Autodesk Research
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This is a two-part series covering last week's Autodesk DevCon in Munich. I ended up choosing to write the series chronologically - so readers get a sense of the event's flow - and found it was long enough to split into two: there was just so much to talk about! On Sunday of last week I once again hopped on the train to Zurich and then the Flixbus to Munich, heading across for the European instance of this year's Autodesk DevCon series. Children in Bavaria headed back to school last week, so there was quite a lot of traffic as…
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As mentioned in the last post, it's now possible for people to sign up for their AU classes. And it's really worth taking the time to do so, as some classes are filling up quickly. Despite being held at a ridiculously early time on the first day of the conference, my first class is already 88% full, for instance (there are 141 registered and the capacity of the room it's currently assigned to is 160). I see that 300+ people have this session in their list of favourites, so if you do want to attend then I recommend signing up…
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AU 2023 class enrollment is now open for non-Autodesk attendees to register for their favourite sessions at the upcoming Autodesk University. (Autodeskers will get to do so nearer the event, once our customers and partners have had their pick.) I'm in the midst of preparing content for my two sessions. Thankfully I have friends like Jacob Small who send occasional suggestions, such as this one Jacob sent through for the VASA session: xkcd.com/2821 Don't be at all surprised if we end up featuring some logic to help people use VASA's pathfinding to route via ice cream stands. Keep them coming,…
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I've posted in the past about work done by Autodesk Research – in particular by Rhys Goldstein – to implement a more natural-seeming (but still direct and efficient) pathfinding algorithm. This is the algorithm at the heart of our Space Analysis package, and you can find details on how it works in these previous posts: A paper on our space analysis algorithm in the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research Explaining how path counting helps simulate natural navigation Visibility in space analysis: an explainer The above posts reference these articles/papers that have been published elsewhere: Path Counting for Grid-Based Navigation A…
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I've just come back from 2 weeks off work. We didn't go very far, but did enjoy the Swiss countryside, as well as the national day on August 1st. Anyway, it's back to the grindstone, with some looming deadlines around preparing content for AU 2023. The class schedule is now live, so you can head on over and search for or browse your favourite classes. Be sure to bookmark any that interest you, as you'll be able to register from August 24th. Here are the two classes I'll be presenting as primary speaker: My first class is bright and early…
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This milestone has crept up on me, over the last few months. I guess I've been putting off thinking – and blogging – about it. Earlier this year we made the decision to wind down development and support of the time-series database that serves as the back-end for Project Dasher. (Fun fact: this project was originally codenamed Blitzen – the name of a reindeer that was part of the "back-end" for Dasher on Santa's sleigh – and eventually became known internally as Data 360.) Anyway, it was time to wind it down, both because of the widespread availability of alternative…
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After a really interesting few days in Delft at CAAD Futures 2023, on Friday morning my daughter and I headed to Amsterdam on our way to Munich. The main goal of visiting Amsterdam was – of course – to visit the MX3D bridge, particularly as it's due to be decommissioned later this year. (I know, I know: it doesn't seem as though the bridge has been there long, but the permit was a limited one – appropriate for a temporary art installation – and there seems to have been some resistance to the project from a local heritage preservation group.)…
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On Tuesday night my daughter and I headed to Geneva to hop on a plane to Amsterdam Schipol. We were quite lucky with our arrival: we were able to get out of the airport and onto a train to Delft within 20 minutes. On arriving in Delft we headed to our Airbnb, managing to avoid being hit by bicycles. We came across some interesting structural work being down on a nearby bridge. After dropping our bags, we headed out for dinner with my old friend Pete Storey, who kindly popped over from Utrecht to meet us for a bite and…
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Just a quick note to say that you can now log in to the Autodesk University website (this guidance has changed, please see below) from today – June 23rd – to see the status of your class proposals and learn whether or not they were accepted for AU 2023 in Las Vegas. I was very happy to learn that the two proposals I submitted this year were accepted: I'm sure there'll be an email sent very shortly, but I just thought I'd share this in case anyone's impatient to find out their situation relative to classes at this year's event.…
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For the last few years I've been on the scientific committee for a conference called CAAD Futures. My involvement began with the 2021 edition of the conference: I reviewed several papers submitted to the conference and also ended up being invited to talk during one of the conference's workshops (it was called Beyond generative Computer Aided-Architectural/Urban Design (CAAD/CAUD) and was hosted by Todor Stojanovski). That last edition was held in Los Angeles – and the workshop hosted in Stockholm – but I only participated remotely. This year's edition is being held in Europe, at TU Delft in the Netherlands, from…