Between the Lines

Don't have a 3D Printer, No Problem

I hear it frequently when I speak about 3D Printing “Shaan I don’t have a 3D printer”, but they were not aware there are many printing services available locally and on the web. I think that is the business model 3D printing will be for awhile where the design shops and ultra hobbyists may have a 3D printer, but others designing in 3D can still pay for someone else to create the 3D print for them. I don’t think in the near future every home will have a 3D printer, but I believe they will all have access to one. We are starting to see companies like Staples dabbling in a local 3D print services but I want to see a day where the manufacturers of consumer goods provide free or a for a small fee replacement parts or custom modifications that you can purchase online and then pickup at your local FedEx Kinkos which are located about everywhere. That would save time, energy, warehousing, transportation costs and be better for the environment. Read more →

Happy 31st Birthday Autodesk

On this day January 30th, 1982, 31 years ago a small group of people held an initial meeting in Marin County California to organize what became Autodesk. They risked it all including all the money they cold scrape together and it paid off for millions of people from employees, customers, partners, and investors. A sincere thank you to John Walker and all the ‘deskers’ that followed in the founders and pioneers footsteps to this day as you literally changed the world! Take a moment to sit back and reflect at all the history in the past 31 years and be damn proud, then get back to work. Read more →

Bloomberg Businessweek Design Conference – Visually Recorded by Tom Wujec

Visual Recording of Bloomberg Businessweek Design Conference by Autodesk's own Tom Wujec http://buswk.co/VjqSYZ You might think to yourself “hey I can draw”, but can you really draw real-time as the presenters are speaking or a conversation of fast speaking colleagues like my team to capture the essence of the topic and key takeaways as that is the hard and even more rare talent. Some may have seen Tom visually record at Autodesk University during a community meeting event and he literally had paper around the room and he just kept drawing non-stop. At the end a complete visual recording of the event was complete and easy for anyone to understand as a picture tells and conveys an idea much better and faster than just semantic text. More about Tom Tom regularly meets with teams from companies around the world and facilitates discussions to flesh out ideas, problems, and strategies by leading the discussion. Many times see having a led discussion and documented visually on paper, sticky notes, and whiteboards can help get you to the right strategy, idea, or solution compared to just talking and taking notes in a group meeting amongst themselves without a ring master or herder of innovative cats. Tom is a member of the team I am on in the Office of the CTO and a great fellow, no really Tom’s title is “Autodesk Fellow”. He is one of the instrumental people in the history of the popular Sketchbook Pro and Maya products.Tom is also well known not only for being a nice, thoughtful, stylish, and funny guy, but he is key at TED including the referee of the fun cage match events also at Autodesk University and the Innovation Forums and so much more as I honestly could keep going. Read more →

Autodesk University 2012 Classes Now Online Free

If you want to learn from some of the best in the industry on Autodesk products and technologies then Autodesk University “AU” is the center of the universe. If you attended AU 2012 but were unable to attend some classes or didn’t attend, you can now get the great Autodesk University 2012 classes online and free now. All that is required is that you are a member of the AU website and it takes about 27.2 seconds to sign up then hundreds of classes are available to you from AU 2012. More than 2500 classes are available if you count the past AU event classes also online. The only things not online are the lounges and creative studio, great in-person networking and socializing, exhibit hall, the and of course the truly epic AU 2012 party at the Hardrock Hotel and Casino. Read more →

Computer Reboot and Tech-xersism

Not a normal reboot by any means but actually a new drive and starting from the fresh Operating System and rebuilding as well a performing a tech-xersism to rid the machine of evil bits and bytes. I had to reinstall everything to get back to where I was before my drive and OS decided to get sick or possessed by ancient evil spirited code for the past two weeks seriously hobbling my ability to work between crashes, lockups and blue screens. I am very rough on hardware due to all the unreleased technology I install and uninstall or the crazy things I research and try as well as travel incidents like last year in remote Northern Turkana basin Kenya and having to place my laptop on blocks of ice due to the 115+ degree heat, and then AU 2011 where static electricity built up from all the walking and I touched my laptop and the motherboard fried. One of the biggest challenges when rebuilding your machine is knowing what your hardware is, what is installed, and what are you registration keys for the installed application. Read more →

Mother Nature Celebrity Designer

While Mother Nature has been busy piling up snow and today shutting down Salt Lake City including the major airport with freezing rain and causing my power to go out, she is also a very talented designer. Just look around you at what Mother Nature has designed from terrain, plants, animals and more. We can use biomimicry for radical designs inspired by nature. Read more →

Autodesk Help on Twitter

If you are on Twitter and looking for a product related question from Autodesk then you are in luck. For about a year or so there was a Twitter account by Autodesk Customer Service and Support team first at @autodeskcare which is now @AutodeskHelp. Read more →

Autodesk Formit 2.0, then Revit

Autodesk Formit is a free iPad app launched on iTunes as a version 1.0 during Autodesk University 2012 in December 2012 and updated this past weekend to version 2.0. Autodesk Formit 2.0 on iPad with Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino Model Autodesk FormIt Version 2.0 has just been launched on iTunes, and it is completely free. This latest update includes some great improvements including metric units, automatic Revit file creation (with Autodesk 360), grid and snap settings adapt to zoom level, and some great user experience enhancements. Download or update today: http://autode.sk/TjO5Hj Read more →

Inside the Mind of Carl Bass Autodesk CEO & Chief Maker

Recently Autodesk CEO Carl Bass was interviewed on Bloomberg TV for Bloomberg Design 2013. Hear from Carl about his experience with digital design as a hands on Maker, Design as a Verb, Design Experiments and Form Exploration. Shown in the video is the free Autodesk 123D Design available for the PC, Mac, Online, and the iPad. Read more →

Don't be a Technology Armadillo

I recently learned that the odd animal armadillo has very self destructive habits that threaten it’s very own survival. What the armadillo does that is so bad is that once it establishes a path, it continues to use it regardless of the changes and obstacles placed in its path. Part of this is due to its poor eyesight and it follows fence lines and other barriers to guide them but what about when a house or road is placed along that established armadillo path, the armadillo does not always adapt and runs into the object over and over. The friend who told me about this was living in a new apartment building and every once in awhile they would hear a loud “thud” sound outside on the wall. The thud sound turned out to be an armadillo running its long established path before the apartment building. This behavior also allows people to trap unwanted armadillos easily just by placing a trap on their established path or along a fence line. Armadillos are also known to jump when scared which is deadly when they are on a road and jump under a moving vehicle. Read more →

APPHACK Winner PhotoGeoDWG

AuAutodesk held a AppHack competition at Autodesk University to get Autodesk Developer Network members to write an app and demo it live at AU. One of the winners apps just went live on the Autodesk Exchange. PhotoGeoDWG is a really creative app allowing you to add camera markers to the raster images in your drawing. No more asking yourself or others “where is this location” when in a drawing file or in the field. Read more →

Six Technology Trends

You need to watch this short video of Autodesk’s geek and technology master in residence Brian Mathews, Group CTO of the Platform Products Group providing his overview of the technology trends. Want a list of the 6 trends, watch the video and find out and hear them explained, and why they matter. Read more →

2013 Academy Award Nominees for Best Visual Effects Used Autodesk Software

From my colleagues over at the Autodesk Gallery comes this nice nugget of entertainment news. “The Academy Award nominations are in! All of this year’s nominees for Best Visual Effects used Autodesk software. That means this will be the 18th consecutive year that every Oscar winner for Best Visual Effects did, too!” Read more →

Security Tip on USB Thumb Drives

I know many of my friends are in Vegas this week for CES and thought I would point out one of the biggest threats to your computer and network, thumb drives. You see them at all trade shows or even just laying around in public like the one I found at the gym. Read more →

Vasari Talk 24 - Introducing Autodesk FormIt and Vasari Beta 2

Join Tom Vollaro and Lilli Smith tomorrow as they discuss the new Autodesk FormIt free iPad App and the recently released Vasari Beta 2 for conceptual architectural design and more. Wednesday, Jan 9, 2013 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM EST http://ning.it/Xi7Sdy Read more →

Between the Lines Blog Still Growing After Almost 10 Years

I am honored and truly humbled to have been listed as the #1 CAD Blog of 2012 based on Alexa web rankings for global traffic and readers that was analyzed and posted by Brian Curran. It was also sweet to see my partner in Autodesk Labs crime Scott Sheppard also placed high at #4. While I am aware numbers are just that but Alexa are a good indicator of traffic to a web page. Read more →

Get Free Adobe Creative Suite 2 - Not

Apparently there are no strings are attached in this big free giveaway. You will just need to wait for their website to recover from the crash due to the massive traffic to download the Creative Suite. CReative Suite 2 “CS2” contains Photoshop, Illustrator, and nDesign. I am not sure Adobe did this just to be giving and charitable in the new year but perhaps down the road convert a percentage of those that download to upgrade or buy a new products. CS2 has plenty of of what people need when using Photoshop. The current version of Adobe Creative Suite is now CS6. In any case go get your free copy when their website recovers before they stop. Read more →

15 Years with Autodesk

It was 15 years ago today I climbed out of the mechanical design trenches as a customer and grabbed onto a speeding locomotive named Autodesk and transitioned into a world of software. That’s 105 years in dog years. Time flies when you love what you do, who you work for, and with the most smart, creative, and awesome customers in the world. Read more →

Top 10 Autodesk Labs Technologies for 2012

Autodesk Labs continues to grow from its humble beginnings as an idea and a small webpage wrote over a weekend in 2006 to now being a mature valuable method to provide early technology for people to try for free in return for feedback. As you may know the technologies on Autodesk Labs are not yet features or products not even a beta and not guaranteed to become one, but they just might be someday like 123D Catch, Revit LT, Inventor Fusion, Project Vasari and several more successful Autodesk Labs graduates. Your feedback shapes and provides the valuable direction on what the technology previews and plugins become. The Top Ten Autodesk Labs Downloaded Technology Previews for 2012 Read more →

2nd annual [acronym] Magazine Public Sector CAD Awards

Join me at an exciting virtual event that honors and explores the best in government digital design. I was one of the judges on the panel. I cant reveal my top picks but I can say there were some really amazing design and projects. Register to see the winner and hear about their project. Read more →