Between the Lines

We Do Research

My group within the Autodesk organization is changing its name from Office of the CTO (OCTO) and will now be known as Autodesk Research. OCTO for a group name is super geeky and reflects reporting structure but not what we do. We will be named Autodesk Research because research is what we do. We always had fun with the acronym of OCTO as an octopus mascot, but now the octopus is on to bigger and better things and will be... Read more →

Autodesk is 37 Years Old Today

In Marin County California, a small group of people got together January 30, 1982 and formed Autodesk. The design industry hasn't been the same since. As founder John Walker stated “the game has changed.” 37 years later, Autodesk is a rare technology company that is still around, innovating, evolving, and helping our customers. Autodesk Flying founders ”Autodesk Founders. They didn't walk on water, but they could fly pretty well. From left to right: Rudolf Künzli, Mike Ford, Dan Drake, Mauri... Read more →

Design Automation for Revit - Public Beta

If you have wanted to read, write, and modify data from Revit without installing Revit from within the the Forge cloud platform, then today is your lucky day. The Revit Design Automation API was just launched as a public beta. “Today we’re announcing the availability of Design Automation for Revit as a pubic beta. Using Design Automation, you can create, edit, and extract data from Revit models without a local Revit install. Because Design Automation is a cloud service, you... Read more →

Rats in Autodesk Portland Office

Well, this is Portland Oregon and yes we are weird or uniquely creative including the placement of small toy ponies attached to old city horse hitching rings and yarn or knit bombings of local statues. In the Autodesk Portland office some of the weird fun culture crept in to our new Portland office in the East stairwell. In this stairwell there are crevices in the brick where there old janky spooky stairs were mounted and then removed to put nice... Read more →

Do You Want to Know What is Coming in Future Revit?

Here are some great ways to find out what the future of Revit has planned, and how you can help shape it. One is to check out the Public Roadmap which a new one was just published on the official Revit Blog. Revit Public Roadmap – January 2019 Submit your ideas to the Revit Ideas Revit Ideas http://www.autodesk.com/RevitIdeas Another option is more of a heavy lift, you can get involved and actively participating in the beta program for Revit at... Read more →

Autodesk Inventor and Autodesk Product Betas

There is a newly posted build of Autodesk Inventor for those participating or those wishing to participate in the beta testing. Our customer beta testers are a critical member of our product teams and success by providing real-world feedback and requests to help shape the future of our products. To be considered to participate in a beta for any Autodesk product, sign up if you haven't already at feedback.autodesk.com or for access to the Inventor beta use the link below.... Read more →

Updates to Reality Capture API on Autodesk Forge

Updates were made the reality capture API on Forge that not only dramatically improves the resulting quality and speed to produce a mesh or view point clouds, but also adds geolocation for InfraWorks. For example you can use this Forge API to generate a 3D textured mesh from photos taken buy a UAS (drone). Read More Updates to Reality Capture API “The Reality Solutions team is excited to announce the availability of our next generation Forge Reality Capture API. We’ve... Read more →

With a Name Like Autodesk EDM

Every time they mention their team “EDM”, I think of DJ and dancing cats with loud electronic dance music, but it is really the Enterprise Data Management and an important company function. The team sits near me in the Autodesk Portland office and are a great growing group of fun and smart “data nerds”. Last week they went out for some team building and sent me this photo. Who knew, there is the Canadian sport of Curling here in Portland... Read more →

What a Weekend with a Lunar Eclipse of the Super Blood Wolf Moon

What a long name, but an amazing and rare lunar event combination that won happen again for many years. I hiked up wearing show shoes on Oregon’s Mount Hood and sat up near the Palmer Glacier and cooked a dinner on my backpack stove and enjoyed the amazing show as the clouds parted to show a clear sky and big bright moon. The super full moon was so bright I didn't need any headlamp to hike in the snow and... Read more →

Thank You pdxRUG for Visiting Autodesk Portland

Thank you pdxRUG (Portland Revit Users Group) members and BilT team Bob Bell and Phil Read for visiting Tuesday night to see the new Autodesk Portland office, some good local pizza, networking, and learning about the upcoming BiLT conference in Seattle this summer. It was nice to host the meeting and hope we can do it again, soon. Some Autodesk employees were there to meet you as well some came with questions on how you used our products together. If... Read more →

Autodesk Maya 2019 is Here

Read about the release: Introducing Autodesk Maya 2019! | The Maya Blog | AREA by Autodesk https://area.autodesk.com/blogs/the-maya-blog/introducing-autodesk-maya-2019/ Here are the highlights: · Fast animation – Cached Playback gives animators serious speed improvements in the playback of animation in the viewport. You’re going to have more fun animating and waste a lot less time waiting for Playblasts. · A beautiful working environment – With Arnold updates in Viewport 2.0, artists get to work on content that looks beautiful and, if you’re... Read more →

See Generative Design Technology at IDS Trade Day Toronto

Join Autodesk Jan 17th in Toronto to learn about Project Refinery and the Autodesk Technology Centers. The Future Is At IDS https://youtu.be/znG1w8RB6Iw Read more →

AutoCAD Automation Beta on the Forge Platform

Access many of the AutoCAD objects in an API on the Forge platform as a Design Automation Beta. Automate repetitive and time intensive tasks and save time. Design Automation API (Beta)v3 https://forge.autodesk.com/en/docs/design-automation/v3/developers_guide/overview/ “Imagine you have thousands of DWG files stored in the cloud, and you need them all converted to PDF files. Ordinarily, you would have to download all the files, run a script on them in the AutoCAD desktop software, and then potentially upload them all back to the... Read more →

Autodesk Design Night in Dublin Ireland

Making Dreams Happen. The future of designing + making is here. If you are in Dublin Ireland, please join us at the first ever Autodesk Design Night in Dublin Ireland We are bringing our global event Design Night series to Ireland for the first time on 16 January, 2018. Making Dreams Happen Design Night by Autodesk is a regular, sold-out event at the Autodesk Gallery in San Francisco. Design Night has travelled to major design capitals of the world including... Read more →

Arcade by Autodesk Portland Employees

I'm in the final edit stage of a video of interviews of some fellow Autodesk Portland office employees for something fun and unique. When we say Make Anything as a tagline of Autodesk, we embody that with our employees. We moved into this renovated Portland building downtown last April, and some employees realized we needed something fun and unique in our game room area. It was an organic grassroots volunteer project, but a group of employees decided “hey, lets make... Read more →

Portland Revit Users Group Meetup January 15th at the Autodesk Portland Office

If you are located in the Portland Oregon area next Tuesday January 15th at 5:30pm-6:30, then RSVP to attend the Portland Revit Users Group “pdxRUG” meetup hosted at the Portland Autodesk office. The special meeting will be covering: Some pdxRUG normal business and updates. See the new Autodesk office and I will provide a quick welcome and overview including a shout out to local pdxRUG members that were responsible for the design and construction. We have special visiting guests Bob... Read more →

Pizza Economics and AutoCAD Fields

I read a startling research item by Mashable that may not have been apparent to everyone. It wasn't apparent to all of us Autodeskers who have a long tradition with Beer Busts at special events and Autodesk University. There is about 28 more square inches of pizza in the single 18” pizza (excluding the great stuffed crust debate). Yes, on a normal thin crust pizza you get more ordering the 18 inch pizza instead of 2 – 12 inch pizzas.... Read more →

Autodesk Make It Real challenge

Make sure to check out the Autodesk Make It Real challenge. This challenge gives students and educators in the US and Canada a chance to win a makerspace for their school. It is open until 2/4/19. Please spread the word to schools that you know located in the US or Canada. Read more →

Inventor Design Automation on Forge Beta

The Inventor Design Automation API for Forge is in public beta. This can allow you to harness the power of the cloud for repetitive tasks. Design Automation API (Beta)v3 autode.sk/2LXv6FX “The Design Automation API (V3 Beta) provides the ability to use the core API’s of your favorite CAD engines, in the cloud, leveraging the scale of the Forge Platform to run automated jobs. These jobs could be highly repetitive or frequent, or could be larger problems that need large-scale processing... Read more →

FIRST FRC Mentor Day

Today is mentor day celebrating volunteer mentors for FIRST Robotics teams. I can speak as having been mentoring a FIRST FRC Team 1540 Flaming Chickens of Catlin Gabel in Portland Oregon for the past few years on why YOU should also get involved. The high school students tell me I help, but I'm not sure they are getting the better end of this volunteering deal as I get so much from being continually inspired by these students I could never... Read more →

Smart Reuse of Olympic Infrastructure Could Bring Home the Gold for Host Cities

There is great article just published on possible ways LA could lead the way in hosting the 2028 Olympics and provide the model for future host cities to have less negative impact short and long term. “So what if LA could solve its existing infrastructure issues and become a test case for post-Olympic civic success?” https://www.autodesk.com/redshift/olympic-infrastructure/ Read more →

AU 2018 Speaker Awards

Congratulations to the winners of the Speaker Awards for Autodesk University 2018! These awards are hard earned peer awards based on votes where the speakers stood out from the 850 AU 2018 speakers. https://www.autodesk.com/autodesk-university/blog/Announcing-Winners-AU-2018-Speaker-Awards-2018 Top Autodesk Speaker Steven Dennis of Autodesk with co-speaker Raymond Xu Ask the Inventor Developer Speakers’ Choice Award Laurens Wijnschenk of 3DTechDraw Mill Turn 2.0 with Autodesk HSM First-Time Speaker Dana De Filippi of SmithGroup Automating Occupancy: A Smarter Way Instructional Demo Deepak Maini of Cadgroup... Read more →

7 Companies With Incredible New Offices

Employer review website Glassdoor wrote a post and listed 7 new offices that are incredible. Hint: I'm writing this blog post from one of them. Autodesk Portland was named in this list of new incredible offices. https://www.glassdoor.com/blog/companies-new-offices/ See some great interior photography and notes about the design from our Portland based architects that did the design for our Portland office. http://www.mcknze.com/projects/Autodesk I hope you will stop by our office sometime for a visit, event, or come work with us (careers.autodesk.com).... Read more →

Happy New Year

I hope you had an amazing end of 2018, and are starting 2019 with a renewed energy an excitement for what will come this new year. I spent my end of 2018 the same as last year solo hiking and goofing off on the beautiful Oregon coast. It was amazing that the normally foggy, windy, and rain weather for the past New Years has given way to amazing weather and sunset. I spent the last day out in the forest... Read more →