Autodesk
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I've been heads-down wrapping up my AU content, so I thought I'd publish at least some of it here. Here's the handout for my "AU kick-off" class which is at 8am on the first day of the conference – the morning after the ADN party – so despite the fact the class is currently full, we'll see if that turns out to be the case. 😉 VR comes of age Presenting 2D images that allow the brain to reconstruct 3D has its roots in the early stereoscopes invented in the late 1830s. These were eventually democratized by Sawyers and their…
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The Autodesk Knowledge Network team has created a new, web-based tool for diagramming Autodesk product workflows called Project PRAXIS. This free tool is currently in pre-release and allows you to document and share product workflows within your organisation or with your customers. I took it for a spin and quickly documented the Eat, Sleep, Code, Repeat cycle (inspired by Fatboy Slim's Eat, Sleep, Rave, Repeat). The tool has been used extensively by our Global Services division, and I'm sure that many external consultants and channel partners will find it useful for mapping various activities. Give it a try and let us know…
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There's a lot of developer-oriented fun coming up over the coming weeks/months. The ADN team's DevDays tour kicks off in Beijing in a few days, with the largest single event taking place – as usual – the day before AU 2015 in Las Vegas. I'll be there for that, of course, but I've also booked my travel to be in Munich for the main European DevDay + Accelerator during the week of January 18-22, 2016. I'm very much looking forward to spending some more "quality time" with developers from across Europe – it should be a lot of fun (aside…
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Some serious updates to our reality computing tools have been released in the last few days… here's a quick round-up with links you can use to go and find out more. ReCap 2.2 Each member of the ReCap portfolio – ReCap, ReCap 360 and ReCap Ultimate – has significant new features in this release. Full details are available here. To summarize just a few, there are new features focused on noise clean-up of point clouds as well as optimizing them for editing performance and project size, and a number of improvements relating to creation of presentation assets such as walkthroughs,…
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As is typical, for this time of year, there were some strange sightings at Autodesk Neuchâtel, today. Here I am dressed as Jabba the Hutt, getting a latte in our new coffee area. The costume's a lot of fun, if a little hot. It has an integrated fan, powered by 4 AA batteries, so at least there's some air circulating. It's a little tricky to walk in (especially when going through doors – I've learned to do a little spin to make sure the tail doesn't get caught and I end up falling on my nose), but at least my…
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Just to put the cherry on the cake that was my week in San Francisco, I went across to Pier 9, this afternoon, to catch up with David Thomasson and visit the robotics laboratory belonging to Autodesk's Office of the CTO. David and team are working on some really interesting projects. The first will be unveiled at AU 2015 and investigates the potential for humans and robots to build things together that neither group could on their own. Visitors to the exhibit at AU will have tasks to perform in conjunction with robots – with these tasks being coordinated centrally…
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Last night, I left the (very fun) party at the X Summit a little early: partly because I knew I was presenting this morning and needed a clear head, but mainly to attend a WebVR meet-up being held at Mozilla. I'm rarely in the Bay Area and it seemed a shame to miss the opportunity to attend the event, especially as it was a chance to hang out with Jim Quanci and Goran Borjesson, a colleague visiting from Gothenberg. I'll describe my experiences of the evening's proceedings, but you can also watch the online recording. It was really an interesting…
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I'm in San Francisco again for the Autodesk X Summit 2015. The event is targeted on User eXperience (UX), but is being attended by a very diverse set of Autodesk employees. It's the first such summit since Maria Giudice joined the company from Facebook, which many of us hope (believe!) will usher in a new era for our products. I'll be presenting a session on Wednesday regarding my experiments around UX for VR, particularly with respect to my View & Data API samples for Google Cardboard, culminating in a widescale demo of Vrok-It. Should be a lot of fun!
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When I was in Prague recently I spent some time with Alex Vinckier and Kris Riemslagh from hsbcad, an ADN member and provider of software for the offsite construction industry. I've corresponded and spoken with Alex and Kris a number of times during my time at Autodesk, but this was my first opportunity to meet them in person. They suggested I coordinate with another member of the hsbcad team – Alex's twin brother, Karel – to visit to one of their best customers, who happens to be based just 40km from my home. So it was that Karel and I…
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Today was an interesting day: in the morning Autodesk Neuchâtel opened a new common space, while in the afternoon I headed across with a development partner to meet an AutoCAD user doing some really interesting things with wood. More on that in the next post. For now, here are a few snaps of the new office space: I really like the new astroturf area. Although our facilities team didn't seem very open to the idea of us installing 5-a-side goals at either end of it. In the corner we have a little Lab space, with a couple of 3D printers,…