Open a Navisworks NWD File Without Navisworks (Free, Online)
Open Navisworks NWD files for free, right in your browser, with no Navisworks install and no account.
This tutorial opens an apartment building saved from Revit to Navisworks and walks through everything the free NWD viewer does: orbit, zoom and pan, material colours, measuring, walking through at eye height, a section cut, Navisworks projects (.nwf) opened with their linked models, hiding one model of a federated project, converting NWD to STEP, IFC, DWG and more, and sharing a link or embedding the viewer. It reads .nwd published models, .nwc caches (including the ones Revit and AutoCAD write) and .nwf projects, loose or in a .zip. The file is read in your browser. It works on phones and tablets, and there are free apps for Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad and Android.
Convert Navisworks files NWD to STEP, NWD to IFC, NWD to DWG, NWD to DXF, NWD to OBJ, NWD to GLB, NWD to glTF, NWD to FBX, NWD to STL, NWD to 3MF, NWD to USDZ, NWD to DAE (COLLADA), NWD to 3DS, NWD to PLY, NWD to SAT, NWD to 3DM (Rhino), NWD to PDF, NWD to SVG, NWD to PNG, NWD to HTML, NWC to STEP, NWC to DWG, NWC to OBJ.
Transcript
Intro
Here is how to open a Navisworks NWD file for free, in your web browser, without Navisworks.
Open the NWD viewer
Go to innerscene.com/tools/nwd-viewer. There is no account and no Navisworks install, and the file is read right here in your browser.
Open an NWD file
Click Open a Navisworks File, or drop the file on the page. Published .nwd models and .nwc caches open, including the caches Revit and AutoCAD write. This is an apartment building, a public domain model from NIST, saved from Revit to Navisworks.
Look around the model
Drag to orbit, scroll to zoom, and right-drag to pan. Every part keeps its position and its material colour: the green roof, the stair tower, and the glass in the windows. Double-click a spot to fly to it, and you see through the windows into the apartments.
Measure
To measure, open Tools, choose Add measurement, and click two points. They snap to corners. From the ground to the roof edge, the building measures just over 12 metres.
Walk through
Walk puts you inside the model at eye height: steer with the mouse and move with the arrow keys, the way you would in Navisworks.
Section cut
Edit, then Plane cut, slices the building like a section, so you can look into a floor.
Projects with linked models
A Navisworks project, an .nwf, holds no geometry: it links the models of a job. Open it, and the viewer names the models it needs. Add them, and the whole project is drawn together: here the architecture and the components: the facade, windows and furniture. Tools, then Parts, lists each model, so you can hide one.
Convert NWD to STEP, IFC, DWG and more
Export converts the model: STEP for SolidWorks and Inventor, IFC for Revit and BIM, DWG and DXF for AutoCAD, and OBJ, GLB and FBX for Blender, games and the web. PDF and images too. Here it saves as STEP.
Share and embed
Share gives you a link that opens the model in any browser, or embeds this viewer in your own page.
Phones and tablets
The same page works on a phone or tablet, so you can check a model on site.
Free apps
There are free apps too: for Windows and Mac, for iPhone and iPad on the App Store, and for Android phones and tablets on Google Play.
Summary
That is the free Navisworks viewer and converter at innerscene.com. Links are in the description.
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