Unity Reflect FAQ

You do not need the Unity Editor to use Unity Reflect. Unity Reflect is a standalone product. However, if you are a developer, you can build on top of Unity Reflect with the Unity Editor to create the best experience for your users. Our installer includes a reference application and documentation to make it easy to develop and customize your own applications.

Unity Reflect supports all 2019 releases of Unity and will always support the latest release of Unity.

If you wish to use the Unity Editor with Unity Reflect, you can only do so with Unity Pro. Unity Reflect is not available with Unity Plus or Unity Personal.

Yes, please speak with a sales representative to learn more.

It supports the 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021 releases of Revit.

It supports the 2019, 2020, and 2021 releases of Navisworks.

It supports the 2019 and 2020 releases of SketchUp.

It supports version 6 of Rhino.

You can use Unity Reflect on-premise or through cloud hosting.

No. We give subscribers access to our Viewer’s source code, but you cannot contribute to this code.

You need a Unity Reflect license for every user who uses the Unity Reflect plugins as well as for every user who will be developing Unity Reflect-based applications. Not every user in your organization will necessarily need a license.

You do not need a Unity Reflect license to access the Viewers; however, Viewer users need to create a Unity ID to access the projects.

Not yet. Floating licenses will be available in 2020.

You can import packages within the Unity Editor. To install the Unity Reflect package in the Editor, you will need to enable "Show Preview Packages" under the advanced options in the Package Manager. When you import, Unity Reflect simply creates a prefab.

Visit our public roadmap here. We’d love to hear your feedback.

Performance varies depending on the size and complexity of the model, the publishing platform (Revit) and the viewing platform (PC, iOS, AR, VR). A best practice is to test out a few scenes; if a model is too large and hampers performance, you can use section boxes.

No. The only requirement is that all users have a license of Unity Reflect.

Unity Reflect does not support file formats. We support direct, memory-to-memory connections between Unity Reflect and digital content creation applications like Revit.

Unity Reflect does not use PiXYZ as part of its data federation process. The aim of Unity Reflect is to facilitate design review across multiple designers and engineers, allowing users to sync in real- time across multiple iterations. Unity Reflect does not include any decimation, hole filling, hidden geometry removal or other geometry optimizations that are possible with PiXYZ. PiXYZ also provides a very powerful rules engine that can help you build the best runtime possible. Both products deliver real-time 3D optimizations, but for very different use cases, users and goals.

It's where the data is held and processed. The server can be your local machine (i.e., PC) or a central server. It is not cloud-based at this time.

Unity Reflect performs two types of transformations:

1. Object merging to reduce the number of objects in the scene (stairs, ramps, windows, etc.)
2. Material mapping for compatibility

It does not perform any decimation or tessellation of geometry. We expect to add additional decimation and optimization steps in 2020.

Yes. If a user is not connected, their portion of the model will not sync. Their modifications will be accumulated until they connect to the network, at which time they will be automatically synced. The only exception is when Revit and the Viewer are running on the same computer.

Every computer that runs Unity Reflect can act as a server. Each server runs locally on the machine and has it own data storage, which stores the models federated from Revit.

When you begin syncing models from Revit to Unity Reflect, you can push this data to the server of your choice (or even multiple servers across different computers). By default, all servers are private, but you can give access to other users in the privacy settings of a server and manage access right from your Unity project page.

While everything is stored, the data is ephemeral. This means that you will not lose anything if you delete the files or make a mistake (e.g., pushing the wrong data to a project). You can always regenerate the data from Revit.

This server storage is independent of the Viewers, which have a data cache that allows users to view data offline.

Unity Reflect uses meters, and at the moment, you cannot change this unit of measurement in Unity or Unity Reflect. If you import a project that uses a different unit of measurement, the measurements will be converted to meters automatically.

Unity Reflect uses local files, and a user can modify only the data that they contribute. Multiple users can make changes to their respective models at the same time.

Yes. Every Unity Reflect project will show up in the Unity developer dashboard. From there, an admin can manage access rights and grant or revoke access to projects.

We use a cloud-hosted server to indicate the location of the various servers you are using to store Reflect projects. No 3D data is stored in this server, just the names and locations of the projects.

You can use Reflect to import data, which can be used in a WebGL application, but cannot build a WebGL viewer.

No. You can open a live link to a Unity Reflect project with Unity and view the project in the Editor.

Yes, provided they are on the same local network.

Yes, provided they are on the same local network.

As many as you need.

Not at this time. Every user controls what they see by interacting with the Viewer – there is no unified view across Viewers.

All BIM metadata is transferred, including support for instance-specific metadata.

Unity Reflect is unidirectional. Changes made in Revit can be synced to Unity Reflect, but not vice versa.

Yes. Models can be cached in the application on Windows or iOS and viewed offline after syncing.

Yes. It supports the HTC Vive. Support will expand to additional platforms in 2020. But note that once you bring a project into the Editor, you can deploy it to Oculus and other VR platforms.

It supports tabletop AR on iOS devices. This feature relies on ARKit’s plane detection, and, as such, the model may drift as you move away from its initial location.

Yes. The standalone Viewer is Unity branded, but we also provide the Viewer reference application source code. This lets you customize the Viewer in the Unity Editor to feature logos, custom user interfaces (UIs), and more.

Not at the moment.

Unity Reflect currently supports the default render pipeline. By bringing your Reflect projects into the Editor, you can create environments with high visual fidelity. We plan to extend support for the Universal Render Pipeline (URP) and High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP) in 2020.

Here are a few things to be aware of:

• You must be on the same network to be able to download projects. If you are not, the download won't start and you won't get an error message. Reflect projects from previous versions are incompatible.
• The plugins don't have a progress bar for export progress yet. We rely on Revit's built-in progress bar for now.
• Unity Reflect materials are only compatible with the Standard Rendering Pipeline. If you want to use URP or HDRP, you will need to replace all materials.
• Changing a Clipping plane in Revit won't update the model in Reflect. The model needs to be re-exported.
• The Reflect Viewer does not automatically launch after exporting a project.

We are working diligently to resolve these issues and limitations in subsequent releases of Unity Reflect.