Through the Interface

The need for autonomous drone navigation

My Quanum Nova arrived from Hong Kong, yesterday. I’d just been tracking the parcel’s progress when the doorbell rang and the postman handed it to me: he seemed surprised I didn’t mind paying the additional SFr 47 customs fee (on top of the $299 price-tag and what I had to pay for batteries) and even let him keep the change. I was in that good a mood. ;-) Reality gradually set in as I assembled the device, although that was pretty straightforward, overall. The assembly instructions were better than expected, and I was soon able to turn the device... Read more →

My first Autodesk 360 viewer sample

As mentioned last week, I’ve been having fun with Fusion 360 to prepare a model to be displayed in the new Autodesk 360 viewer. The sample is now ready to view, although I’m not yet quite ready to post the code directly here, mainly because the API isn’t yet publicly usable. Here’s the app for you to take for a spin, as it were. The Autodesk 360 Viewing & Data API is currently being piloted by a few key partners, and hopefully we’ll soon be broadening the scope to allow others to get involved (we first have to iron... Read more →

Updates to Memento and ReCap Studio

The Memento team has been beavering away, delivering a number of updates containing some really interesting features that I’ve so far neglected to mention. In the latest release (hosted on Autodesk Labs on the Autodesk Feedback Community), for instance, you can now access point cloud data via RCP export, as well as being able to generate 3D reconstructions with “Ultra” quality and smart textures (these are features you’d normally have to pay for when using Photo on ReCap 360, but this is being provided for free while it’s still on Autodesk Labs). Here’s a quick reverse chronological look at... Read more →

Reminder of AU 2014 advance pass availability

A quick reminder – as I already posted on this topic a few months ago – about the “early bird” $600 discount that’s available now – and until August 19th – for this year’s AU. It’s a great way to get first dibs on the classes of your choice, as you get to register a week before people who don’t hold advance passes (such as Autodesk employees, sniff-sniff ;-). It’s already shaping up to be a hectic AU for me, again: both the classes I submitted got accepted (thanks, developer track leads!) and it turns out I’ll be participating... Read more →

Steampunking a Morgan 3 Wheeler using Fusion 360

My friends in the Autodesk Developer Network team asked me to get involved with creating a sample for the API we’re planning to launch soon for the new Autodesk 360 viewer. They were quite specific about the requirements, which was very helpful: something fun, perhaps with a steampunk theme, that shows some interesting possibilities around both the HTML5 container and the embedded viewer. I was also suggested the Morgan 3 Wheeler as a possible model to look into hosting, so I really didn’t need to be asked twice. ;-) I started by tracking down a model: I ended up... Read more →

Independence Day

Most of this week I’ve been heads-down trying to finish a sample demonstrating the API that’s coming for the new Autodesk 360 viewer (of which we saw a sneak peek in this recent post), so today I don’t have much to talk about. The sample is pretty cool and involves my favourite car. But hopefully you’ll be able to see it in action before too long, so there’s really no need to say more about it, for now. :-) A good portion of this blog’s readership is currently grilling meat and celebrating the 4th of July, so I won’t... Read more →

Embedding a map image in an AutoCAD drawing using .NET

In this recent post we saw how to set our geographic location inside an AutoCAD drawing – essentially geo-referencing the model it contains – programmatically. In today’s post we’re going to capture a section of the displayed map and embed it inside the drawing, much as the GEOMAPIMAGE command does. In fact, we’re going to use the GEOMAPIMAGE command to do most of the heavy lifting: we’ll simply call the command and then pick up the created GeomapImage object to manipulate its settings, adjusting some image properties (brightness, contrast and fade settings) and having the map image display hybrid... Read more →