This page concerns the Vuforia Engine API version 9.8 and earlier. It has been deprecated and will no longer be actively updated.
In this article, we describe the data that is transmitted to the PTC Vuforia servers when generating Model Targets and Advanced Model Targets. The data shared with the PTC Vuforia servers is always encrypted in transit and stored securely.
Overview
Model Target Types
The Model Target Generator desktop tool lets you generate two types of Model Targets.
- Standard Model Targets. A Model Target that consists of a 3D model with one or more Guide Views.
- Advanced Model Targets. A Model Target that consists of one or more 3D models with one or more Advanced Views. Advanced Model Targets support recognition and tracking of an object from anywhere in the defined recognition range without requiring the user to manually align the view with the physical object. The 3D models are required to be transmitted to the PTC Vuforia servers for a deep-learning based training process.
NOTE: This article focuses only on the MTG and what data this tool delivers to the PTC Vuforia servers. For a general overview of data communication between Vuforia Engine enabled applications and PTC, please refer to https://developer.vuforia.com/legal/statistics
Networking
The following illustration is a general overview of the data flow between the Model Target Generator and the PTC Vuforia servers.
We will describe the two Model Target types separately in regard to networking with the PTC Vuforia servers.
For both Model Target types, the following data is shared with PTC.
- Authentication credentials for your Vuforia Engine developer account.
- Number of Model Targets generated (trained and untrained) along with the number of Guide Views.
- Basic analytics about the CAD model such as its source format, number of polygons and parts, etc.
- MD5 hash of the generated dataset.
The analytics data collected helps us identify usage trends and configurations to continue on improving the developer experience.
Standard Model Targets
- When a Standard Model Target is generated, only the above data is shared with PTC, the 3D model resides locally. This makes the generation process instantaneous.
- If Simplification is applied to the Model, please see the section below Simplification of Complex Models.
Advanced Model Targets
- To enable recognition of Advanced Model Targets without the use of guide views, the 3D model is required to be transferred and processed by our PTC Vuforia servers. After processing, the 3D model is deleted regardless of whether the processing session was successful, failed, or cancelled by the user.
Simplification of Complex Models
The feature to simplify complex models from the Complexity tab in the MTG does require that the CAD model data is uploaded to our PTC Vuforia servers. When Simplification is started, the model is packaged as a glTF file and delivered to a secure server to simplify number of parts and polygons of the model.
- The CAD model is uploaded to a server located in Europe and stored there during simplification.
- After simplification, the simplified version is returned, and both the uploaded (original) model as well as the simplified version are deleted after the MTG has successfully downloaded it.
- Cancelling during the simplification process will delete the CAD Model data that was uploaded.
- Undoing the simplification will delete the locally stored simplified model from the MTG.
Sharing your 3D model
By default, the 3D model is kept on our servers only during training. However, you have an option to Allow PTC to test CAD data.
When this option is chosen, you allow PTC to store and keep the 3D Model for testing and debugging purposes. This has the added advantage of enabling the Vuforia team to assist if a training session fails.
Any 3D models that are shared with Vuforia are kept for an undefined time.
