think about is, there's even VR for the cell phone now. So one thing we do with our customers when we're explaining VR is, we've actually got a set of pop-up goggles that your iPhone slides into. And you can visualize walking through a building or manipulating a part from your phone just by holding it up to your eyes. So you can see an example of that right here, with this little paper cardboard box type solution. And then, of course, PlayStation 4 and Xbox, because we all want to play Call of Duty like we're actually in war.

So the next thing is, of course, what happens when VR goes wrong. So this is my soapbox. Please be very careful when you set up a VR environment. Don't do it in your living room. I had bought, or the company had bought me, a computer and an Oculus Rift headset. And the first thing I did when I got it is I said, man, this is cool. We've got to get the neighbors over. We've got to get all of our friends and have this big VR party. And we're going to download a whole bunch of games.

Well, one of the games I downloaded was called Drunken Bar Fight.

[LAUGHTER]

Do you guys see where this is going? So I was careful, though, because Oculus has a guardian system. So you put the headset on. So you're in this immersive environment. You think you're in Tron. And you start laying out with your headset where your bounding box is.

So I had my fiancee saying, tell me how far I am from the TV. The TV is mounted on the wall, as you can see from that picture. She goes, you're about two feet. So I went and I lined out the box. Plenty of room-- or so I thought.

She and a couple of our friends went to go get pizza. And here I am, playing Drunken Bar Fight with one of our neighbors. I don't know where I'm at. I'm just-- I'm like Rocky at the end of Rocky 3. I'm laying it out. It's in the fifth round. And all of a sudden, I go right into our brand new 65-inch TV. And coincidentally enough, right after that, my fiancee walks through the door with pizza, and I've got to explain how I just busted a $1,000 TV that we just bought four months ago.

So Costco-- great company to buy from. Costco ended up returning that TV, and we got another one. Got it home, got it set up. And we're trying to get it out of the box. My iPad is sitting on the arm of the couch, about right here. The TV screen's about right here.

I'm not paying attention. I'm trying to avoid Juice, because he's coming, running in. And the iPad falls onto the TV screen. Cracks the new TV. So here I am, back at Costco with another broken 65-inch TV-- that we finally got replaced.

So the moral of that story-- and if you followed me on Snapchat, you would have seen this months ago-- make sure that you're careful with your VR environment, because it can go wrong. It is an immersive experience. So you can cost thousands of dollars worth of damage without even knowing.

AUDIENCE: Another moral is, shop at Costco.

[LAUGHTER]

RON JONES: Yes. That warranty policy is fantastic. And if you want to sign up after this, we'll whack up the commission check.

So back onto VR-- so the value of VR for manufacturing. This is something that, like I said at the beginning of this, my customers and I-- we're having a ton of these type of conversations. How can VR benefit me? I have a couple of customers that make stuff that's hauled by semi truck. That gets incredibly expensive when you have to go to a trade show on the West Coast and you're located on the East Coast. Factor in union labor, and you might spend $50,000 to get a machine just onto the floor, not including transportation costs.

So what if, instead of doing all that, you just brought a computer with a headset, and your customer can completely tailor the experience to themselves? If they want a different color, they select a different color. And that rock crusher automatically turns into, say, powder blue. What if they want to actually touch a button and see how it interacts? Maybe they want to throw an emergency e-stop. Well, they can do that with a VR environment. They can see a completely immersive experience without having that machine there.

We had another customer we recently did a project for that has what they call a safety dojo where they essentially take anything that could maim, hurt, or cause a lawsuit, and they put it into a building and train everybody on it. So one of the things was this big band saw that's-- they put tick marks on it every time it takes a thumb. And they wanted to train that in a VR environment.

So using these tools, we were able to take that saw, add some animation to it, and actually turn it into an interactive training experience for the user base. So the users, instead of actually interacting with a saw that could maim or hurt them, they're now interfacing with this saw through an Oculus Rift and getting a training certification that much sooner in the process.

So you can also use it to see manufacturing and design errors quicker. How much time would it save you if you could turn a model around that you're designing and say, oh, man, you really can't machine this surface, or we're going to need to order special tooling in order to do it? Well, VR gives us that ability.

I have some customers that are big into the material handling space, and they need to actually be able to walk and see where beams interact with conveyors, maybe where a wall needs to be blown out. Well, VR gives them that ability to do it before construction even starts.

And then finally, I have a lot of customers that are doing it for the wow factor. So they're using it to win bids. When they come in to present a proposal to the client, they say, here's our paper copy. But hey, Mr. Client, we also have this headset you can put on. And from there, you can view what our proposed solution is for you.

So not only are they walking their manufacturing floor, but they're walking it with whatever the piece of equipment or the widget is that they're looking to purchase. They're able to see how that interacts. They can pick up a break press, move it 15 feet to the left, and see what that interaction looks like-- see if there's any clashes or collisions. It just contributes to the wow factor.

And then it eliminates the need for real products. Like I said, I used that example of taking a product to a trade show. That's completely eliminated with a VR environment. We're just taking a couple of computers and a headset at that point. It's incredibly more cost effective.

ROBERT SAVAGE: Unless you break your television while you're doing it.

RON JONES: Yes. I would recommend, if you take this to a trade show, make sure you've got signage, maybe a person standing there so nobody punches it.

ROBERT SAVAGE: [INAUDIBLE]

RON JONES: And nobody download Drunken Bar Fight.

[LAUGHTER]

So the next thing I want to get into here is the workflow for VR. So how many of you use the product design and manufacturing collection today? So these are tools that you all have or you can acquire by going to a PDMC-esque workflow. See, that's starting with our CAD files.

So it doesn't just have to be Inventor. The purpose of this class is how we take Inventor into VR, but you can also do it with SolidWorks, CATIA, Fusion, Navisworks, AutoCAD. Any type of file format that Max will import today, we can use. Alternatively, there's an FBX workflow, too. If you can have another CAD system or another type of planning system, export an FBX file, Max can actually consume that and we can get to the same place.

So the first thing we'll do once we've got this file is, we'll import it into 3ds Max. So now that we've got it into Max-- and how many people are familiar with Max in the room? Majority of the class. So you guys know what we can do in the Max environment-- do stuff like animations, optimization. You can even do some sketching in Max.

I have a trade show company that does all of their initial conception in Max. Their workflow used to be, they would go from Max to Inventor. And then from Inventor, they would share a 3D model with the client. Incredibly time consuming, because you're doing work in two separate places.

These folks are doing their work in Max. They send a just dumb solid file to our folks that are working in a 3D space. And then they make that real. They add actual dimensions and think of how they're going to manufacture it. But that work is being done twice.

The end result is, we just want to send something pretty to our customer to win the project. So we proposed to them, hey, you've already got this Max model. Let's take it to the next step and let's put it into a VR environment. Instead of sending a PDF to your customer, let's send them a VR file.

And you've got two paths now that you get into this environment, the first one being Max Interactive, which we'll talk about here in a second. And then you also have the cloud. So if you're familiar with Forge at all, there's the Forge viewing engine that allows us to take these models and put them into a cloud render where you can actually walk this floor from just Internet Explorer or Google Chrome. That's huge.

So I had a customer a few months ago that said, hey, Ron, I've got this file. It's a Max file. It's massive. I have no idea how I can show this off to my customer. So we put it up in Forge. And that's viewer.Autodesk.com is how you get to that, by the way.

We put that up in Forge and we were able to view it within 10 or 15 minutes. And I mean we're actually walking through this hospital room being able to interact with different things and see something that they previously had not been able to show easily to their customer. So the cloud-- highly recommend using it for this type of workflow.

The other thing, of course, is we get into Max Interactive. So that's what we're going to show today, is how we get from up here to over here, to Max, and then over here, to Max Interactive. So Max Interactive is a game engine. It used to be known as Stingray, if anybody ever used Stingray.

And from here, we can add different features. Oops. And then eventually give us an EXE file or connect it directly to a VR headset.

So the other thing that I forgot I had up here-- so I apologize for that-- is, we can give somebody a URL code or a QR code. So what we do with our customers is, we actually give them a QR code when we show off this technology. We say, hey, here's some VR goggles for you that you slide your iPhone into. Scan this link, and you can go see walking through this house or walking through this manufacturing plant from your phone, in a VR environment.

So that being said, we're going to get into the demo portion of this. So this is going to consist of three distinct phases. First, we're going to start with Inventor and how to go to 3ds Max. Then we're going to go to Max Interactive. And then we'll show a couple of different options for posting out to the VR environment.

So Robert is getting Inventor open here. And I've just got a very simple assembly here. So I mentioned that saw earlier. So we just have a regular horizontal saw that I pulled from a factory asset library inside of Inventor right now. So this is an Inventor part file, just so everybody sees it.

The next thing I'm going to have you do, Robert, is, let's go ahead and open 3ds Max. And something I will note here-- when you try to do this on your own, make sure you have 3ds Max installed and 3ds Max Interactive installed. They are two separate downloads.

We tried to get the Jeopardy theme music for this waiting portion, but we got into a copyright issue. So apologize for that.

ROBERT SAVAGE: We have a question over there?

RON JONES: Yes, sir.

AUDIENCE: I noticed, is that entire part that [? one band ?] saw?

RON JONES: Yes.

AUDIENCE: Is it the same process for assemblies and anything else that [INAUDIBLE]?

RON JONES: Great question. Absolutely. And it's the same thing if we want to do SolidWorks. CATIA is a little bit different because it's CATIA. But as long as we have all of those files, all the children files, it'll come in perfectly fine.

So Robert, what I'm going to have you do now is, let's go ahead and import that file. So Robert's going to go to File, Import. And go ahead and go down to File Types there for me.

So this is what I want to showcase to you guys, is look at all the different formats that Max can take in. The one that we're focusing on today is Inventor. So it's IPT or IAM files. But you can do this with a heck of a lot of other stuff besides that.

So Robert's going to select that. He's going to go to My Desktop. And he's going to select that band saw.

So then Max is going to ask us a couple of different questions here. It's going to say, what do we want to import this as? Well, I want the body object, so I'm going to say, import as a body. We'll leave all of those the same.

One thing to also note is if we've defined materials inside of Inventor, we can bring those materials over into Max. So highly recommend you do that when you start getting into a VR environment, because we want stuff to look realistic-- for the most part. So those materials become even more important. And if nothing else, you can't just import or assign those materials inside of Max-- probably get a better result, in some cases.

So for the purpose of this, we're going to have Robert hit OK. We're going to hurry up and wait. And we can see a representation of our saw.

Now, ideally what we would do here in this environment-- and I'm not going to show this for a couple of reasons-- is, we would want this to be showing properly. We would want the x, y, and z-axes to be shown true. Correct?

Now, because I didn't design this part in Inventor, who knows what it's actually set at. So what I'm going to do is, we're going to show you with this like this how we can actually manipulate it inside of Max Interactive so that it's not important to have the proper x, y, and z-axes set.

So any questions on how we got to here, how that workflow looks? Yes, sir.

AUDIENCE: Polygon limitations-- have you experienced up to a certain number being fairly successful [INAUDIBLE] getting into trouble?

RON JONES: I personally have not had any issues with it. But I haven't-- I've put some large stuff through it and haven't had any issues. But I could see that maybe becoming an issue, and maybe we've got to strip it down or something like that. So, great question.

Robert, what I'm going to have you do now is, go ahead and launch Max Interactive.

ROBERT SAVAGE: You want to tell me where Max Inter-- oh, it's separate. That's right.

RON JONES: Yep. And one confusing thing about this if you guys try to go home and do it on your machines-- Max interactive is not available on AVA last time I checked. So what you'll have to do is go to your Autodesk account. And it's listed as a download. It also is occasionally in the desktop app, as well.

So now, we're getting into our third piece of software. The good thing is, Max Interactive and Max talk together very well. So what we're going to go ahead and do here is, Robert, go ahead and go to Templates. So the first thing I'll show you guys here is, there's a number of templates that come with Max Interactive for this type of environment.

And I would recommend using them just to do quick ports from Inventor into Max. We just want to very quickly see what a part looks like, be able to look and feel it, interact with it. So we can use some of these default settings.

So what I'm going to recommend we use, at least for this one, is this desktop VR environment. And this is going to have some weird stuff in it. So it's a demo, so it's got a baseball bat. I think it's got a ball. It's got a face you can smash-- a couple of different things.

And it's also centered, as you can see in this picture, in a museum environment. But it's got great lighting. And it's perfect for being able to walk through in a VR environment and see what our widget looks like.

Now, if you're getting into a point where you're going to present a custom project to a customer, we would ideally start with an empty space and then build that out using these tools. So go ahead, Robert. Hit desktop VR. Go ahead and create the project.

So it will automatically bring up, when you start working in Max-- and this is in Max Interactive. And this is something that I found very helpful, is the built-in Help menu for setting up projects, importing assets-- anything like that. You can also go straight to the Learning Portal. I highly recommend you guys check that out when you start maneuvering in this.

But go ahead and close out of that for now. And let's go ahead and go back to 3ds Max.

So now we've got these two programs up. And we have to connect them so that they talk to each other. So what we're going to be doing is, we're going to be sending information from Max into Max Interactive. So to do that, go ahead and go up to the Interactive tab, Robert. And go ahead and hit Connect for me.

So what we're doing is, we're connecting Max Interactive to regular 3ds Max to get this capability. So if we go back up to Interactive now that we've connected, you can see it says that we're connected. And now what we're going to do is, we're going to send this design data over into Max Interactive.

So Robert, go ahead and just hit Level Send All for me. And this brings up another dialog box. And what this does in the background is, it actually exports a file and then imports it into Max Interactive. So that's what it's doing-- excuse me-- under the hood. But you can see here all of the different things that we can port over-- textures, materials, cameras, lights-- that sort of thing.

So by default, we're just going to send it all over. And go ahead and hit Send and Close. So you can see, what this is doing is, this is actually exporting an FBX file from Max and then importing that file over into Max Interactive. So you can see down here at the bottom, Max Interactive is chugging along there. Robert, go ahead and hit that for me.

So you can see what we have here. There's our band saw that's been imported. It's going through the floor. We don't want that. We don't want a half a band saw going through our floor.

And you can see it's rendered. So there's that museum workspace that I was talking about. It's lit very well. It's great for actually working through in a manufacturing environment, because you've got that good lighting to see intricate details.

So Robert, what I'm going to have you do is go up here to the Units tab. And see all of those instances of automated band saw? Go ahead and select all of those. So hold down Shift and then just select the entire group for automated band saw.

ROBERT SAVAGE: Just the automated band saw?

RON JONES: Just the automated band saw, yeah. So you can see, all of that highlights.

And one thing I forgot to mention, though I did kind of mention this in the workflow, is if we did want to add any animation to this-- maybe we want to make that e-stop realistic, so that it's a toggle button. We would do that inside of 3ds Max. But now that we're inside of Max Interactive, I want to adjust this saw so that it's not sticking through my ceiling and it's not up on its side.

So what I'm going to have you do, Robert, is go ahead and come up here to the Rotate menu. Right there. Right there.

ROBERT SAVAGE: There we go.

RON JONES: So you've got this Rotate tool that's built in. And what we're going to do is, I'm going to have Robert select the axes that we need to turn this. So we need to turn this towards the wall. I guess we can go sideways first, too. That works.

So you can see here, what's happening is, these values over here are changing. You can enter absolute values or you can play with this, as Robert's doing, to get the orientation that you'd like. Oh, you almost had it. So the reason I'm showcasing this is, if you've got a specific product that you want to get a specific view angle on, you can use these rotate tools to make sure that it defaults to that specific view.

So we've got this set up now. Robert, what I'm going to have you do now is select the tool above that. That's a Move tool. And as I said, guys, this is a rough introduction into just how we get something working inside of a VR environment. So there's a lot more you can do here as far as placing additional objects, maybe even adding some primitives, that sort of thing.

So Robert, now that you've selected Move, I want you to go ahead and throw that somewhere out to the left. So you can see, we're able to drag that anywhere on our floor now that we've got the move set up. So just very quickly, we're able to add, maybe, multiple different instances if we're trying to, maybe, do a factory layout in VR or anything like that.

Alternatively, if you've brought in multiple different components from an assembly, you can manipulate those different assemblies inside of the Max Interactive environment. So maybe they are too close. Maybe we want to do a manual move inside of Max Interactive to space them out more. That Move tool gives you the ability to do that.

So the next thing that we're going to do is, we're going to show you guys how you can actually start leveraging some of these tools. So Robert, if you go ahead and hit that Play button up there at the top. Very briefly, this gives us the ability to generate an in-browser VR experience. So if you use your WASDF commands for me, you can walk around.

So you can see, he's able to move his mouse and view this. Alternatively, go ahead and hit W for me. He's walking inside of this environment now. If we had any other type of animation set up, he could interact with it from his computer.

So often, what I'll do when I'm explaining this to customers is, I'll say, hey, I'm going to send you this package really quickly. And you're going to be able to walk around and see what we're talking about with your product. And this could be a great way to communicate it to our friends in sales, because sales sometimes has a hard time picturing how something's actually going to look. Maybe it's in a 2D environment. But we have it in 3D.

Well, you can very quickly, in just a few minutes, send them this type of an EXE. And they can open it up on their machine and walk through and interact with this band saw. So the value of that is huge. And as I said, you're just doing this locally right now, so this is just utilizing the game engine to move around and interact with this saw.

So go ahead and close out of that for me. Just hit Escape.

So the next thing we'll go ahead and cover here is how we can actually start utilizing this and exporting it out. As I mentioned, you can connect a VR headset to this. It's pretty easy with Oculus. I think if you've got a HoloLens, it's a little bit more difficult because you've got to use a VBA editor to do it. So I would recommend utilizing either a Vive or an Oculus with this.

But what you can do is, you can see the game controller up here. So if I had a headset connected to this, I can use this to actually run the VR environment onto my headset. So traditionally, we would do that through something like Unity or the Oculus software-- anything like that. 3ds Max Interactive will also run it, as well.

So anybody experienced with Unity? A few people. Great. So we actually use Unity for our higher end development. But just for our basic functionality, like I said, for what this workflow is and the value of it, we just use Max Interactive just because it is a lot quicker to get to your end result.

So the next thing we're going to do is show you how we can actually create a deployment image of this. So Robert, I'm going to have you go to, I believe, Window.

ROBERT SAVAGE: I'm sorry?

RON JONES: Go to the Window tab. And then come down here to Deploy and Connect. So just very bottom. Good. Hover over that for me.

So the first thing you can see is that we have a deployer. We also have connections. So from the connections tab, that's where we're going to manage connections with our VR devices-- Oculus, Vive. HoloLens, if you've got a lot of free time to set up that connection. But what we'll go ahead and do is, we'll hit Deployer.

And this is what I generally send to our customers because very quickly, you can package this up into a nice, neat little bundle and send it off to them. So the first thing you'll see here is, inside of this deployer, we have a couple of different file formats-- Windows, Android, iOS. Yeah, you can go ahead and just scroll through those quickly.

So you can see each one has a different subset of features. So Android requires a version. Packaging for a PlayStation 4 is a little bit different. Android flavor-- that sort of thing.

You can also put this out on the web. So go ahead and hit Web for me. So we can put this out on the web using the deployer that's built in. But generally what I do is, I go with the Windows. Flag right there for me. And what this does is, it creates an executable file that we can send to a number of different people.

So Robert, what I'm going to go ahead have you do is, go ahead and set a destination. And just set that out on my desktop. Create a folder for me. Yeah, wherever you want to go.

So we're going to set a destination folder for this. And what this does is, we have a couple of different options. We can create self-extracting zip file and you just send the zip file over to your customer. Or you can have it create just a regular Windows folder structure, and it's going to have all of the reference documents as well as that executable.

So what I'm going to have Robert do is just go ahead and package the project for Windows. Actually, you're going to have to add a project title. It says required, man. Come on.

So it's going to compile this data. It does take a little bit of time to be able to do this. Or did it fail there?

ROBERT SAVAGE: Mm-hmm.

RON JONES: Did it fail?

ROBERT SAVAGE: It says, cannot package data.

RON JONES: Go ahead and hit the X on that.

ROBERT SAVAGE: You want me to close this?

RON JONES: Yeah, go ahead and close that and then-- oh, no, it's compiling. Yeah. So you can see, it is compiling the data here. We didn't think it was, at first.

But what it's going to do is, it's going to give us this nice, neat little package-- and we'll show you that here, in a minute-- that we can send out, view on our machine. You could port it over and view it on an iPhone, iOS device. Or alternatively, throw it out in the cloud and give somebody a web link to it.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

RON JONES: You could. Or move it to the Forge viewer and give the ability to have that VR experience. So when you think of Fusion team or BIM 360, that's going to handle this just strictly from a data management standpoint. And shameless plug-- we're doing a class tomorrow on connecting Inventor to the cloud. So if you want to talk about Fusion team, sign up for that class.

So now that that's done compiling, you can see it tells me packaging is complete. Go ahead and-- I think you saved that in My Documents.

ROBERT SAVAGE: Mm-hmm.

RON JONES: So you can see what it does is, it creates a Windows 64 deployment image under Dev, because we said it's a dev release. It's not a full release. So it does allow us to track the releases. And you can see here, we've got a couple DLL files.

They're having a lot of fun over there. You guys signed up for the wrong class.

So the thing I want you guys to take note of is, see this VR saw executable? That's what we want to send to our folks in sales, or maybe even our customers. Because Robert, if you just double-click on that-- it looks eerily similar to what we just looked at, right, from inside of Max? It's a rendering of what this looks like.

And I think you'll have have to go into the other room, Robert, to see that saw. Just walk to it. OK, our saw didn't make it. That's what happens when you do it live, folks.

[LAUGHTER]

So let's all pretend there's a saw in the corner-- a pretty little saw, to quote Bob Ross. You would be able to see that saw. You can see, Robert, if you go over to the baseball bat and other stuff that's in the-- you can see that all that stuff came over. We just didn't have the saw come over, for some eerily weird reason-- probably because we did it live.

ROBERT SAVAGE: Or because we didn't save it.

RON JONES: Or because we didn't save it. There you go.

[LAUGHTER]

Moral of the story, always save. We can all go home now.

ROBERT SAVAGE: Save, and save often.

RON JONES: So that being said, that's how we get something that's packageable. That's how we get something that we can move out and actually start viewing with. As I mentioned before, you wouldn't go through this workflow if you've actually connected your headset into Max Interactive, because you can view that straight over.

So what I have a lot of clients that do is, they get a dedicated VR machine. And what they do with this dedicated VR machine is, they strictly use it for viewing this sort of data. So the designer saves it to Vault. They log into Vault, download the file, import it into Max Interactive. And then they go over to that dedicated machine, put on the headset, go under the hood, so to speak, and manipulate the file. And they're doing all of that for Max. So you would only use this deployer if you're sending it to somebody-- maybe a customer, that sort of thing.

So with that--

ROBERT SAVAGE: Do you want to to go back to the--

AUDIENCE: Does it have to be a robust machine?

RON JONES: To connect?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

RON JONES: It actually has to be more robust, depending on what you're doing. So that's something that I ran into, is we run precision books. And although I could do all of this, I cannot connect a VR headset to it.

So what I had to do is-- and anybody who's been in the channel or in the industry long enough, you've all seen those big precision books that could stop a bullet. They actually make something that's about 10 pounds heavier than that that I now have. And that's what we had to get to run a VR headset. So that's why I said maybe have one dedicated to it, because it does have to be a pretty powerful machine to accommodate that.

But at least for this, for what we call desktop VR, not actually using a headset, you can use a regular Inventor machine for that. It doesn't require that much data.

AUDIENCE: You just have to have the latest [INAUDIBLE].

ROBERT SAVAGE: And just so you know, as you can see, this is not necessarily a beefy machine that we're doing this with. But like he said, if you are hooking a VR headset to it, you've got to have some video graphics-- more than what you're going to find on something like this.

RON JONES: And I would almost recommend, at that point, you just look at using a desktop machine just because the laptop that I have I think was $4,000 just to get Dell specs for [INAUDIBLE].