Inducing Autodesk Forge Viewer into a Power BI report entails following some steps. The steps comprise the custom visual capabilities of Power BI integrated with the APIs of Autodesk Forge. This is how you have to do it:
Step 1: Set Up an Autodesk Forge Account and Access API
First and foremost, create an Autodesk Forge account and set up the Forge platform. You must also obtain the Forge Client ID and Client Secret. These identity credentials are then used as authentication to access the Forge APIs for loading 3D models. You will also need to create an access token, which will allow your Power BI report to interact with Forge.
Step 2: Create a Custom Power BI Visual
Power BI allows the embedding of custom visuals, so you will need to create one that embeds the Forge Viewer. You can develop that custom visual using Power BI Developer Tools.
Power BI Custom Visual Development: This custom visual capable of loading the Forge Viewer would be created using the tools and API provided by Power BI. This would require knowledge of JavaScript and web development frameworks like TypeScript, which Power BI employs for custom visuals.
Embed Wireframe Viewer: This custom visual will need to load Forge Viewer using the Viewer API. You will also have to put in the JavaScript code for loading your 3D models in the Power BI report. The models will be either cloud-referenced or stored in Autodesk Forge.
Step 3: Use Forge API to Load Models
Here, you will use the Forge Viewer API inside of your custom visual to load and show some models. Your script in your visual will hook into Forge’s API using the model’s URN (Uniform Resource Name) to load and display the 3D model. Also, make sure to authenticate your APIs with the Access Token.
Step 4: Embed Custom Visualization quite simply into Power BI
Having gone through the process of creating a Custom visual, importing it into Power BI is the next task. Here's how you can do that:
Publish Custom Visual: You can publish it either in your organizational Power BI workspace or in the Power BI Marketplace.
Add to Report: After adding it to your report, you will then configure the visual to where it is supposed to highlight the correct URN or model ID.
Step 5: Allow Interaction With Other Visuals
You can now structure communication between the Custom visual and the actual report so that your Forge Viewer can interact with different elements used in the report, like charts or tables. This is possible with Power BI's cross-filtering and cross-highlighting features.
Pass Parameters: When a user selects a particular data point (say, a region or project), this data can be passed to the Forged Viewer, updating the modeled 3D scene inside the Forged Viewer.
JavaScript Integration: Use JavaScript to hook Power BI's selection events to ensure that when a user clicks on a particular data point in a table or chart, the 3-dimensional model in the Forge Viewer updates accordingly.
Step 6: Testing and Deployment
Thoroughly test your integration to ensure it integrates quite well with the Forge Viewer. Also, the Forge Viewer should load correctly and interact as intended with the other report visuals. After you have completed and verified the tests, you should deploy the Power BI report to users.
This integration allows you to view 3D alongside traditional visualization indicators in Power BI, achieving a very high level of interaction between users supported by greatly diverse exploration data and concepts in one report.
