On Wednesday I headed back across to Zurich airport to fly to San Francisco for a few days ahead of Autodesk University 2023 in Las Vegas.
The flight was direct and largely uneventful: I didn't sleep but did feel moderately sane when I arrived in SF. I hopped on BART from the airport to Embarcadero - it's really the best mode of transport if you arrive around 5pm.
My room in the Hyatt has a view across SF’s financial district. Here’s a picture I snapped before sleeping...
… and one on waking.
I always like seeing the view towards The Bay, too.
Thursday was split between Pier 9 and 1 Market.
After a few internal meetings I was thrilled to finally get to walk across the Pier 9 bridge. I talk about the instrumentation of this bridge - and it's importance to the MX3D project - all the time, but it was incredibly the first time I'd walked on it.
Here I am with Hans Kellner - who was heavily involved in the instrumentation work - and Jacky Bibliowicz - who was the driving force behind the back-end time-series data storage.
I've always wanted to try this, but sadly it turns out I'm too short. (And - I hate to say - heavy.)
Hans pointed out some interesting features of the bridge.
There were several 3D-printed brackets - each of them designed for different loads, which was neat.
Dagmara Szkurlat joined us for an “us-ie”.
The Pier 9 office has some really nice areas and a spectacular view. It's really a great place to work.
And the equipment is very impressive. There were various prints on display that were made in the workshop.
After the meetings were over we headed to lunch together.
We chose a nice Peruvian spot halfway between the Pier and 1 Market. I ordered a chicha morada - the first I'd had since our round-the-world trip back in 2016-7 - but it wasn't at all the same.
The food was very good, though.
We managed to pay and head across to the 1 Market Street office just in time for our meeting with Sherri from The Gallery team.
I'd worked with Sherri back when The Gallery was renovated, mainly for the NEST exhibit. Sherri showed us the AR experience that Hans had helped implement.
The Gallery was hosting an internal team event during our visit, so I only managed to take photos from the one side.
It was great to see it in person, in any case.
There were several other Autodesk Research projects on display, too, of course.
It was nice to talk about The Gallery with a member of the team who created it.
As the event was getting noisier, we headed across into another part of 1 Market to get some quiet. This space definitely fitted the bill.
At 3pm there was a Diwali celebration in the office, where I managed to catch up with some old friends.
It was great to see various performances by members of the Indian community at Autodesk SF.
I did’t end up leaving feedback, but suffice to say I’d have mashed the left-hand button.
After this I had the chance to catch up with Pete Heald and Clayton Hotson, both of whom I've known for more than 20 years. It was great to catch up.
Another old friend is Elise Youmans, who also took the time in a very busy week to join us for drinks.
It was a lovely day spent in SF. On Friday we’re heading to Stanford University for some meetings, so we didn’t have a very late night, which I’m also happy about.
