Autodesk
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I didn't think, on Monday, that I'd be visiting the UK this week. So it came as a surprise that on Tuesday I ended up buying a flight to head across to Birmingham on Wednesday, coming back Friday. You're probably thinking, "ouch, that must have been expensive!" – which was exactly my expectation, looking into flights – but it turns out that at this time of year (probably due to the demand from skiers) EasyJet runs daily flights between Geneva and Birmingham. And – this week, at least – the flights were nearly empty: I managed to get a return…
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I was really excited to hear, over the weekend, that our friends at Hackrod have launched a successful crowd-funding campaign and that there's still time to participate. The campaign is being hosted on MicroVentures, which means investors should receive interest on their investment as well as equity in the project, assuming things work out. This admittedly seems a nicer model than getting a T-shirt or coffee mug saying you supported their Kickstarter. 😉 I haven't yet decided whether I'm personally going to get in on the action (so to speak) but I thought I'd post about it in case others…
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Last week I received an important letter through the post. It was final confirmation from the Swiss Confederation that I'm being granted Swiss nationality. This is something I could have requested some time ago – due to the years I've been married to a Swiss person (something I lovingly refer to as "time served" 😉 – but it was the Brexit referendum that pushed me over the edge. The day after the vote I requested the forms I needed to fill out. It took me a few more months to get around to submitting them, but Brexit was definitely the…
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As Autodesk Neuchatel lurches steadily towards its closure, later in the year, people have started emptying desks and throwing out bits and pieces that have accumulated over the years. I don't like to see usable things get thrown away and so have decided to do a regular series of posts to find new homes for some of the quirkier items. I'm naming the series of posts after the proverb "one man's trash is another man's treasure", as I'm sure there must be someone out there with an interest in or a need for things that would otherwise be ditched. If…
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The project I'm currently working on fits squarely under the umbrella of "Generative Design for Architecture". We're using Dynamo Studio to generate layouts of residential housing – including both individual homes and apartment buildings – with the results quantified in a number of metrics that will be easily explorable by the user of the system. It's the approach The Living – the architectural studio in Autodesk Research doing pioneering work in the generative design space – has used for a number of projects, including Project Discover and the layout of the AU 2017 Exhibit Hall. I came across this video,…
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As mentioned in a recent post, I'm currently working on a project using Dynamo Studio. It's fun getting back into Dynamo and DesignScript: I helped prototype the initial implementation of DesignScript inside AutoCAD about a decade ago, and I love seeing how the technology has evolved in the meantime. There are a few of us from Autodesk Research working on the project, which is also fun, but in a less literal way. Dynamo doesn't work especially well with source control, as far as I can tell, so there's a fair amount of manual merging of nodes into the master graph.…
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The "call for proposals" for this year's AU London is now open, and runs through to the end of January. If you'd like to speak at this year's event, propose your class now. It's the second time an Autodesk University has been held in the UK, and by all accounts the first was a great event. This year's will be once again be held at Tobacco Dock on June 19th and 20th (which is really a lovely time of year to visit London). I wasn't able to attend AU 2017 in Las Vegas (or last year's AU London, which was…
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For those of you who (like me) missed this year's in-person DevDays – or perhaps have colleagues who would benefit from seeing sessions you managed to attend yourself in Las Vegas or elsewhere – you'll be interested to hear that DevDays Online will be disseminating all that DevDays goodness over the wire during the month of February. The great news is that this isn't being limited to ADN members: anyone can sign up and attend. The sessions will also be recorded, in case any are at times that don't work for you. You can register to attend the various sessions…
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So, that's it. 6 months flew by in the blink of an eye, and we're back home in Switzerland. On the one hand it seemed to go quickly, while on the other hand we feel as though we've come back to a house we barely recognise full of stuff we don't need… We each have a room of our own to sleep in (if we so choose)! And look at all those clothes! Detaching from most of your former existence – while retaining and strengthening ties to your core, your nuclear family – is an interesting experience. During the first…
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I was planning to post something today about our trip to Lesotho – which it turns out is the most amazing country, more on that next time – but as Autodesk Neuchatel employees have now received definitive communication regarding our future employment, it seems more appropriate to talk about that. It has now been confirmed that the Neuchatel office is definitely going to close its doors. According to Swiss law, employees had a 2-week consultation period to find alternatives to closing the office and – in this case, more importantly – to negotiate a more favourable social plan for those…