Vendors Vying to Win Viewer Wars

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Whenever clients ask about document imaging, management and collaboration tools, viewer technology routinely comes up. A truly paperless solution may still be far off, but as our industry moves towards a combined hard- and electronic-copy environment, sharing and collaborating on documents
becomes more helpful and important.

Viewer technology - which allows a user to view specific files without having the originating application installed - has been around for years. Viewing files this way is typically faster than using the original application, simply because one does not have to load all of the editing capability as well.
The basic requirements of such technology are the ability to view a variety of different file formats, to provide document markup and redaction and, importantly, to protect the document from printing, editing and/or copying by third parties. This last feature is becoming increasingly important; for
as documents become easier to share and distribute, controlling and protecting proprietary technical information and other intellectual capital is vital.

Is A Single Solution Possible?
A single, seamless viewer technology solution for all the tools in our industry may be years away. Part of the complexity is the capabilities of different systems:

  • Document imaging systems typically scan paper documents to what’s called a TIFF file - essentially a single image that amounts to a storage mechanism for visual information. These systems normally provide a viewer that allows a user to add notes, markups, and even to redact certain text within the document for routing and later retrieval.
  • Document management systems store multiple file types, and provide a viewer for viewing files for users without the original application.
  • Document collaboration or project collaboration tools often tout the capability to do red-lining on CAD documents and online markup. They rely on viewer technology to do this.

The expectation that CAD, scheduling, imaging and all other associated application documents will be available on any computer from which an employee, contractor, or owner accesses them is unrealistic. Costs will be high; and the complexity and support overheads are prohibitive - especially when all we are doing is viewing a file for reference, or at the most marking up or redacting sections and not performing major edits. In some cases, it’s important to keep an original file intact.

What Vendors Bring to the Table
Of the three basic requirements of viewer technology, the need to share files securely is paramount. Users must ensure that files they send to others cannot be copied, printed, or edited without their express permission.

Several vendors are vying to be the “viewer of choice” in the AEC industry, but all are taking different approaches to get there. Microsoft has their Digital Rights Management component that is used to manage permission in Microsoft Office products, but two vendors who are pushing the technology in theAEC space are Adobe and Informative Graphics Corporation (IGC).

Acrobat Reader is probably the best known viewer; Adobe’s free PDF reader has been around for more than ten years. Recently, Adobe appears to have focused considerable effort on the AEC industry, introducing the ability to move from 2D to 3D display, which allows users to capture 3D documents from common tools such as Revit and Sketchup and display them in the latest Acrobat Reader. Adobe’s product comes in 10 different flavors, the most basic being the free Adobe Reader. To assign security to a document or view3D items, one needs to purchase one of the advanced versions.

While Adobe certainly has the lion’s share of the market place, IGC has been has been working away developing relationships and licensing their technology with many of the major web-based project management vendors. Their web site lists Citadon, Constructware, PrimeContract, Meridian Project Systems, e-Builder, 4Projects, Bricsnet etc. In addition, IGC has also developed integrations with Documentum, Opentext and Microsoft. Instead of having to convert all documents to a PDF to make viewing possible as in the case of Adobe, IGC’s Brava is able to read a variety of different formats natively, including Office, DWG, DWF, DGN files and interestingly PDFs. If one wants to provide security to the files being viewed in Brava, it is necessary to convert the files to a format called CSF (Content Sealed Format), a proprietary format of IGCs.

Adobe Acrobat requires approx 90MB of available disk space on a PC (up to 110 MB for a Mac) compared to approx 60MB for the Brava Viewer (Desktop). The Brava desktop does not support Macintosh. Brava’s viewer comes in three varieties, again the most basic being the free viewer, but to assign security one needs to purchase one of the other variants.Brava uses Stellant’s INSO technology to view file formats other than those created as a CSF file. Both systems provide the ability to view large multi-page documents rapidly without having to wait for every page to download. If you are viewing a 100-page document, you can start on page one while the rest downloads in the background.

Many document viewers are available, but it seems that Brava and Adobe are making the most progress in the AEC space in providing tools to view and convert documents and for document markup. Acrobat Reader is more open than Brava’s viewer, however, and many other developers have created
tools built around the Adobe Acrobat model. On the other hand, Brava has made major inroads in the Project Collaboration and Document Management space for AEC.

If you simply want to view multiple file formats without having to convert them to a common format first, Brava provides good tools. If you’re goal is to mark-up documents, assign security, etc., and provide some type of DRM, Adobe may have the edge in terms of the existing user base of Adobe Acrobat Reader.