Advanced option for RVT/DWG 2D views on SVF(2) POST Job

Introduction

We have news for those of you working with RVT or DWG designs. More specifically when dealing with 2D views. 

We've been working to move 2D views generated by the SVF(2) conversion to PDF format, as you might have seen in our previous blog post calling for feedback.

What happens with the default translation (no option added)?

Before jumping to the new option available, we need to specify what happens when we submit a POST job to convert DWG and RVT input as of now.

This configuration applies to the POST job you're using currently, with a payload similar to the one below:

{
  "input": {
    "urn": "your_model_urn"
  },
  "output": {
    "destination": {
      "region": "us"
    },
    "formats": [
      {
        "type": "svf or svf2",
        "views": [
          "2d",
          "3d"
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

FOR DWG

By default, DWG conversion will not generate PDFs for the 2D views.

FOR RVT

By default, RVT conversion will not generate PDFs for the 2D views for old versions until 2021.

If your project is from version 2022 or later, it will generate PDFs.

What changes with the new option?

Now we have an advanced option to control if the resulting 2D views will be converted as PDFs (as described in our documentation). 

This new advanced option is the 2dviews field, and the available values are legacy and pdf, controlling the result of translation for the 2D views. 

Adding this new option will override the default behavior of the translator. 

* The only exception is for .rvt inputs from old versions until 2021. Those can't generate 2D views in PDF format. 

The payload, in this case, will be like the one below:

{
  "input": {
    "urn": "your_model_urn"
  },
  "output": {
    "destination": {
      "region": "us"
    },
    "formats": [
      {
        "type": "svf or svf2",
        "views": [
          "2d",
          "3d"
        ],
        "advanced":{
          "2dviews": "pdf" 
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

We can summarize this behavior in the two tables below: 

For .rvt input:

For .dwg input the table gets simpler: 

Also note that, for DWG, the PDF conversion is optimized, with reduced number of properties, as described in the blog post DWG translation optimizations

With this, you can have more control over your derivatives, and it also opens space for a new opportunity. 

Since you can have your 2D views available in PDF format, you can also download those individually through GET Fetch Derivative Download.

That can also simplify the workflow to generate PDFs in specific cases, without the need of going through Design Automation.