Conferences
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So far it's been a great few days in Montreal at this year's Autodesk Tech Summit. The event just keeps getting bigger: we're now up to 750 attendees over a 3-day conference with around 150 speakers. I spoke on the first day about using the View & Data API to enable VR – something I'll be talking about again at the Forge DevCon, for external attendees. I'm happy with how the session went – it was a fun crowd. Here's a selfie posted by a couple of people who came along… The rest of the day was spent in other…
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Some quick updates to round off the week… Firstly, a couple of "calls for proposals" have just gone out. Autodesk University 2016 is once again being held in Las Vegas, but this year it'll be earlier than usual: rather than being held right after Thanksgiving, it's now the week before, from November 15-17, 2016. This is going to be a welcome change for all US-based presenters, in that they can deliver their classes at AU and then take a well-deserved Thanksgiving break rather than spending it making last-minute changes to their slide decks and demos. If you're interested in presenting…
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It's an exciting time to be a developer working with Autodesk technology. For my entire career at Autodesk, I've been a platform guy at a product company: while much of AutoCAD's success, over the years, can be indirectly attributed to the existence and use of a rich set of APIs, Autodesk has largely (and this is of course a gross generalisation) approached the exposure of APIs as an afterthought, or at least a secondary activity. Some teams have been better than others at building a platform and then a product based on top of it – a shining example is…
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Preparations are in full swing for the Forge DevCon being held in San Francisco on June 15-16, 2016. Fort Mason is going to be transformed into a Mecca for software developers serving the AEC and Manufacturing industries (or people simply wanting to know more about the Autodesk platform technology). As I've mentioned a few times, I'm in charge of the speaker track for Virtual and Augmented Reality. We have some great speakers lined up: Tony Parisi (one of the inventors of VRML, back in the day) will be talking about WebVR and glTF, Josh Carpenter will be talking about User…
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The tracks have now been posted for the upcoming Forge DevCon in SF on June 15-16, 2016: Forge Basics AEC (including BIM and Generative Design) Manufacturing – Design Manufacturing – Making (including 3D printing and subtractive) Manufacturing – Manage (including PLM, ERP and more) Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality Internet of Things Business Development To give people an idea of the content, we've pulled together about 35 class descriptions of the 60 or so we expect to schedule. I'm managing the VR/AR speaker track, so I've been spending time reaching out to and signing up speakers for the 8 or so sessions…
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Registration is now open for the Forge Developer Conference being held at Fort Mason in San Francisco on June 15 & 16, 2016. This event marks a significant shift for Autodesk, as we march towards a future where the majority of software is delivered via the web – and is accessible via web-services. We're still very much at the beginning of this journey and this conference is a great opportunity to be part of it: you can get in on the ground floor and participate actively in this important industry shift. We're expecting upwards of 1,100 developers (from more than…
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The videos from the TEDxCERN event I attended in late September are now online. As I'm busy working on my AU 2014 presentations, here's a selection of the ones I think will be of most interest to this audience. You can always go through the full playlist on YouTube, of course: they are all worth watching. The surprising strengths of materials in the nanoworld | Julia Greer Is a vaccine for cancer possible? | Sonia Trigueros The weirdness of water could be the answer | Marcia Barbosa When a tree calls for help | Topher White Remote heart diagnosis through…
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I was expecting yesterday's TEDx event at CERN to be good, but it was way beyond that. The overall theme of the event was "Forward: Charting the Future with Science." It comprised 17 separate sessions grouped into 3 sections – Adapt, Change & Create – with Brian Cox as host. The event was planned and executed very well: even when the occasional minor glitch occurred it only ended up adding fun to the proceedings. The agenda was structured nicely, with a good progression of themes between sessions. I really liked the inclusion of 3 TED-Ed sessions on climate change, matter…
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I last went to CERN back in 1996 (although it may have been late 1995) for an ADGE conference. I think that ADGE stood for "Autodesk Developer Group Europe", but the A might also have been for AUGI. Any old-timers out there who can confirm? (I'm sure Jeremy Tammik remembers. 🙂 Anyway, the ADGE conference that year was held at CERN, which was really cool. As part of the entertainment we had a tour around the facilities, including the accelerator complex – although some time before construction of the Large Hadron Collider was started. So here I find myself about…
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Last week I spent a morning at SINDEX 2014, which is apparently Switzerland's largest technology exhibition. Its main focus is on industrial electronics and automation: not exactly fields I know a lot about, but ones that I do find to be extremely interesting. There were 400 or so exhibitors, many focused on providing sensors and electrical equipment, others providing complete automation solutions. There was a serious focus on robotics, for instance, something in which regular readers will know I have a strong interest. This post contains a few examples of the robots that were on show. This robot, from Stäubli,…