Comparison
Trimble Connect and Dalux play in the same league: an environment where a whole construction project comes together. Trimble calls Connect a common data environment in so many words, with documents and versions, BCF issues, clash detection and rights per user. Dalux is a family: Box is the CDE there, Field handles the site organisation with tasks, checklists and safety rounds, and alongside those stand a free BIM Viewer and Field Basic for viewing models and following up tasks.
Field-Viewer does one piece of that, and nothing further. We are not a project platform: there is no document management in it, no clash detection and no site administration. What we make is the screen in the workshop and on site where the model and the matching drawings sit together, worked by people with gloves on.
Everything said below about Trimble Connect and Dalux comes from their own product and help pages. What we did not find there, we write down as not found.
| Feature | Field-Viewer | Trimble Connect | Dalux |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who it is for | The team of a single company, in the workshop and on site. | Trimble names professionals from construction and geospatial: architects, engineers and contractors, across the phases of a project. | Dalux addresses building owners, main contractors, subcontractors and design offices. |
| Where it runs | On the screen at the workstation and on a tablet on site. You buy the hardware yourself. | A browser, a Windows desktop app and a mobile app, plus a sync tool and add-ins. | A browser, a Windows app of their own and apps for iOS and Android. |
| Model and 2D drawing linked | Tap an element in the model and the matching 2D drawing sits next to it, and the other way round just as well. | There is a 2D viewer and a 3D viewer, and you merge models into one 3D view. | The BIM Viewer combines models and drawings from all disciplines in one view. |
| Measuring yourself | Tapping two points is enough for a distance, an angle or an area. | The 3D viewer has measuring tools: reading off the position of a point, the distance between two points, the perpendicular distance between objects. | Field Basic names on-site measuring as a feature. |
| Layers on and off | Structure, services and finishes switch on and off separately, so only what matters for that job is left. | Models come in separately; with the Organizer you group and filter data, by phase for instance. | Models from the different disciplines are merged automatically. How you set visibility per layer is not something we found on the product pages. |
| Offline | Viewing, measuring and noting a comment work without a connection, and as soon as there is a network again it syncs. | The Windows app carries on offline, everything except the synchronising, and pushes changes through as soon as there is a connection again. About the mobile app we found no statement. | As far as we can see, the product pages say nothing about working offline. |
| Licence on the floor | Where the looking happens, no licence for the CAD package is needed. We agree the price together, per project or site. | A subscription per user in two tiers, monthly or yearly, with a trial period of thirty days. We did not find a permanently free tier on the product page. | Two free products, BIM Viewer and Field Basic, with a limit of three active projects or buildings in the terms of use. The other products run on a subscription. |
| Files you open alongside | An IFC from another package or a pdf from a supplier sits next to the model, in the format it came in. | Trimble speaks of more than forty-five file types. For clash detection a model is first converted to their own TrimBIM format. | Support for native BIM, IFC and drawings, with free plugins for Revit, Navisworks, Tekla and ArchiCAD. |
| What it does not do | No document management, no version control, no tasks or checklists, no clash detection, no redlining back to the drawing office and no hardware. | Trimble itself puts no limits on paper. We did not find checklists, site reports or safety rounds in it. | The clearest limit Dalux names itself is in the terms of use: three active projects on free use. |
As soon as the question is bigger than the screen on the floor, these are the tools that were built for it.
Documents with versions, rights per user, an approval flow and an agreed naming convention: that is what a common data environment is built for. We do not build that and we are not going to rebuild it either.
Both work with BCF, so a comment linked to a model element comes back to whoever draws. With us a report goes to your own drawing office, linked to the part it concerns; we do not do BCF exchange with other packages.
Trimble Connect makes clash sets between models. Dalux Field does tasks, checklists and safety rounds, with photos alongside. Field-Viewer does neither.
If the main contractor already works in Dalux or Trimble Connect, your team is working in there anyway. Putting a second system next to it for the same documents is rarely a good idea.
An SME with its own drawing office and its own workshop often has a smaller problem than the one a platform is built for.
Prefab elements, trusses, frames: the model has to hang at the workstation, not in the project environment of a client. Often there is not even a project to take part in.
Big buttons, a fixed view per workstation and being able to take a dimension yourself. No tasks, no folder structure and no rights for someone to keep up.
A shared environment asks that someone creates projects, invites users and sets rights. In a company of fifteen people that is work there is usually no room for.
One road from drawing office to floor, with the current version on the screen and an IFC or a pdf from someone else beside it.
Yes, because they do something different. If the project runs in one of those platforms, the project administration stays there and you use Field-Viewer for the screen in the workshop. What you had better not do is keep the same documents in two places.
No. There is no document management in it, no version control of files from third parties and no approval flow. We show what the drawing office publishes, with an IFC or a pdf beside it, in the place where the work happens.
That depends on the question. If you work in construction teams with a client and subcontractors, a shared environment pays for itself. If the work is mostly in your own workshop and on your own sites, a screen on the floor usually solves the real problem. Trimble Connect has a trial period and Dalux has two free products, so you can try it out before you decide.
Trimble Connect is a product of Trimble, Dalux a product of Dalux. This comparison is based on publicly available information as of 7 September 2026. If something is wrong, email us.
Sources
Would you rather see your own project on screen than an example of ours? Email us a publication from Vertex BD or an IFC file, with the pdf drawings alongside if you have them, to info@field-viewer.com. Too big for an email? Send a WeTransfer link instead.
Within two working days we set up a short demo in which you see your own model in the viewer: your elements, your dimensions, your drawings beside them.
We use what you send only to prepare that demo. We share your files with no one and we delete them afterwards.
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