Between the Lines

Autodesk Homestyler Goes Mobile

Autodesk Homestyler has been around since coming out of Autodesk Labs a couple years ago (August 2010) as Project Dragonfly. For those not aware of Autodesk Homestyler, it is a free web based 3D interior space design application to visualize the space before you jump into the project. You can pre-plan your dorm layout to the future layout of your home or future dream home or space. It is also perfect for couples and roommates to plan furniture changes so all parties are happy and can visualize the redesigned space. Trust me it is so much easier to move digital furniture up and down floors and around the room of a house on Homestyler than in real life multiple times to find just the right place. So many uses, and so darn easy to use that pretty much everyone in the house except your pet goldfish can use it. You can even export your design as a 3D Revit model. Going to the small screen! Autodesk Homestyler is available as a mobile app. The mobile app version allows some really unique features and workflow such as using the camera of your device to capture the room and it then approximates dimensions and allows you to adjust and fine tune. You can then place new furniture, electronics, décor, and more in your captured room to visualize a redesign of the room. Read more →

Autodesk 31st Corporate Birthday

Autodesk has two birthdays one for the company founding and the other for when it was legally incorporated. These are in addition to the big product anniversary dates like AutoCAD, 3ds Max, Inventor etc. Autodesk was founded on January 30th, 1982. Today April 26, 2013 marks the 31st birthday of Autodesk becoming a legal U.S. corporation. Read more →

AutoCAD 2014 Fit & Finish Enhancements

AutoCAD F3 has stood for Fit, Finish, and Fix or Fit & Finish which would also include customer and AUGI Wish List requests. It is these sometimes seemingly minor changes in a new release that in many cases mean the most to some users workflow, yet are the least highlighted in advertising or marketing as they are just not all that sexy. Since we setup a team and list back in AutoCAD 2000i I have considered these like little gold nuggets. I reached out to Autodesk’s Jon Page of AutoCAD User Experience “UX” (Product Design) for some of the F3 items that were included in the newly released AutoCAD 2014. Read more →

Issues Logging into Autodesk Feedback Beta Community

Problems Logging into Autodesk Feedback Beta Community Read more →

Autodesk’s 3D Printed Speakers Project - Behind the Scenes

A month ago I wrote about the wildly unique & creative 3D printed speakers and their built in LED lighting “The Coolest 3D Printed Speakers in the World”. Now a new video going behind the scenes on the inspiration, goals, design and creation of the 3D printed speaker enclosures has just been published on YouTube. Read more →

Send Your Feedback or BBQ Recipe to an Autodesk Product Team

Have you ever wanted to send some feedback to an Autodesk product team? Perhaps how you think something could and should be improved, something is broken, or you want to say how awesome something in the product is and in return, you want to share your grandmother’s secret barbeque chicken recipe. Read more →

How Do You Say DWG?

The file format of AutoCAD is DWG. Over the years I have heard it pronounced so many ways and I wanted to hear from you, and why. Do you say the letters D W G? (That’s what I do.) Do you say DraWinG Or do you say Dwig and make me cringe when you do? Read more →

Autodesk Feedback Community Maintenance April 15th 2013

The Autodesk Feedback Community will be upgraded on Monday April 15th at 1PM PDT. Expected downtime will be an hour or two. The Autodesk Feedback Community is where most Autodesk pre-release alpha, beta, and some future research projects are managed with a community of over 50,000 people worldwide. Read more →

AutoCAD Flashback Friday - R11 for Macintosh

Here is a fun rare flashback to 1992 and the rare AutoCAD R11 for Macintosh. Having the actual R11 and R12 for Macintosh is like having your own private unicorn herd in a CAD geek way. Read more →

Autodesk FormIt 3.0 Released

Autodesk just released the 3rd version of the iPad App Autodesk FormIt after launching it at Autodesk University just a couple months ago at Autodesk University 2012. The team has been rapidly adding features and addressing requests based on users feedback. FormIt is the easy to use 3D conceptual modeler for the Apple iPad Tablet. You can create shapes and forms, and then later refine them in the auto-magically created Revit .RVT file or in another application using the SAT file. While FormIt is great for architectural design, there really are no limits and you can just as easily model a robot or any other 3D concept model. It is just plain fun, oh and it is also FREE. Read more →

Autodesk Design Night Event "Making It!"

Join the next Autodesk Design Night event "Making It!". May 2, 2013 in the evening located at the amazing Autodesk Gallery in San Francisco. Past Design Nights have been huge hits, and the tickets sold out. Read more →

Free AutoCAD 2014 eBook

Matt Murphy emailed to let me know that CADLearning has launched a FREE 144 page streaming eBook on the new AutoCAD 2014. The new eBook titled “AutoCAD 2014 New Features & Enhancements Revealed” is an interactive eBook with video, text, and images throughout the 33 included lessons. More Autodesk product titles are in the works. Read more →

Attention ObjectARX Developers

The AutoCAD 2014 ObjectARX SDK is now available for download from the "Autodesk Developer Network “ADN” site. Many of the 2014 products in multiple languages are also available for download by ADN members. Read more →

Feedback on Using Math in CAD

Math and design go hand in hand like cream in a Twinkie. Autodesk is conducting research about how CAD designers and engineers use mathematical software and tools in their design workflows. We are especially interested in hearing from people who use tools like Mathematica, Maple, Matlab, Excel or QuickCalc. Perhaps you calculate electrical capacity, material weight, center of gravity, required tube count and pitch in a heat exchanger tubesheet, or heat transfer loads, and we want to know what tools you are you currently using. We are also interested in hearing about other types mathematics software tools support the design process. Read more →

The Coolest 3D Printed Speakers in the World

Autodesk teammates Arthur Harsuvanakit and Evan Atherton are an amazing dynamic duo (3Duo) researching digital design, fabrication, and 3D printing technologies. They have developed some 3D printed speaker enclosures after Maurice Conti said “Hey, this would make a cool speaker” and then determined the project goals. The first speaker appeared on the cable channel Current TV with Autodesk CEO Carl Bass as well as featured in my Autodesk University 2012 session. Read more →

How to Get Autodesk 2014 Products, No Funny Stuff

On this April Fools day I am shooting straight and no silly stuff for once in 10 years of blogging. No offering a 3D printable DVD of Autodesk products like last year or a hacked blog. This year, I almost went with a post explaining I was finally changing my name “Shaan” to a more standard spelling so people would stop calling me "shan” pronouncing it like “man” instead of Shaan pronounced like “shawn”, but I didn't. In addition Scott posted the great internal Autodesk April Fools fun and that’s a hard one to compete with. Organizational Announcement: Welcome, Everybody, to CEO Staff Last week Autodesk announced several new Autodesk 2014 products and most want to know how to get them so here is the latest. Read more →