Access Forge Data

Question

Im learning programme Forge, for now i dont understand how to access Forge data after i post my revit file to OSS?

For instance, i want to create schedule, data table to describe quantity of elements in Forge. So i need to transfer data (elements in Forge) to that data table right? how can i achieve that, which API to use? should i call restful api of forge to return that data? And I want 1 function like when I click row in that table, element will selected in Forge Viewer and restful api will be called to Forge to do that? I don't understand workflow here, all access to Forge data throught restful api? which type of file we will received?

Summarize, how can i get a list of elements in Forge?

Another questions, my revit file will stored at Forge server or my server (im using Azure)? as i can see, forge viewer will render live sync with server, sometime my model work not well with that mechanism . Do we have any mechanism to stored file to local storage for have better experience?

Sorry for a lot of questions. I try to imagine the large picture here.

This platform is incredible, we have a lot of idea to do. I believe those questions will help so many people.

Appreciate any comments.

Answer 1

That's a loaded question :) Let me break it down a bit.

How to access your data in Forge

Take a look at our Learn Forge tutorials. They show different ways of accessing and using your data in Forge, for example, showing pie charts with object counts for different types.

How to get a list of elements in Forge

There are different ways:

• You can use the Forge APIs such as https://forge.autodesk.com/en/docs/model-derivative/v2/reference/http/urn-metadata-guid-GET to get a JSON file listing all objects in the scene hierarchy, or https://forge.autodesk.com/en/docs/model-derivative/v2/reference/http/urn-metadata-guid-properties-GET to get a JSON with all objects and their properties.
• If you are already inside Forge Viewer, the same data is available to you in the browser, for example, you can traverse the entire scene hierarchy using the "instance tree" (explained in this blog post: https://forge.autodesk.com/blog/working-2d-and-3d-scenes-and-geometry-forge-viewer).

How to programmatically select specific objects in the viewer

Take a look at our Digital Twin demo (and its source code). One of the features there is doing exactly this - after you click on a number in a table in the sidebar, the corresponding object in the viewer will be highlighted and focused by the camera.

Where is my data stored

After you upload your (let's say Revit) model to Forge and translate it for viewing in Forge Viewer, the translation output is stored in Forge, and is efficiently streamed to the viewer as needed. You don't need to keep the original Revit model in Forge, though.