AU
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As Labor Day passes and the summer draws to a close, it's time to start thinking about Autodesk University. The AU team clearly knows this (they themselves have been thinking about the event since before AU 2012, so this is more for the rest of us ๐ and so they've gone ahead and posted a preview of the class schedule for this year's event. Take a look at rows 2^8 and 2^8+1 (that's 256 and 257 for non-programmers ๐ if you're interested in seeing information on the two classes I'm delivering, this year: one is on Leap Motion, the other…
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I've been beavering away in an attempt to streamline the AutoCAD-Leap Motion integration samples I posted last week. Here's the updated project. This latest set generally gets better results than the last ones, and the LEAPEXT command certainly feels more snappy and accurate. I'm still trying to find out why the controller occasionally stops seeing my fingers โ it could well be down to lighting or to the fact I'm using a Plexiglas surface about the device โ but I'll keep looking into it. I know it's still likely to be a month or so before most of you get…
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I arrived back safely in Switzerland on Saturday night. It was a pretty good trip to the Bay Area, this time: most surprisingly this is the first time ever I've managed to sleep through until 6am (or thereabouts) on every single day of a trip to California. But then I โ like many people โ do find going west to be easier than going east, jetlag-wise. I certainly found that I couldn't get back to sleep when I woke up at home on Sunday morning at 3am, which made for a very long day (especially as we participated in the…
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This week has so far had an AU theme to it, just as last week we talked exclusively about Leap Motion and AutoCAD. Perhaps I'm sub-consciously shifting this blog to a weekly-themed format? Hmm. Like many of you, I'm sure, I received an email over the weekend to let me know that the recorded sessions from Autodesk University 2012 are now available online (for anyone with a valid AU online account). I wasn't sure which of my sessions had made it up there from this last year's event (thank goodness I rarely have to write cheques anymore), and so was…
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I've talked a few times about the APPHACK held at AU 2012, as well as posting a photo of the contestants. One of the drivers behind this APPHACK โ as well as the one that was held internally to Autodesk which resulted in the creation of apps such as the excellent "QR Codes" by my friend John Beltran โ was to encourage development of apps for hosting in the Autodesk Exchange store. The first of the winning entries has now made it up to Exchange: PhotoGeoDWG from CAD Management Resources Inc. โ the second place winner โ is now available…
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As I inexorably head towards the end of my 30s (just a few months to go, now), I feel more and more justified to get cracking on a proper midlife crisis. And I've been told that to get the most out of a good crisis, you really need to invest in at least a little crisis planning. ๐ My most recent bout of rumination kicked off at AU2012, when โ to my huge surprise โ I stumbled across a new Morgan 3 Wheeler. Here's a picture of the car with Jon Wells, the Senior Designer at Morgan Motor Company Ltd.,…
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As promised, here's the cleaned-up code to jig a frustum inside AutoCAD. When I took on the task of writing this code โ live, during the "AutoCAD Programming Gurus Go Head to Head" class at AU โ I thought to myself "that should be easy enough โ I'm sure I have some code to jig a solid on my blog". Well, I did, but it turned out the code showed how to jig a box, and the code was in Python and Ruby but not C#. So I ended up having to code for my supper, after all. ๐ One…
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I'm sitting at SFO, waiting for my flight to Heathrow to board and depart (hopefully on time, considering the series of storms that have hit San Francisco over the last few days). I was going to write something technical to post, but in the end I changed my mind: I'm going to sit back, watch some TV and have a drink. Thanks for all the support and kind words I received at this year's AU: as ever it was an incredibly interesting and rewarding experience (just speaking from a personal perspective), but it was especially important to me, this year,…
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It's been a pretty wild few daysโฆ Saturday As I've tended to, in recent years (barring issues related to weather), I flew in from Geneva via Heathrow and arrived in Las Vegas on Saturday evening. The flight was full, and a good half of the people on the plane were destined for AU, it seemed: our travel system is meant to limit the number of Autodesk employees on the same flight โ probably because we make too much noise when enough of us are put together (just kidding, of course โ the limit is there but it's related to the…
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I arrived safely in Las Vegas for AU2012 and spent the day yesterday indulging in a little retail therapy to help get over my jetlag. I'm certainly feeling all the better for it. ๐ As we're yet to start the conference itself, I decided to focus today's post on some general preparation I made for this year's conference: how I upgraded my main system to get it ready โ in particular โ for the rigours of running various OS installations and the tools I need for my "cloud & mobile" session. A few weeks ago, I finally succumbed to a…