Through the Interface

My AU 2018 classes… all about Generative Design for AEC

I’ve seen a few of these postings via LinkedIn, and thought it was time to post something of my own. As mentioned previously, I submitted three class proposals for this year’s Autodesk University in Las Vegas. Two out of three have been accepted: the ones focused on Generative Design for AEC. I’m really excited about the first one, in particular, and it seems like it may also be featured in one of the pre-conference events (more on this once things get confirmed). I think it’ll be really cool to look at the project we’ve been working on with Van... Read more →

Forge DevCon 2018 in Europe

The Forge DevCon is coming back to Europe, specifically to Darmstadt, Germany (on October 16) ahead of AU Germany (on October 17-18). While the content for AU Germany is presented in the local language, everything at the Forge DevCon will be in English. And it’s free to attend! Registration is now open for the event. There’s a great line-up of speakers delivering a packed agenda, so be sure to sign up soon. If you’re also interested in AU Germany, here’s a video showing a few highlights from last year’s event: I don’t yet know whether I’ll be attending, myself:... Read more →

Class recordings from AU London 2018 are now available online

The class recordings from this year’s Autodesk University held in London’s Tobacco Dock are now available for your viewing pleasure. Here’s the recording of the class I presented: If you’re interested in going a little deeper into the technical aspects of how we’ve used Autodesk’s Forge platform in Dasher 360, then I recommend watching this class from the Forge DevCon at AU 2017 in Las Vegas, where my colleague Simon Breslav presented similar material – but with greater depth – for an audience made up primarily of developers: We have a number of ongoing projects related to Dasher 360,... Read more →

Voting for Autodesk University class proposals

The call for proposals for Autodesk University 2018 has ended and people have the opportunity for vote for their favourite classes. Head on over to this page and start voting for the classes you’d like to see at AU 2018. From my side, I’ve submitted three different class proposals for AU 2018. I don’t expect (or want!) them all to make the cut, but I’d be happy to receive your votes for the ones that interest you most. My favourite proposal is actually a class that would have 3 speakers, two from Autodesk and one from Van Wijnen. The... Read more →

AU classes and Forge events

I’m on the train, heading to Geneva airport for my trip across to Barcelona for the latest Forge Accelerator. It seems there’s a good crowd in the room, already, so it should be a fun week. Yesterday I submitted two classes for Autodesk University 2018 in Las Vegas: I wonder what proportion of classes are submitted on the last day of the CFP period, and whether this number is stable, year after year. I usually try to submit my own classes earlier, but this year things have been a little hectic, for some reason. The first class I submitted... Read more →

One man’s trash... Bjarne Stroustrup’s The C++ Programming Language

I came across this classic tome while wandering the halls of the Neuchatel office, this week. It’s one I remember reading when in my last year at University (in fact I’m almost certain I have a copy gathering dust in my basement). This particular volume once belonged to James Carrington (at least that’s my best guess from a Post-It on the inside that mentions his first name), who was an early member of the Developer Support team at the ESC (European Software Centre) in Neuchatel, way back when. This edition is from 1986, which I’m pretty sure makes it... Read more →

The Forge DevCon (and AU) 2018 call for proposals is now open!

This year will be the 3rd edition of the Forge DevCon. Once again it’s being held in Las Vegas on the Monday before Autodesk University 2018 starts, which for this year means November 12th, 2018. The “call for proposals” website is now live, and will remain open until June 11th. If you’re interested in submitting a class for this year’s DevCon then head on over: we’d love to hear from you! This year’s event will have the following tracks: Forge Platform and Roadmap Getting started with Forge and Forge APIs Community stories and case studies General web programming Complementary... Read more →

Tickets are now on sale for AU London 2018

Tickets are now on sale for this year’s AU London. Until April 30th you can get the earlybird discount of £160 on the regular price: for the next several weeks the price is £540 + VAT instead of £700 + VAT. I’ll be attending – and speaking at – this year’s AU London. I’ll be presenting a session entitled “Using Forge to Connect BIM to the Internet of Things” on June 19th at 3:25pm. Here’s the class description from the AU London website: Autodesk Research has been working on the display of building performance data in a rich 3D... Read more →

Hackrod is open to the crowd

I was really excited to hear, over the weekend, that our friends at Hackrod have launched a successful crowd-funding campaign and that there’s still time to participate. The campaign is being hosted on MicroVentures, which means investors should receive interest on their investment as well as equity in the project, assuming things work out. This admittedly seems a nicer model than getting a T-shirt or coffee mug saying you supported their Kickstarter. ;-) I haven’t yet decided whether I’m personally going to get in on the action (so to speak) but I thought I’d post about it in case... Read more →

A video on Generative Design for Architecture

The project I’m currently working on fits squarely under the umbrella of “Generative Design for Architecture”. We’re using Dynamo Studio to generate layouts of residential housing – including both individual homes and apartment buildings – with the results quantified in a number of metrics that will be easily explorable by the user of the system. It’s the approach The Living – the architectural studio in Autodesk Research doing pioneering work in the generative design space – has used for a number of projects, including Project Discover and the layout of the AU 2017 Exhibit Hall. I came across this... Read more →

AU London 2018: Call for proposals

The “call for proposals” for this year’s AU London is now open, and runs through to the end of January. If you’d like to speak at this year’s event, propose your class now. It’s the second time an Autodesk University has been held in the UK, and by all accounts the first was a great event. This year’s will be once again be held at Tobacco Dock on June 19th and 20th (which is really a lovely time of year to visit London). I wasn’t able to attend AU 2017 in Las Vegas (or last year’s AU London, which... Read more →

Dasher 360 at Autodesk University and the Forge DevCon

If my calculations are correct, I’ll be in Singapore during this year’s Autodesk University in Las Vegas. It’s the first I’ll have missed for many years – and it’s going to feel more than a little strange, when that week comes along – but this trip (and my family) will be taking precedence, for once. While I’m not going to be there myself, my good friend and colleague, Simon Breslav, is stepping in to deliver the class I would be giving if I were there. Although as Simon is the person who developed a great deal of the code... Read more →

Registration for the Forge DevCon is now open!

I have to admit it’s a little bittersweet to be talking about this year’s Forge DevCon: I’ve been involved in helping schedule some great classes for the AR/VR track, but I won’t be presenting myself – or even present at the event, at all – this year. But it’s all in a good cause: our big trip is progressing well, and – in any case – I’ve had enough time in Las Vegas for the year. :-) For those of you attending, you can now go ahead and register. If you want to attend just the DevCon, you will... Read more →

The last few days to submit your Forge DevCon class proposal

We’re now in the last few days before the AU2017 – and Forge DevCon 2017 – CFP deadline on May 17th, 2017. Submit your class today! I’m particularly interested in your proposals related to Virtual, Mixed or Augmented Reality: despite not being able to attend the event, myself, I’m still running the AR/VR track. So – if you have a cool project that involves software development for AR/VR, ideally involving the Forge platform in some way – then submit your proposal with “Software Development” as a relevant topic and “Forge DevCon” as a pre-conference event. I’ll be involved in... Read more →

The Autodesk University and Forge DevCon 2017 Call for Proposals

The AU2017 call for proposals is now open. The event is being held from November 14-16 in Las Vegas. Being accepted as a presenter is a great way to get exposure within the Autodesk community, as well as being a sure-fire way of attending the conference itself. Something that’s likely to be of interest to this blog’s readers: this year’s Forge DevCon is now sharing the same CFP process as AU2017 (as some of you may be aware, the DevCon has shifted from its original June date in SF to being held on the Monday before AU starts). So... Read more →

Autodesk University has a new neighbour, the Forge DevCon!

The big news of the last week or so is that the Forge DevCon – which was held at Fort Mason in San Francisco in 2016 – is moving to Las Vegas for 2017. It will take place on November 13 & 14, i.e. Monday and Tuesday of the Autodesk University week (which in recent years has been when the DevDay and DevLab has happened). This is a good thing, in my opinion. Somewhat selfishly it’ll mean less travel for those of us coming across from Europe, but it will also make AU a more compelling, developer-centric event. I’ve... Read more →

The Construction Launchpad from AU 2016

My biggest session from this year’s Autodesk University – and the only one that was recorded – has just gone live on the AU website. The segment I’m part of starts 53 minutes into the recording, while I personally start talking at around the 1 hour mark, going through to 1h10. It was an interesting experience, talking to 1,000 people in a single session. While the lead up was a little stressful, I’m certainly happy I did it and – looking back at the recording – feel pretty good about managing to get the main points across reasonably clearly.... Read more →

Dasher 360: Give it a try!

During the lead up to Autodesk University 2016, held a few weeks ago in Las Vegas, we made a number of key updates to Dasher 360. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, Dasher 360 is Project Dasher re-imagined for the web using Autodesk’s Forge platform. Here’s a video that shows many of the enhancements we’ve made in recent months: Aside from my AU2016 class on Dasher – and how we used Forge to implement it – Alex Tessier and I presented Dasher 360 during the Construction Launch Pad event in front of around 1,000 attendees. Our... Read more →

VR/AR, Generative Design and Robots at AU2016

As usual, this year’s Autodesk University was a crazy tech-fest. Here’s a lightning round-up of some of the cool stuff I saw, through the lens of my personal interests and the small amount of spare time I managed to spend exploring. Firstly, AR and VR were everywhere. The Future of Making Things Pavilion had 11 different VR booths, some of which were connected for collaborative experiences. I didn’t get to try any (argh!) but I’m told I’ll be getting access to the experiences for our VR installation in Neuchatel, in due course. One of my favourite projects in recent... Read more →

Autodesk University 2016: keynotes and classes

Tuesday was my big day at AU2016: my colleagues, Alex Tessier, and I delivered a short segment during the Construction Launchpad session attended by roughly 1,000 people. This shot gives some idea of the size of the audience. I think it’s probably the first time I’ve delivered a session with a camera showing me in close-up on the big screen. Here are a few tweets from the audience, showing what it probably looked like. Collaborative design review - Autodesk research using Microsoft Halolens. @keanw #au2016 pic.twitter.com/WoAdpa7otE— Clay Helm (@HelmClay) November 15, 2016 Visualising data using @Autodesk Dasher 360 as... Read more →