Autodesk


  • Gearing up for the VR Hackathon

    I'm heading back across to the Bay Area on Wednesday for 10 days. There seems to be a pattern forming to my trips across: I'll spend the first few days in San Francisco – in this case attending internal strategy meetings in our 1 Market office – and then head up after the weekend to San Rafael to work with the members of the AutoCAD engineering team based up there. I'll still probably head back into SF for the odd day, the following week, but that's fine: I really like commuting by ferry from Larkspur to the Embarcadero. The weekend…


  • New Memento build and webinar

    As reported over on Scott's blog, Project Memento v1.0.10.5 is now available on Autodesk Labs. I won't repeat the specific new features in this release – Scott covers those thoroughly – but I will say that I'm personally most excited about trying the improved .OBJ and .FBX export and the workflows that they enable. To find out more about Memento, there's a webinar on Wednesday October 15 at 9am Pacific talking about the tool. During the webinar, Tatjana Dzambazova – whom you may have seen in her excellent TEDx session – will cover topics such from uploading photos, working with…


  • Autodesk software is free for students, teachers and schools (yes, really)

    I mentioned this initiative a few months ago, but it turns it hadn't been rolled out everywhere: there were regional exceptions meaning that students in certain countries weren't eligible for the program at that point. So my apologies if it sounds like I'm repeating myself, but at least it's good news that I'm announcing twice. 🙂 The last kinks have been ironed out of the program, so now students, teachers and schools anywhere in the world can now download and use the following Autodesk software for free… So if you're a student who was expecting to be able to get…


  • Update on Spark, Autodesk’s 3D printing platform

    There's been a lot in the news about Spark – Autodesk's entry into the 3D printing market – of late. Earlier in the year we announced this open platform and a reference design for it, but in the last few weeks things have become even more interesting: specific examples of partnerships with companies who are building their own printers based on Spark have started to emerge. I thought it worth aggregating a few of the more interesting articles for those who might have missed them. I'm personally really interested in the approach Autodesk is taking here. It seems to me…


  • Reminder: Exchange Apps Hackathon this weekend

    There's still time to participate in the Autodesk Exchange Apps Hackathon, a virtual event taking place this weekend (September 20-21). The point of this event is to encourage developers to post apps to the Autodesk Exchange Apps store, and we're even paying cool, hard cash ($50 or $100, whether free or paid) for each app that gets published. Presentations and discussions will include: How to architect your app for Exchange: How to build your AutoCAD® app How to build your Autodesk® Revit® app How to build your Autodesk® Inventor® app How to build your Autodesk® 3ds Max® and Autodesk® Maya®…


  • My AU 2014 schedule

    Now that registration is open for Autodesk University 2014, people are busy signing up for classes. For those of you who are curious about the classes I'm delivering/hosting/attending at this year's event, here they are. I'll break things down day-by-day, in case you're interested in finding an opportunity to meet up but can't attend one of my sessions. Monday (Dec 1st) I'll be attending the ADN DevDay, all day. Always lots of great information to absorb there, of course (jetlag permitting ;-). Tuesday (Dec 2nd) I'll be hanging out at the ADN DevHack for most of the afternoon, although I…


  • Building a web-based viewer using the Autodesk View & Data API – Part 2

    In the last post we saw the process for getting content uploaded to Autodesk storage and translated into the format required by the Autodesk 360 viewer. In this post we're going to show the steps to take that data and embed it in a "simple" HTML page. (Any complex capability in this page it's due to the UI code that Dan Wellman kindly allowed me to borrow for the sample: otherwise what it does is very simple indeed.) There are, of course, more complex samples that the ADN team has developed to demonstrate the richness of the new View &…


  • Building a web-based viewer using the Autodesk View & Data API – Part 1

    Over the next few posts we're going to take a look at the steps needed to build the Steampunk Morgan Viewer, my first sample using Autodesk's new View & Data API. In today's post we're going to look at the steps needed to host content to be served up to instances of the viewer. In a subsequent post we'll look at the client-side implementation, connecting to and streaming down content and controlling how it gets viewed. So let's start with some basics. The first thing you need to do when working with the new View & Data API is to…


  • Quite the road trip: 3DRV

    Some of you are probably aware of this activity from Shaan's and Scott's blogs, but I thought it was overdue a mention here, too. Autodesk is sponsoring the mother of all road trips: over the course of 8 months, TJ McCue is travelling the length and breadth of the United States in a brightly decorated recreational vehicle (RV), spreading the word about 3D technology. TJ is talking to people around the country about reality computing – capture, processing and fabrication processes such as 3D printing – as well as the availability of low-cost design tools. TJ is documenting his travels…


  • Autodesk Exchange Apps Hackathon 2014

    After the initial Autodesk Exchange Apps Portathon was held last year, the ADN team is running a similar – but expanded – event, the Autodesk Exchange Apps Hackathon, on September 20-21. There's more information available on both Jeremy's blog and the ADN DevBlog, but here's a quick summary of the salient points: Free to attend Open to anyone, anywhere (it's a virtual event) Lots of great presentations on app development The ADN team will also be available to provide support You earn money for apps you get published $50/$100 for published free/paid apps, up to 5 per company Additional Cloud/Sustainability…