Autodesk Research


  • Tandem gets a timeline!

    The awesome team working on Autodesk Tandem has integrated a timeline - much as we had in Project Dasher, although the implementation is different - to bring Tandem into the fourth dimension. Here's a video describing Tandem's Time Navigation feature:     This is really exciting news for people wanting to explore historical time-series data streamed in from their facilities. Tandem now has the full set of features that once-upon-a-time allowed Dasher to be used as a "building debugger". For more information on this exciting set of time-centric features, head on over to the forum post.


  • Back in the Bay Area

    What seemed like a few short weeks after Autodesk University 2024 in San Diego, last week I was back in the San Francisco Bay Area for internal Autodesk Research meetings. On the Saturday I hopped on a flight from Zurich to San Francisco. The flight itself was comfortable enough - at least it was direct. I love arriving at SFO. It brings back all kinds of memories of when we lived in the Bay Area back in 2000-2003. The sun was setting as I took a Lyft into downtown SF. I stayed one night at Hotel G, which was on…


  • Measuring the feeling of architecture: an article about our collaboration with The Bentway

    A year or so ago I posted about our collaboration with The Bentway, and how it kicked off some really interesting research into combining qualitative and quantitative data collected during efforts to measure the human experience of the built environment. Members of our team have been working hard with our talented research communications colleagues to create this interesting, in-depth article describing the collaboration. It complements the existing project page that has been up for a while now. Between these two pages we now have a couple of videos describing the project. The first shorter overview was from last year:  …


  • AU 2024 Days 2 and 3

    After a great first day of Autodesk University - and it's preceding Dynamo Day - it was time for Days 2 and 3. After breakfast and an internal meeting, I headed to the Expo to watch the Day 2 General Session. It wasn't quite as impressive as seeing it in the mainstage venue itself, but it was convenient being able to sit at a table and write up the last blog post. There's something about the view from the escalators that made me want to continually snap this photo! I headed up the escalators to attend Ray Wang's Theater Talk…


  • AU 2024 Days 0 and 1

    On Sunday morning I headed across to Geneva Airport for my trip to Autodesk University 2024 in San Diego.The trip itself didn't start very smoothly: I couldn't check in online - I suspect having two passports, only one of which has a valid US ESTA - meant that the airline flagged me for manual review. I really need to be more careful with my API (not the one I work with usually 😉 in future.Anyway, this check-in fail led to a cascade of irritations, from having to pay for a seat (to avoid being assigned a middle seat on a…


  • Gearing up for AU 2024

    We're once again in the craziness before the storm (hmm - wasn't there meant to be some calm?!?) that is Autodesk University. Requests for meetings are gradually filling up calendars… from my side it's looking like another busy (but very fun) event. As a reminder, here are the classes that I'll be part of, in some capacity this year. The class on extending Forma - where I'm co-speaking - has the slides and handout posted, in case you want to check it out ahead of time. In anticipation of this year's event (and the chance to connect with academic partners,…


  • Toronto

    Last Monday I left my son in Baltimore and headed back to Dulles for a short flight to Toronto to attend internal meetings with our research team. I didn't feel like fighting public transport for 3+ hours to get from Baltimore to Dulles, so took the easy (and much more relaxing) path of taking an Uber. I was there in less than 90 minutes - a not insignificant time saving. I really wish it was more convenient to take public transport here. The flight to Pearson was short - a little over an hour in the air - and as…


  • Back in Baltimore

    I mentioned last time that I was going to be busy preparing and delivering a number of presentations. I'm happy to say that crazy period has mostly come to a close. It was marked on Friday with the recording of the Autodesk University 2024 class that Håvard Høiby and I will be delivering again soon in San Diego. It was a lot of fun preparing and delivering this class with Håvard, I must say. And I think people are going to really engage with the content (especially the information about Forma's extension framework and SDK). Be sure to check it…


  • Transitioning from summer mode

    Life seems to have shifted quite radically this week, as the summer here in Switzerland starts drawing to a close. A Sunday morning storm reset the temperature to something more autumnal (although these are looking to climb again gradually - we're not completely done with warm days here, thankfully) and all of my three children started their respective schools again on Monday. The two youngest are once again in the same institution - they're in the first and last years of our local "lycée" (the Denis-de-Rougement in Neuchâtel), which is the three years of post-mandatory schooling that often precedes going…


  • 5 awesome VASA project ideas for the AU2024 Dynamo Hackathon

    [My apologies for the click-baity title. I do actually have a list of 5 cool project ideas, if you scroll down the post. So it's not completely dishonest, at least.] In the last post I mentioned a few classes you can sign up for (and that I'm directly or indirectly involved in) from the Tuesday to Thursday of the AU2024 week (October 15th-17th) in San Diego. I now have something to recommend for the Monday of that week, too! In the past we've often had pre-events at AU2024: I wasn't sure whether there would be one this year or not,…