In this article, we describe the type of data 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 consisting 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 align the view with the physical object manually. The 3D models must be transmitted to the PTC Vuforia servers for a deep-learning-based training process.
NOTE: This article focuses only on the MTG and the type of 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 Vuforia Engine Data Security.
Networking
The following illustration is a general overview of the data flow between the Model Target Generator and the PTC Vuforia servers.
Below, we describe the two Model Target types separately regarding networking and data transmission 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 collected analytics data helps us identify usage trends and configurations to continue 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 the recognition of Advanced Model Targets without requiring manual alignment, the 3D model must 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 canceled by the user.
Explicitly disabling 3D data upload from the MTG
You can explicitly turn off MTG capabilities that require uploading the 3D model to the secure Vuforia Cloud. To do this, start the MTG from a command line tool followed by the parameter --no-upload. This turns off Simplification and the option to train Advanced Model Targets in the MTG UI.
On MacOS, the MTG executable is in a directory path like /Applications/Model Target Generator.app/Contents/MacOS/Model Target Generator
You can find the executable’s location by right-clicking the MTG application, select show package contents, and navigate to the Contents/MacOS/ folder.
Simplification of Complex Models
The feature to simplify complex models from the Complexity tab in the MTG requires that the CAD model data be 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 the model's number of parts and polygons.
- 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 and the simplified version are deleted after the MTG has successfully downloaded it.
- Cancelling during the simplification process will delete the uploaded CAD Model data.
- Undoing the simplification will delete the locally stored simplified model from the MTG.
Sharing your 3D model
The 3D model is kept on our servers only during training by default. 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 advantage of enabling the Vuforia team to assist if a training session fails.
Any 3D models shared with Vuforia this way are kept for an undefined time.
