asked one day ago

Dears,

We are finalizing a bid for a Document Management System for an engineering firm. The client has a set of BIM and CAD-related requirements that are critical to the contract award. Before we commit to a solution architecture, we would like to clarify what Laserfiche can support natively, what requires integration or workarounds, and whether there is a roadmap to address these areas.

The requirements are:

  1. Native support for Revit (.rvt), AutoCAD (.dwg), Navisworks (.nwd/.nwf), IFC, and other engineering file formats.

  2. Built-in 2D/3D viewer for model visualization without requiring native software licenses.

  3. Markups, redlining, and annotation tools for drawings and models.

  4. Version comparison between design revisions (2D/3D).

  5. Clash detection and issue tracking features.

  6. Integration with BIM workflows and federated model coordination.

Based on our preliminary assessment, we understand the following:

  • Laserfiche can store and manage any file type, including CAD and BIM files, as electronic documents. It can also apply metadata, version control, and workflow automation to these files.

  • Laserfiche's annotation tools (highlights, redactions, stamps, text boxes, freehand drawings, etc.) are available for image and text pages within the document viewer.

  • Laserfiche has a version comparison feature that indicates changes to the electronic file, pages, text, annotations, and metadata. However, it cannot visually compare 3D geometry.

  • The 2D/3D viewer is not a native Laserfiche capability. The mobile documentation explicitly states that CAD drawings must be opened in another application. For 2D drawings, some workflows convert them to Laserfiche Pages for viewing.

  • Clash detection is not a Laserfiche function. It is a core capability of BIM coordination tools like Navisworks or Solibri.

Our key questions to the community are:

  1. For 2D/3D viewing: Is there a recommended third-party integration (e.g., Bluebeam Revu, a 3D PDF converter, or a dedicated BIM viewer) that Laserfiche customers commonly use to provide model visualization without requiring native software licenses? Are there any Laserfiche Marketplace partners that offer this?

  2. For clash detection and issue tracking: What is the recommended approach? We are considering using Laserfiche Workflow to manage the resolution process for clash issues detected in external tools (e.g., importing BCF files or clash reports). Has anyone implemented a similar workflow?

  3. For BIM workflow integration: Are there existing connectors or API-based integrations for Autodesk Construction Cloud, BIM 360, or other common data environments (CDEs)? The DocuNav GeoDocs integration for ESRI ArcGIS is one example of a spatial integration we have seen, but we are looking for BIM-specific examples.

  4. Roadmap: Is there a published roadmap or any known future development for native 3D model viewing, visual version comparison, or BIM-specific coordination features within Laserfiche? We would like to understand if these are on the product team's radar for the next 12–24 months.

Any insights, experiences, or partner recommendations from the community would be greatly appreciated. We want to propose a realistic and achievable solution rather than over-promise on native capabilities.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Mark

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