Through the Interface

Autodesk University goes fully digital in 2020

Yesterday Lisa Campbell, Autodesk’s Chief Marketing Officer, announced the decision to move all this year’s Autodesk University events to a fully digital platform: this makes a lot of sense given the ongoing uncertainty around the duration and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s going to change the shape of AU for many of us, inevitably, but I’m looking forward to these events, nonetheless. For one thing it means I’m going to be able to attend – or even participate in – more of them, with less impact on my family and the planet. I’m also really curious to see... Read more →

Visiting post-Brexit, pre-AU London

After a couple of interesting days in Berlin, last week – which for now I’m not going to talk about in detail, maybe another time – I’ve come across to the UK. This is my first trip since the UK formally left the EU, even if it’s still part of the customs union for the remainder of the year. I feel very strongly that this is a bad thing for the country – and for the world – but there you go. There’s nothing to be gained by dwelling on it. Yesterday morning I headed to Battersea to visit... Read more →

Geometry Systems and the Refinery Primer

I mentioned last time that I was expecting to publish some posts about Autodesk University 2019 material I found particularly compelling (now that I’ve had the chance to consume some). I didn’t get to watch as many recordings as I’d have liked – for now – but I did manage to watch the rest of a class of which I only caught the first few minutes before having to run to another meeting in Las Vegas, my friend Lorenzo Villaggi’s session on Geometry Systems. There are two main pieces to generative design systems – at least in the way... Read more →

My AU 2019 classes

The Autodesk University elves have been working day and night over the last few weeks to prepare 674 AU class recordings for posting to web. Some of my classes were livestreamed, this year, so I have already posted recordings for these. This post is just me gathering the various recordings together in a single post. Before that, though, I did promise a festive photo for each of the coming posts. Here’s one I took this morning, when we woke to find that St Nicholas had passed by the house. The feast of St Nicholas – which is celebrated throughout... Read more →

Reliving AU in Amsterdam

As the festive season is upon us, I’ve decided to start each post with a seasonal photo. Here’s me with a reindeer/dog (reindog?) in the lobby of the hotel we stayed at in Hoofddorp. As mentioned in the last post, Sander Lijbers made the most of my vague suggestion to meet with a customer or two during my visit to the Netherlands by inviting many of the accounts he manages to a one-day event in our Amsterdam office. Everyone accepted – with some even flying in from the UK – so we had a really good, engaged group! Sander... Read more →

Wrapping up Autodesk University 2019

Wednesday and Thursday were my busy days at this year’s Autodesk University in Las Vegas. After a breakfast meeting with a colleague from Toronto, I had my first class of AU2019 to deliver. It was a live-streamed class that was focused on advanced visualization (primarily of IoT data) using the Forge viewer. Somewhat unfortunately the class was scheduled at the same time as the AEC mainstage (more on this later), but that basically just meant that the room wasn’t completely full and that most of the attendees were Forge-focused. As it was live-streamed the class recording is already available:... Read more →

Forge DevCon and AU 2019 Day 1

On Saturday I headed over to Las Vegas for Autodesk University 2019. The journey started with the train to Geneva. From there it was a short flight to London, which amazingly arrived 30 minutes ahead of schedule. I had a 3-hour connection at Heathrow, so my old friend Simon picked me up from T5 and we had a nice pub lunch at The Ostrich Inn in Colnbrook before he dropped me at T3. And people say that Heathrow airport transfers aren’t enjoyable! It was a really strange onward flight to Las Vegas. I’m so used to this flight being... Read more →

Not coming to Las Vegas? Watch two of my AU2019 sessions from the comfort of your armchair

Or at your desk, or from the train. Just please don’t watch them while driving. Anyway, the point is that this year two of the three sessions I’m presenting at Autodesk University 2019 are part of the event’s livestream schedule. The first is on Wednesday at 10:30am Pacific: The second is on Thursday at 3pm Pacific (I have a 15-minute segment at some point during the hour timeslot): I’m not sure what’s happening with my third class – which is focused on Project Rediscover – but if that doesn’t end up getting recorded I’ll make sure equivalent material is... Read more →

Project Rediscover - version 2 of the MaRS graph is now available for download

In advance of next week’s AU2019 class entitled “Hands-on with Project Rediscover: generatively designing Autodesk Toronto's office”, I’m happy to announce that version 2 of the MaRS graph is now available for download. (Many thanks to Simon Breslav for all his work on the graph, as well as to both Simon and Rhys Goldstein for their hard work making Space Analysis what it is: a cornerstone of Project Rediscover.) While version 1 was about “getting something out there that works”, the focus for version 2 was to have something that’s more discoverable and understandable. We’ve done a few things... Read more →

Research study at AU on "Generative Design in VR for Structural Engineering"

Colleagues in Autodesk Research are working on some really interesting technology that you can try out at AU2019. There’s an Idea Exchange study entitled “Generative Design in VR for Structural Engineering” being held at these times during the conference: Tuesday November 19th, 12pm–3pm and 3:30pm–6pm Wednesday November 20th, 3:30pm–6pm Those interested just need to swing by the Idea Exchange (it’s a big space on the way to exhibition hall and will be hard to miss) during these timeslots and let the recruiter know they want to participate in the study. It takes about 15 minutes to complete, and will... Read more →

Counting down the days to AU2019

I’m currently putting the finishing touches on my material for Autodesk University 2019. To encourage a few last-minute sign-ups, here are a few teaser GIFs from my classes. The first is from the class on Project Rediscover (which is apparently now full at 109 sign-ups, so in quite a small room). I used Capturefinery to create a GIF of quite a large Refinery study, but this time highlighting the congestion in a more 3D context. The second is from the class on Project Dasher – and using Forge for advanced data visualization – which still has 36 spaces in... Read more →

Knee-deep in AU prep

Things have been quiet on this blog, since my return from Scotland. Mainly because I’ve been heads-down dealing with preparation for Autodesk University 2019, which I’d love to say was on the horizon, whereas it’s – more accurately – coming at top speed around a nearby streetcorner. In less than 3 weeks many us us will be flying to Las Vegas for the latest installment of my favourite annual conference. Today was the deadline for AU speakers to submit class handouts: I managed to submit something for both my classes, so I can now switch focus to the various... Read more →

Ramping up for Autodesk University 2019

The summer is pretty much over (boo) so it’s now time to start thinking about AU (yay). If nothing else it’s a welcome distraction from the craziness of UK politics (which I’m following from Switzerland, making it presumably slightly less intense than it is for most of my fellow Brits). Before getting more into specific AU plans, a quick reminder that registration for AU 2019 – and the Forge DevCon that precedes it – is open. The Monday pre-conference (this year’s is on November 18th) is always chock full of great information: I’m very much looking forward to attending... Read more →

A visit to Geneva with Brunet Saunier Architecture

On Thursday I had the pleasure of meeting with Jacques Levy-Bencheton and Antoine Kersse from Paris-based Brunet Saunier Architecture in Geneva. Back in July I’d been asked by Jacques and Jerome Brunet to participate in a project they were working on relating to architecture for hospitals: they’re creating a book based on a series of interviews – and their Phylum H work, which Jacques presented at AU 2018, do check out the recording – that will look at architecture of hospitals, both retrospectively and prospectively. My role would be to participate in an interview alongside Jacques – run by... Read more →

Using a view cone for targeted visibility in Dynamo with Space Analysis

I feel as though I’ve been neglecting this blog: I’ve barely managed a post a week for several weeks, now: partly because of family holidays, but also because I’ve been heads-down on Dasher 360, working on a number of cool new features as well as shoring up some of our older code. Anyway, the kids are now back at school and I expect to have a lot more to talk about during the remaining months leading up to AU 2019. For now I wanted to share some information about the Space Analysis package. Today’s post takes a look at... Read more →

Registration is open for the Forge DevCon and AU 2019

Yesterday the registration for the Forge DevCon and Autodesk University 2019 in Las Vegas opened. It’s also the time speakers can find out when their classes our scheduled: it’s always with a little apprehension that I find myself checking the schedule. I’m pretty happy with the slots I have, this year, though: As you can see my sessions are both at 10:30am, one on Wednesday November 20th and the other on Thursday November 21st. Which means I should largely be over my jetlag by the time I have to present, which is always good. Although I may well be... Read more →

A nice introduction to DynaMaps and Space Analysis by That BIM Girl

The awesome Jacqueline Rohrmann – who you may know as That BIM Girl – has recorded a great “virtual unboxing” video introducing a couple of useful Dynamo packages, DynaMaps (which has it origins from the Dynamo and Generative Design Hackathon held in London in April) and Space Analysis. Jacqueline shared the video with me earlier this week – when we were both at the Dynamo Day in London, and then AU London 2019 – but I hadn’t found the time to watch it until now. She’s done – as ever – an amazing job at presenting things in an... Read more →

AU London 2019

It’s been a crazy (but very cool) few days here in the UK and Ireland. It started with the pre-event (or perhaps the pre-pre-event) of the annual Autodesk football tournament in Dublin. We didn’t win, but we had an absolute blast. I’m definitely looking forward to next year’s event in Barcelona! On Sunday a group of us flew from Dublin into Heathrow: the others headed directly into town, while I stopped at a friend’s for dinner in Windsor. Heading into town, later on, I saw a message from Jaime Rosales: the Circle & District lines were completely closed, so... Read more →

Project Rediscover is now available for download

I’m happy to announce that the recreation of Project Discover for Dynamo – what we’ve been referring to as Project Rediscover – is now available for download. I should point out that this is a first cut of the graph, and is definitely going to evolve over time: it’s a complex beast that uses advanced techniques – particularly on the metric calculation side of things – that we know we have to improve over time. But we did want to put this out there as an Alpha (or pre-Alpha) in advance of Autodesk University London 2019 to let people... Read more →

Heading to Dublin and then London

It’s been a relatively busy week, and yet very much “the calm before the storm” of AU London. I’ve been receiving lots of meeting requests over the last few days, filling up my AU London schedule nicely, as well as a request to be part of a “technology trends” panel session on the second day, just after the class Lorenzo and I will be giving. That should be interesting… despite my role, I definitely don’t consider myself a futurist or visionary. But anyway – perhaps that will make for a more interesting discussion… we’ll see! I’ve also iterated a... Read more →