Every Rhino user encounters a problem with sharing files in the review process of a project. Collaborating with colleagues and clients usually involves a screen sharing application like WebEx or distributing screenshots of your CAD models.
What if you could share an interactive CAD view directly from your Rhino application to collaborate with others in real time?
Introducing PureWeb Cast for Rhino
We have just launched our public beta of PureWeb Cast for Rhino and throughout this period we are offering the use of this service free of charge, while encouraging users to submit feedback on their experience.
Enable PureWeb Cast for Rhino simply by installing the plugin and creating a PureWeb
Cast account. When creating your account, you will choose a persistent meeting space
URL. Then, in Rhino, launch PureWeb Cast by typing cast into the command line and log in with your PureWeb Cast credentials. An interactive view of your model is now being broadcast into your persistent meeting space. You can invite clients and colleagues to interact with your model by sharing the link to your permanent meeting space. Built in audio is also available for a seamless experience.
This really WORKS! I’m surprised that there hasn’t been more response here yet. I use Skype screen sharing to do just this sort of collaboration with Rhino with my clients but this is far simpler and intimidating for the clients. I say this not having tried it yet with one but imagine that to be so. One thing that is nice is the client can rotate the model from their end but it would be nice if my cursor could be seen so I can bring attention to things. Maybe even a mark up tool to follow the cursor but one thing at a time. Thanks Christian!
I haven’t played with TeamViewer too extensively, but it looks like it would work well for expert to expert scenarios (Rhino user asking another Rhino user for feedback/help) or training (expert Rhino user guiding a new user through the application). TeamViewer gives the collaborator the chance to interact with the whole Rhino application as it is sharing a full screen scrape.
PureWeb Cast is thought to be simpler: Project/model review process with a client who may not be familiar or comfortable with the Rhino application. All they see is a broadcast of Rhino’s active view where they are able to interact via pan, zoom and rotate without caching any model data in the browser or having access to the source file.
PureWeb Cast works through WebRTC, so you are able to collaborate with others through any WebRTC capable browser (latest Chrome, Firefox and Opera on Windows and Mac operating systems) with no downloads required on the collaborator’s side at all. TeamViewer only works after installing their application as far as I know. More companies are working on adding WebRTC to their roadmap, so we’ll make sure to have wider browser support in the future.
Also, watching and interacting with a Rhino model through the browser does not require an account, so collaborators can quickly join by navigating to your collaborative space, keeping things simple.
I hope that makes sense. Please let me know if you have any follow up questions.
Thank you for the kind words - you absolutely nailed our next roadmap items: Adding visibility of the collaborator’s cursor and the ability to annotate is high up on our list. Always helps to hear these kind of things to make sure we are prioritizing the right features. Keep it coming if you can think of more.
The Link @wim posted points to a different product and is not related to PureWeb Cast.
We haven’t finalized pricing for Cast yet, but are thinking it will be a low monthly fee. We are hoping to receive some thoughts on that from the community here (most likely sent out as a survey/questionnaire after allowing beta testers to use the product for a while).
Hope that makes sense. Don’t hesitate to contact me if you have more questions.
Christian
Could you provide some detail where the data is held and how you’re securing it? How are you handling protection at points where the data flows? Thanks.
Absolutely:
On the PureWeb Cast plugin side we are processing the image data Rhino is showing in the active view. Images are only sent during time of activity when the Rhino user is interacting with the model, so no bandwidth is being used during inactivity.
From there, we are using Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC for short). WebRTC, by default, is trying to establish a peer to peer connection which means that the images are being streamed from the Rhino user directly to the other collaborators. If the nature of the network or firewall does not allow a peer to peer connection, a media relay server in the internet is being provided. In any case, all connections are encrypted via https.
An important addition: At no point does PureWeb Cast touch or distribute the source file of your CAD model. This means, if the Rhino user loses internet during a collaborative session, the stream on the collaborator’s side simply ends. The collaborator does not cache or download any data.
@Christian, thank you for the explanation. So WebRTC is taking care of your encryption, but how are you prevent man in the middle attacks and session hijacking? Do you manage end to end authentication within your service?
Great question - We are using a secure, trusted signal exchange channel, a mechanism to protect against MITM attacks.
Side note: If you are looking for a secure solution to share highly sensitive CAD models, please send me a direct message. I’d love to talk about your use case.
@Christian, interesting take on the collaborative issue. I don’t believe secure applications can use a browser as their foundation, but that’s just my thought, I’m sure there are those that would disagree, I guess it depends on the value of the data. At some point you need to slow down access to get a user in the right frame of mind about the data interaction. A concern of these sort of solutions are the checks put in place so a compromised system cannot be used to run rampant throughout the larger collaborative network, that’s why I was curious about how broad your authentication measures are within your system.
I thought “secure” is what this topic/solution is about. Actually it is broadcasting. Anyone who knows my channel can watch, record and interact with my casts. While I do not even see who or how many users are actually watching.
My note was more meant to explore and learn more about other use cases people may have. Poor choice of words on my end in the post above.
The current beta is our first collection of feedback and to explore what users think of it. There are more features in our roadmap, including a panel to see who is in your space, kicking unwanted guests off, as well as password protection. Your mention definitely added another vote to the importance of those. Thanks for that
@Christian, so no rudimentary security exists in the product today? Sounds like a bit of a train wreck security wise if the solution lacks basic authentication and visibility controls. Aren’t you asking those testers to take a tremendous risk with their intellectual property without that framework in place day one?
Don’t get me wrong! I think the current tool is cool. The question is: What is it good for?
I don’t need another screen-sharing tool which is limited to the active Rhino-viewport.
What I’m missing when collaborating in a big team, distributed all around the world, is the synchronization of our Rhino session in a meeting. We all have the same geometry files local via a SVN server. How cool would it be if we could start a common worksession, load the files to discuss and everyone could add annotations, geometry, synchronize views… maximum screen quality with a minimum of used bandwidth. Just dreaming
Well, sometimes I’m communicating with clients who are not allowed to install screen sharing or conferencing apps for security reasons. So maybe this is the security of the subject…
The advantage of this tool is that “guests” can participate and interact in screen sharing and audio conferences without registration or authentication and without installation of any software.
