Through the Interface

An interview and an anniversary

Recently Mayur Mistry from Engineering ArchiTECHure asked me to join him for a YouTube livestream. Mayur often holds his interviews over the weekend, but he very kindly accommodated my schedule and held the session during the week. So while it was “live”, it wasn’t at the usual time for Mayur’s subscribers and the discussion remained very much between the two of us. I’ve seen some really good sessions on his channel – several of his guests have prepared extensive material to show – so my apologies if you’re expecting something more formal: we just chatted for an hour. Many... Read more →

An interview about generative design

While at Autodesk University 2018 in Las Vegas, my friend and co-presenter – Lorenzo Villaggi – and I were invited by Jacqueline Rohrmann – known to many of you as That BIM Girl – to talk to her (and her YouTube viewers) about generative design, and specifically the tool we helped create for Van Wijnen to perform generative urban design. I first met Jacqueline at the AEC Hackathon in Berlin, back in July: she was part of a team – That BIM Pineapples – that I mentored. I met her again in Darmstadt at the Forge DevCon, when she... Read more →

An interview with Mike Aldred about the Dyson 360 Eye

Back in September, Dyson announced their long-awaited entry into the robo-vacuum market with the Dyson 360 Eye. I was delighted to see an old friend of mine, Mike Aldred, in one of the launch videos: Mike and I were undergraduates at the University of Kent at Canterbury (UKC) together, back in the ‘90s. I was studying European Computer Science (which meant I was on a 4-year degree programme with the 3rd year spent studying Computer Science in Paris) while Mike was studying Computer Systems Engineering. I vaguely recall having common classes together with Mike, although as Mike started at... Read more →

Christer Janson, Maker of the Day

My good friend and colleague, Christer Janson, was named 123D’s Maker of the Day a couple of weeks ago. This post is to congratulate Christer but also to talk about Christer’s background at Autodesk and the key role he plays in the AutoCAD team. I met Christer during the second round interview for my first job at Autodesk, back in 1995. I’d flown across to Switzerland for the interview, although the job itself was to be in the UK: it was a couple more years before I managed to move to Neuchatel for the first time. Back then Christer... Read more →

An interview with Ian Bell

I recently sailed past my 18-year anniversary at Autodesk. Part of me finds this scary – in this world of post-millennial job-hopping – but then I really enjoy what I do. Long may it last. The company has grown a great deal since I joined (I had to look it up, but it seems that over this period we’ve gone from around 1,800 employees to around 7,500, with an additional 1,000 or so temps and contractors), so it should go without saying that I haven’t met or interacted with the vast majority of the people who work at Autodesk.... Read more →

An interview with Jon Wells – Part 2

This is the second part of the two-part interview with Morgan Motor Company’s Head of Design, Jon Wells. Here’s the first part, in case you missed it. How long has Morgan been using Autodesk software? I introduced Autodesk software to the company when I joined. I was the link between the aesthetic designer that had just joined the company – who was very visual-based – and the engineering team. With my technical background and understanding of 3D and surfacing, I was able to understand both the aesthetics and how that would interpret into an actual, physical component. And to... Read more →

An interview with Jon Wells – Part 1

A few weeks ago I visited Morgan Motor Company in the UK. The highlight of the visit for me was getting the chance to sit down with Jon Wells, Morgan’s Head of Design, to talk about the company and their use of Autodesk software. I’m a huge fan of this company and the way they meld the traditional – cars are built in much the same way as they have been for 100 years – with the modern – aside from their advanced use of software they’re also pushing boundaries in terms of materials science in the automotive industry.... Read more →

AutoCAD WS

As promised, I spent some time talking to Tal Weiss, Senior Software Development Manager for AutoCAD WS, to understand a little more about this technology and how it’s evolving. Many thanks to Tal for taking the time to share this interesting information with this blog’s readership. [I’ve formatted the below discussion as a Q&A, but with extensive editing and paraphrasing.] What is AutoCAD WS? The goal for AutoCAD WS is to extend the AutoCAD experience to the web as well as to emerging platforms and devices – mobile, tablets, etc. We already had Project Butterfly working in the browser... Read more →

Interviews with ADN members

Back at last year’s AU, my manager (Jim Quanci) and I were asked to interview members of the Autodesk Developer Network for the AutoCAD Exchange site. Here are a couple of those interviews that I came across on YouTube, both with long-time Autodesk development partners. First up is an interview with Rob Smith from SprinkCAD. And now Jim interviews Christian Dubuc from 20-20 Technologies. Overall I do prefer preparing written interviews: with a video interview I find it hard to listen, think and then talk, especially when the interviews are unscripted and shot in one take, as these were.... Read more →

An interview with Don Syme

As mentioned in this previous post, I had the great pleasure of spending a day up at Microsoft Research in Cambridge last week. My host, Don Syme, took great care of me and was very generous with his time and knowledge. Some background on why I decided to request a meeting with Don: Don is the person behind F#, a new programming language that has, over the last year or so, transitioned from being a research project to a fully-fledged .NET language with full support in Microsoft's development tools. Expect to see the capability to create F# projects (just... Read more →

More interview fun

Thanks to all who have provided feedback on my recent interview with John Walker. Here is a PDF of the complete series for those who would rather use that format for offline viewing (please think twice before printing all 27 pages, though). The interview proved to be a very interesting activity - even more so than I had anticipated - and so I've decided to try a few more. I'm in no danger of making a career of this (don't worry) but I'm finding it an interesting diversion to meet and talk with people who have important information to... Read more →

An interview with John Walker - Part 4

This is the fourth and final part of the series documenting my recent interview with John Walker. Where the first three parts looked at the early history of the company, the architectural evolution of AutoCAD and its APIs and Autodesk's strategy and eco-system, this part takes a look at past and future business opportunities for the company. I have not linked to terms previously linked to in the first part of the series, which should also be referred to for typographical conventions, if they're not clear. Part 1 - Autodesk's early history Part 2 - AutoCAD's architecture & APIs... Read more →

An interview with John Walker - Part 3

This is the third part of the series documenting my recent interview with John Walker. Where the first part looked at the early history of the company and the second looked at the architectural evolution of AutoCAD and its APIs, this part focuses on Autodesk's business strategy and focus on its eco-system. I have not linked to terms previously linked to in the first part of the series, which should also be referred to for typographical conventions, if they're not clear. Part 1 - Autodesk's early history Part 2 - AutoCAD's architecture & APIs Part 3 - Autodesk's eco-system... Read more →

An interview with John Walker - Part 2

This is the second part of the series documenting my recent interview with John Walker. Where the first part looked at the early history of the company, this part focuses more on the architectural evolution of AutoCAD and its APIs. I have not linked to terms previously linked to in the first part of the series, which should also be referred to for typographical conventions, if they're not clear. Part 1 - Autodesk's early history Part 2 - AutoCAD's architecture & APIs Part 3 - Autodesk's eco-system and strategy Part 4 - Past and future opportunities AutoCAD's architecture &... Read more →

An interview with John Walker - Part 1

On Thursday of last week (September 4th, 2008, for those people accessing this post sometime in the distant future :-), I had the great honour of meeting with John Walker, one of Autodesk's founders and its former CEO. I've known for some time that John lives in the Neuchâtel area, and it turns out he lives just 10 minutes' drive from my home. I decided quite recently to get in touch with John and suggest I interview him for this blog, and I was delighted when he accepted. Not only was John very generous with his time - we... Read more →