Best Of

Here's an idea - use the features you already have in the most common way I see people staple PDFs to create a single file.

Currently, you can only select "Use file name as page label" if you combine PDFs inside of Bluebeam. If you use the stapler, that option does not exist. The result - combined PDF sets uploaded to a bluebeam session, without page labels and no way to add them (*BB sessions prohibit any editing of the pdf…)

I am developing a workflow for producing 3D PDFs that illustrate complex construction sequencing. To achieve this, I create separate 3D views in Bluebeam for each construction stage by filtering the U3D model using the Revit Phase Created parameter and isolating elements accordingly. This part of the workflow functions well.

However, the usability of the final 3D PDF could be significantly improved with one enhancement:
A setting in the “3D View Properties” panel that allows users to toggle whether the camera position is preserved when switching between views.

Currently, each saved 3D view always reverts to its originally saved camera state. This makes it difficult for site teams to compare sequential construction stages while focusing on the same area of the model. For example, if a user zooms into a specific part of the site and then switches to the next construction phase, the camera snaps back to the predefined view instead of maintaining the user’s chosen position.

Proposed enhancement:
Add an option (e.g., “Maintain Current Camera Position When Switching Views”) to the 3D View Properties. When enabled, the camera would remain where the user has positioned it while switching between 3D views.

Benefits:

• Allows site teams to track construction progress in a more intuitive and consistent way.
• Improves clarity by enabling direct visual comparison between phases from the same viewpoint.
• Makes 3D PDFs more user‑friendly and effective for construction sequencing deliverables.

This enhancement would greatly strengthen Bluebeam’s value for construction visualization workflows.

Emphatic thumbs-ups to all three of these suggestions… 👍️👍️👍️

#1 and #2 especially seem like they are vestiges of early development decisions on what the 'right' way is to use a Session, and ever since, those self-imposed blinders have defined the feature. (Bluebeam seems to suffer from quite a few of these blinders…) All three of these functionalities maybe should remain the default settings (or not), but with options to allow them to be changed by session admin users (or otherwise controlled).

100% agree with this request. There needs to more flexibility in session permissions. I can understand the legal rationale for the current defaults but it lacks flexibility and actually hinders collaboration for the use cases described in other posts. In particular, allowing a meeting facilitator to edit/consolidate comments from anyone on the team live during a meeting would be helpful. Also agree with allowing edits of each other's drawings/sketches to enhance the collaborative design process.

@Luke Shiras, not to be rude but did you even read the previous comments in this thread? I and many others already replied - in detail - with how our workflows are affected by being unable to edit existing markups.

Of course we can just overwrite other people's markups, but it is much harder to interpret 3 overlapping markups than 1 single markup edited by multiple people. Some legal uses likely require an explicit trail of who did what, so we're not asking Bluebeam to let everyone edit everything always.

When me and the others in this thread are working collaboratively with our colleagues in Microsoft Office 365 or Google Docs or on physical equipment, we all build on and edit each other's work. But when it comes to Bluebeam, we cannot edit each other's work, we have to essentially raze the building by hiding all their work with a filled white rectangle and then make our new edits from scratch. And then when a 3rd person comes along, they have to cover up everything again with a white rectangle and make new edits yet again from scratch.

I thought about this some more. While I would love to have the functionality added as described in my original comment, at the very least, or as a stop-gap, it would be helpful if there was a way to select mark-ups as editable or not. The default could be "editable by the owner only", but if there was an option to select "mark-up editable by all", that would be helpful.