Autodesk
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The "call for proposals" for AU2014 is going out on April 23rd and will remain open for about a month. This is approaching quickly, so get your thinking hats on if you're considering submitting a class proposal. From my side I'm thinking about a few possible topics: Implementing a tangible user interface for AutoCAD using SensorTag Integrating a web-based user interface into AutoCAD via its JavaScript API I'm also toying around with the idea of doing a kind of "meta" session, during which we'd look at some of my favourite blog posts/areas of research over the years. Something like "8…
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This is without a doubt the coolest office Autodesk has anywhere in the world. Pier 9, on San Francisco's waterfront, houses the Autodesk Consumer Group, including the Tinkercad and Instructables teams, as well as members of Autodesk Research and visiting artists-in-residence. And it has the most phenomenal workshops, kitted out with cutting-edge technology. I'd been hoping to visit for some time but this was really my first real opportunity since its official opening back in September. I wandered across from our 1 Market office (which is also pretty cool, but relatively lacking in toys ๐ with Gaurav Sachdeva, a colleague…
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It's nice being back in the Bay Area. I got in on Monday night and took BART into the city, checking into the Hyatt Regency (just across the street from our 1 Market office). That first evening I caught up with my old team โ the DevTech managers, now under Stephen Preston's leadership โ for dinner and then went for an over-priced green beer with my former boss, Jim Quanci. It was St. Patrick's Day, after all. ๐ Then it was a short night's sleep before the usual jetlag woke me at 3:30am. On the plus side, it gave me…
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I saw an announcement for this competition back at Autodesk University 2013, but haven't yet posted about it on this blog. The competition is now in its final stages โ the deadline is on March 26, 2014 at 10am PST โ but that means exactly 9 days left to enter from the time this post goes live. The concept is simple: you have to use one of three Autodesk products โ Inventor, Showcase or 3ds Max โ to create a rendering of the Morgan 3 Wheeler to be published as an advertisement in MOG Magazine. Aside from installing one or…
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Many of you will have seen last week's announcement about the creation of the Autodesk Foundation. The foundation has been set up to formalise something that's long been part of Autodesk's culture: supporting charitable causes through direct investment, software donation and matching of employee gifts. This formalisation will also bring greater alignment around our support for the broader design community, which is something that's new. I'm particularly excited about changes being made to Autodesk's employee volunteering program. As an Autodesk employee I'm able to spend 4 hours per month of company time volunteering for qualifying nonprofit organisations (political and religious…
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Today marks the first public day of this year's Geneva Motor Show. After having spent time on Monday setting up the configurator Autodesk provided to Morgan Motor Company, on Tuesday I went along to make sure everything was working well. It wasn't exactly smooth sailing, but we got there. To start with, the connection from the iPad to the system performing the rendering work locally using Autodesk VRED โ the iPad connection is the only part of the system that requiring wifi, we don't actually use it for the rendering itself โ was intermittent and very slow. I whipped out…
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It seems there's more and more support traffic from developers going through the Autodesk Community, these days โ I know the ADN team has been encouraging use of the developer-centric forums, which appears to be having some effect โ and the site itself has just been on the receiving end of a much-welcomed redesign. The redesign is intended to improve the "findability" of community content as well as providing a more personalised experience for users. Here's a screenshot of my own welcome page on the Autodesk Community, for instance: Yes, it's been a while since my last forum post. Must…
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I was chatting with a colleague in Tel Aviv, yesterday, and he gave me the heads-up on a project that was about to be launched on Autodesk Labs, developed by the Autodesk Research team based in his office (thanks, Benny! :-). I checked this morning and there it wasโฆ The project is called Project Shapeshifter โ accessible via shapeshifter.io โ and here's what it says in its About box: Project Shapeshifter is a free technology preview by Autodesk. It provides an easy way to create complex 3D Printable models in your web browser. With a simple tweak of sliders, you…
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I had a reminder from the Autodesk Developer Network team about their upcoming DevDays tour (of which I'm currently planning on attending the sessions in Las Vegas and Munich, although I'm not 100% sure I'll get to Munich). One thing I didn't fully appreciate when I wrote my previous post is that the ADN team is very actively looking to engage with non-ADN members who would like to attend this tour. If you're interested in attending a session โ and aren't currently an ADN member โ then please get in touch with a member of our ADN team. There isn't…
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My successor over in the ADN team (and long-time friend and colleague), Stephen Preston, has just pointed me to an online posting for a member of the DevTech team to be based in the Bay Area (meaning either of our San Rafael or San Francisco offices). They're looking for a developer with AutoCAD experience who would be able to take a senior role within the DevTech organisation, interfacing with the local product teams and assuming some leadership responsibilities for DevTech's worldwide, AutoCAD-focused workgroup. These positions come up very infrequently, so I strongly recommend applying if you're interested. The position has…