MediaValet leverages Autodesk Forge

When you think of valet, what comes to mind? Chances are that you think of an attendant parking your car as in valet parking. Though the word valet could apply to any servant who attends to the personal needs of someone, the only chance that most people get to experience such service is when they get their car parked. Well, when it comes to digital assets, a company called MediaValet wants to change that.

MediaValet is a digital asset management company that helps its customers aggregate, organize, and secure marketing materials such as videos and photos. For traditional 2D data like JPG and MP4 files, MediaValet could rely upon in-browser-already technologies; however, to expand their service by building a solution for viewing 3D CAD files, MediaValet used technology from Autodesk.

Though MediaValet already had a successful cloud platform in place to enable its customers to share and view digital marketing assets, it couldn't meet the growing demand from the architecture/engineering/construction and product design/manufacturing industries to support 3D CAD assets. MediaValet didn't have development resources to focus 100% on adding support for 3D data files, so they turned to Autodesk Forge.

MediaValet discovered that Forge offered existing solutions that new customers required, as well as valuable industry expertise.

• The Forge Viewer provides the ability for customers to view CAD files with the same permissions structure as MediaValet's existing product without the need for additional software.
• Using the Data Management API, MediaValet can navigate various project structures. It also handles the uploading and downloading of files.
• The Model Derivative API allows MediaValet to convert 3D assets into industry standard SVF. The Forge Viewer creates WebGL from SVF so that MediaValet customers do not need to download or install any browser plug-ins.

Because Forge was easy to use and featured developer resources and code samples, MediaValet needed just one developer to build out the first proof of concept: an intern. That made integration easier and seamless for both the internal team and customers. MediaValet estimates that Forge enabled them to reduce development time by 6 to 9 months, enabling MediaValet to direct resources to other feature development.

MediaValet found that every company has some sort of marketing material, even if it's just a business card with their logo. CAD files are pretty prolific as well. It might not be their primary business, but they still have CAD files. Usually, no one can view those CAD files unless someone has Autodesk software or a third-party viewer, so only a few people have what's needed. The integration with Forge allows MediaValet to go to organizations where everybody throughout the organization, whether they have 5 people or 50,000 people, can now view a 3D file in its full glory. For many of their customers, MediaValet was already being used to distribute all of their media assets and marketing materials throughout their entire organization. By integrating with Autodesk Forge, all of a sudden, now if those customers also want to share a CAD file of the latest product they designed or the latest building, they can now share that with everybody across their entire organization. They can get in, spin it around, blow it apart, and look at it in fine detail. MediaValet provides a single source of truth for all digital assets. Forge helps them achieve that.

MediaValet customers like Experian, Erickson Aviation, A&W, and the US Naval Institute can now manage their AutoCAD drawings in the same way that they manage their high-resolution photos, 4K videos, full-length animations and 2D graphics. It's one big happy digital asset management system.

Personalized service is alive in the lab.