Through the Interface

Rome and Sardinia

This is my first week back after a lovely 10-day trip to Italy, most of which we spent scuba diving on the beautiful island of Sardinia. We’d planned this trip some time ago, but that didn’t mean it was without its worries: between last-minute doctor’s visits for medical certificates (not strictly required for scuba diving, but it’s generally a good idea to have them) and fast antigen tests for the (so far unvaccinated) kids, there were more logistics to think about than usual. We also needed to check a couple of suitcases – which were basically full of neoprene... Read more →

At the Forge Hackathon, counting down to AU2021

While I’m unlikely to be present for much of next week’s Autodesk University event – all being well I’ll be in Sardinia – I have been feeling the excitement mount ahead of it. Mainly from attending the Forge Hackathon, which is now nearing it’s climax. The event kicked off with a really interesting event held via SpatialChat. I hadn’t used it before, but was immediately hooked. There were different rooms (fine), but even within a single room you could have private conversations by moving off into a corner. The sound increases as you get closer to a sound source,... Read more →

Build your first Digital Twin at the upcoming Forge Hackathon

Other that my regular foolings-around with ancient tech, I feel like I’ve been neglecting this blog in recent weeks. That’s all about to change, though, as we enter the busy period leading up to Autodesk University 2021. For one I have some interesting learnings I thought I’d share from some of the foundational work I’ve been doing on Dasher’s codebase, but there are also some interesting updates for people performing analyses of 2D (and 3D!) spaces. Fun stuff! First though, it’s worth reminding people of the Forge Hackathon that’s around the corner. It starts in just a couple of... Read more →

AU 2021 update & MX3D on the AU blog

The count-down to Autodesk University 2021 continues, with registration for the event now open. I’ve gone ahead and registered, as I expect many of you will at some point during the remaining 54 days. It’s free, after all, and I’m sure will have lots of great content, as usual. Be sure to put the dates in your calendar – October 5-7 for the Americas, October 6-8 for EMEA & APAC, October 13-14 for East Asia. The timing of this year’s event – being several weeks earlier – means that it falls during our children’s half-term break. This year –... Read more →

Registration is now open for Autodesk University 2021

I’m a little late to the announcement party on this one – as I was busy gushing about the MX3D bridge, last week – but it does still feel like it’s worth posting a reminder to people. While it may seem like a long way away – as the event itself is in early October – it certainly doesn’t hurt to register early for AU, even when it’s free, virtual and with no restrictions on the number of participants (at least none that I’m aware of). The Forge team, for instance, has a number of plans to engage with... Read more →

Integrating Hyperion’s object shading into Dasher – Part 1

Over the next few posts – in this series, anyway – we’re going to take a look at the shading of objects (actually meshes) using the Forge viewer’s Data Visualization Extension (Project Hyperion). This is something we’ve done in Dasher for some time, and I was excited that using Hyperion would once again allow us not only to rip out some of our old code but also to go in new directions and explore interesting new capabilities. Let’s first explain how this type of shading differs from what we’ve seen in previous posts, namely volumetric room and planar shading:... Read more →

Autodesk University 2021 will be in early October

The big news of the last week or so – although I’m well behind the curve, given prior announcements by the AU and Forge teams – is that the dates for Autodesk University 2021 have been fixed, and announced along with the event’s pricing. As anticipated from the somewhat early CFP process, this year’s AU will be held in early October. It wasn’t so long ago that AU was in December, so this is a significant shift for many – and will mean that speakers are likely to have to spend some time this summer getting their material together,... Read more →

Integrating Hyperion sprites into Dasher

As mentioned on Monday, I’ve been having lots of fun getting Hyperion to work inside Dasher, this week. All good preparation for the AU class I hope will be accepted for this year’s conference. Right now I have sprites working, which is an important first step (and doesn’t actually involve any of the more gnarly, data-related issues I expect to have when w tackle surface shading/heatmaps). In this post we’re going to step through the main steps taken to make this happen, but also to describe some of the important changes that were needed to make it all work... Read more →

My AU 2021 class proposal on integrating Hyperion with Dasher

On Friday I went ahead and submitted my one and only class proposal for the all-digital Autodesk University 2021. Let’s hope it gets selected. In case you’re interested, here’s the content of the proposal: Title: Dasher and Hyperion: using Data Visualization in a Forge viewer application Class ID: SD500020 Product(s): Forge Topics: Building Information Modeling (BIM), Building Operations, Internet of Things (IoT), Software Development Session Description Autodesk Research started Project Dasher in 2009 to explore the possibilities around integrating IoT data with BIM. In 2016 it was ported to work on the Forge platform, to understand the feasibility and... Read more →

The last week to submit your AU 2021 class proposal

It’s come around quickly, I know. At the end of next week the CFP closes for Autodesk University 2021 – it’s really time to submit! This year’s AU is being held a touch earlier than usual: I don’t believe the specific dates have been shared, as yet, but given the timing of this year’s CFP I’d expect it to be a month or so earlier than last year. I’ll be putting the finishing touches on my own class proposal over the coming days, and will share it early next week. This quick post is really just a quick reminder... Read more →

Autodesk University 2021 Call for Proposals opens on March 30th

I’ve just heard that the Call for Proposals for Autodesk University 2021 goes out next week on March 30th. The CFP period is short – it runs until April 30th – so it’s already time to don your thinking caps and consider what topic or topics you’d like to talk about at this year’s AU. Community voting will be possible as soon as the CFP starts, and will run until May 12th. I’m probably going to submit something related to Dasher and /or Project Hyperion, but I need to plan out what that would look like over the coming... Read more →

Winding down after AU 2020

Much in the same way as I felt a little tired last Monday – something I suggested on Twitter might be Pavlovian, as it wasn’t due to jetlag or travel-based fatigue – today has been another low energy day. (Typically the week after AU – and sometimes even longer – is a non-event for me, but this year there’s no good reason for it to be. I expect I’ll be back on top of things tomorrow.) Anyway, it is a good opportunity to reflect back on last week’s “first of its kind” (and many of us are hoping “one... Read more →

Floppy Friday #4

I wasn’t sure I’d find the time to record this week’s episode – what with Autodesk University 2020 being in full swing – but I also thought it might be a nice way to wind down after a hectic week. I hope all of you who attended this year’s AU found it useful (and even fun!) despite the constraints imposed by it being fully online. I’ll post something about how I personally think it went on Monday. Anyway, this week’s Floppy Friday starts with a Star Trek graphic and theme tune, and then looks at a number of games... Read more →

My AU 2020 class Q&A

Yesterday evening was the Q&A for my Autodesk University 2020 class, Lessons from Project Dasher: Building a Digital Twin Using Forge. People registered for AU you can use the above link to access the recording for the next 30 days. Just click on the Join Now button: I really wasn’t sure what to expect from this session – having a full hour dedicated to questions! – but I think it went OK. There were a few speedbumps: the assigned moderator for my class was busy elsewhere and so only arrived partway through. It’s AU week, so I understood, and... Read more →

Fancy a chat during AU 2020?

And so it begins: today is the first day of Autodesk University 2020 (at least in the US), to be enjoyed (most probably) from the comfort of your home office or living room. We are now at well over 100,000 registrations, which is simply unbelievable. Many on Twitter are lamenting (or more likely relishing) the fact they’re not travelling to Las Vegas, dealing with jetlag, dehydration, cracked lips (viva los chapstick), lack of daylight (not good when dealing with the aforementioned jetlag), passive smoke inhalation, slot machine noise pollution and, yes, alcohol poisoning. I do miss the in-person contact... Read more →

Participate in Research at AU 2020

At our in-person Autodesk University events, it’s common for our R&D teams to interview customers and to brief them on ongoing research projects and upcoming product features. This is a really valuable part of our R&D process: this feedback helps us make sure that our products and services help the industry move forward by addressing real customer pain. This year is a bit different, of course: rather than hanging around the Idea Exchange – which I know many of us struggle to find time for – you can sign up for sessions via the AU website (or the links... Read more →

Build your AU 2020 schedule today

It’s time: the full, interactive schedule for this year’s all-digital Autodesk University is now online. You can go ahead and start bookmarking your favourite classes today. Assuming you’re one of the 85,000 (and counting!) people who have registered for the event. If you haven’t already registered, don’t worry: you can still do so for free. (There are still plenty of tickets left. ;-) So to get things rolling, here’s a link to my AU 2020 class for you to bookmark and watch from November 17th. You can expect some interesting news to be announced (or at least repeated) in... Read more →

Kicking off the pre-AU Forge Hackathon

‘Twas the week before AU, when all around the globe, developers began coding, into Forge did they probe. Unknown Before Autodesk University kicks off, next week, our Developer Advocacy and Support team is running the inaugural Forge Hackathon. I talked about this event a month ago: hopefully some of you saw that and decided to sign up. By all accounts it’s well subscribed, either way: I see 45 team channels in Slack, and people have started talking about their various hacks. We started today with an introduction for Asia and Europe. Cyrille Fauvel kicked things off and introduced –... Read more →

AU 2020 material is in the bag, a few upcoming talks

This year has been strange at so many levels that it seems a bit petty to highlight one particular area. But preparing material for Autodesk University 2020 has certainly been one such area, and it’s very fresh in the mind of AU speakers around the world. With this year’s event being all digital, it’s clear that the AU team had to find a way to get classes delivered remotely: one option would have been to live-stream them all, but at some point the decision was made to get everything pre-recorded for on-demand delivery. (On-demand classes are not the only... Read more →

Steep roads, waterfalls and outsider art

Our children have been off school for the last two weeks, so I’ve been alternating between preparing my Autodesk University 2020 material and going on excursions with the family. We had planned to visit Kosovo during this break, but as it was on Switzerland’s quarantine list we chose to cancel our flights. Somewhat frustratingly – just the week after – the Swiss Confederation added 15 new countries to the quarantine list and removed only one: Kosovo. So we could have gone, after all. Argh. That said, when we’d planned the trip back in July, I hadn’t realised the timeframe... Read more →