Between the Lines

Interested in AEC Space Analysis for Dynamo and Refinery – Meet Project Discover

Kean Walmsley from our Autodesk Research Team wrote a great blog post on space analysis using Dynamo and Refinery. “For Project Discover we used 2D space analysis to calculate various metrics that scored the individual layouts: Adjacency Buzz Productivity Views to outside Daylight The first two are largely about calculating paths between various locations, while the last three are implemented by ray-casting. These approaches are definitely connected, though: you need to specify boundaries (and barriers) that the various algorithms will... Read more →

Robots by High School Students

For the past 3 years I have been mentoring a high school robotics Team 1540 Flaming Chickens in Portland at Catlin Gabel who compete in the FIRST Robotics FRC. For the past 6 weeks the students have been designing in Autodesk Fusion 360, fabricating, and programming this years competition robot and just released their reveal video for their robot named Phineas that will compete in this years competition Destination Deep Space. Pretty amazing robot and design. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ7DZsimjpo Read more →

Augmented Reality - The End of Paper Drawings on the Construction Site

Not quite yet, but things are continuing to move that direction with this weekends announcement of the new Microsoft HoloLens 2 augmented reality (mixed reality) headset. The ability to have more portable compute power as a heads up display overlaying information like construction drawings or a BIM model in context will change construction and manufacturing as well as other industries and things in daily life. Microsoft HoloLens 2 hands-on: A giant leap closer to mixed reality https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqFqtAJMtYE This AR is... Read more →

Introducing Autodesk FormIt v17

A big update release to FormIt is now available on the web or for Windows. Enjoy a new Dynamo experience, BIM 360 Docs, Meshes, Plugins, Orthographic Views, more Visual Styles, Material placement adjustment, Non-Uniform Scale, and more! https://formit.autodesk.com/blog/post/introducing-formit-v17 Give the web version of FormIt a try, there nothing to install. https://app.formit.autodesk.com/ https://formit.autodesk.com/page/release-notes/#release-notes-web Enhancements Significantly improved app loading time, especially when the app was run previously in the browser and a cache from the previous session exists. A new geometry type:... Read more →

Industrialized Construction Is Growing and Needed

Yesterday I attended the 2019 Industrialized Construction Forum held by Stanford University Center for Integrated Facility Engineering. This was a packed event attended by by not only academia, but industry. The presentations, panel discussions, and conversations with attendees were very good and thought provoking on the impact and changes to construction and our built world in the near term and long term future. Some of the technologies and considerations involved society, AI/ML, robotics, offside prefab, modular construction, skyrocketing costs from labor and materials, and sustainability. My big takeaway is that Industrialized Construction “IC” may be the best solution to solving the limited resources, reducing carbon footprint, addressing the global housing shortage, and overcoming the labor shortage in the construction industry. We at Autodesk couldn’t agree more in doing More, Better, with Less. Read more →

Have You Tried?

Autodesk’s AutoCAD API guru Lee Ambrosius just pointed out a great AutoCAD learning resource. "Have You Tried" is an article series written by the AutoCAD CXD team that takes a look at forgotten and underutilized AutoCAD features. Check out the 18+ months worth of articles to learn about features that could increase your productivity. https://help.autodesk.com/view/ACD/2019/ENU/?query=%22have%20you%20tried%22&knowledgeSource=Product%20Documentation Read more →

Alexander Oster and Additive Manufacturing Futures

Alexander Oster is the Director Additive Manufacturing at Autodesk and was the CEO of Netfabb which Autodesk acquired in September 2015. Alexander is an authority on 3D printing and additive manufacturing and gave a good interview to 3Dprint.com shedding a lot of light on where additive manufacturing and Autodesk are going. https://3dprint.com/236238/interview-with-alexander-oster-of-autodesk/ Read more →

National Engineers Week

Sharing this funny graphic from one of my favorite comedians and Autodesk University presenter who understands our engineer world, Don McMillan. https://www.youtube.com/user/donmcmillancomedy/videos Read more →

FIRST FRC PNW Robot Scrimmage

This weekend there was a scrimmage for Pacific Northwest FIRST robotics FRC teams held in Corvallis Oregon . My team 1540 Flaming Chickens of Catlin Gabel were there with their 2019 competition robot named, Phineas. FIRST Robotics FRC Teams started designing, fabricating, and programming for this years challenge just about 6 weeks ago. Team 1540 Flaming Chickens design in 3D using Autodesk Fusion 360. The goal of the scrimmage was to test the robot on a competition field and see... Read more →

Drone IDs Required in the US February 25 2019

FAA Makes Major Drone ID Marking Change The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) posted a rule in the Federal Register requiring small drone owners to display the FAA-issued registration number on an outside surface of the aircraft. Owners and operators may no longer place or write registration numbers in an interior compartment. The rule is effective on February 25. The markings must be in place for any flight after that date. When the FAA first required registration of small drones in... Read more →

Painting a Better Future

Friday during lunch, I picked up more interior paint for my home. I went with a recycled paint thinking it was good paint and the right thing to do. If nobody uses recycled paint what's the point of recycling the excess paint. Metro is an Oregon government entity that gathers up the paint from paint stores and municipal waste and recycling centers all over Oregon and then tests, mixes, and blends it to some selected colors as the brand Metropaint.... Read more →

Generative Design Field Lab in Chicago – Come Visit

Generative design is here to stay, so we made a place for it: Introducing our new Generative Design Field Lab in Chicago. https://autode.sk/2N56Lil “Every new technology comes with a learning curve, but we don’t want that to keep our customers from exploring what’s possible with our tools. We believe every manufacturer should be able to consider new and better ways to make things, and that’s why we’re opening a new public workshop space—Autodesk’s Generative Design Field Lab—in Chicago to show... Read more →

Autodesk Fusion 360 and Wacom

Wacom just released a video featuring Autodesk’s own Jeff Smith using Fusion 360 on a Wacom Cintiq Pro 24 tablet. https://youtu.be/4bCN2SgGnIo Our Autodesk Portland office also made a cameo from my aerial footage. Both Autodesk and Wacom have offices located here in beautiful Portland Oregon. Read more →

Revit Timeline from 1.0 to 2019.2

Every since I began documenting AutoCAD history and codenames, AutoCAD Command history, and Autodesk history I have been asked to also do the same and publish other products. Today I am adding Revit to that list and reached out to our awesome Revit team for some of the data they had. I have made sense of some of the major branch versions over the years while not all WIP builds are documented at this time. The Revit History Page: https://autodesk.blogs.com/between_the_lines/revit-history.html... Read more →

Want to Work for Autodesk in Portland and Know Autodesk BIM360 or Revit

There is an open BIM support role in our awesome downtown Portland office. Enterprise Support Specialist, Designated Support Specialist BIM360 Location: Portland, OR - United States Job ID: 19WD31609 Enterprise Designated Support Specialist, REVIT Location: Portland, Oregon -United States Job ID: 18WD31213 Read more →

Autodesk Forge San Francisco Accelerator

Are you looking to develop a powerful cloud based solution to connect your designs, business, or industry? Develop for the cloud with Autodesk Forge with direct help from the Autodesk Cloud Engineering team. Autodesk Forge Accelerator is an opportunity to work intensively on a chosen project with help, support and training from Autodesk Cloud Engineering teams. The Autodesk Forge Accelerator is designed to help creative developers leverage Autodesk Forge Cloud APIs - https://developer.autodesk.com Apply now to take part in our... Read more →

Portland Oregon Had a Dusting of Snow Tuesday

Many locations on the West coast of the US that normally don't get snow, got it yesterday. It wasn't much, but enough to cause havoc and close schools. This morning is was 24 degrees Fahrenheit –brrr. They are saying a storm coming from Canada this weekend may blast us with cold air and up to 4 inches of snow. The neighbors, Hoffman Construction are constructing 5MLK building and let me know the state of their current work floor level is... Read more →

Doggydesk

I have been with Autodesk over 21 years, and two of my 3 children have grown up only knowing only Autodesk. Autodesk was founded back in 1982 and for most of that time we have had offices that allowed dogs in the employee office with some rules to assure safety and good behavior. My daughter when she was really young used to tell people that her daddy worked for “doggydesk”. It was always cute when she said it. This is... Read more →

AEC Hackathon - Silicon Valley February 22-24

Join the 40th AEC Hackathon, back in Silicon Valley where it all began back in 2014. Info and Registration Here: http://aechackathon.com/silicon-valley-3/ http://aechackathon.com/about-us The AEC (Architecture, Engineering, Construction) Hackathon was created to give those designing, building, and maintaining our built environment the opportunity to collaborate with cutting edge technologies and its developers and designers. It’s a weekend of geeking at its finest for improving the industries that affect all that live or work in a house or building. It has quickly... Read more →

Autodesk Research Employee Jos Stam to Receive an Academy Award

Former Autodesk Research Employee Jos Stam was awarded an Academy Award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for 3D subdivision surfaces among other technical giants such as Edwin Catmul of Disney / Pixar and brothers Thomas Knoll and John Knoll of ILM and co-creator of Adobe Photoshop. Jos is now a researcher at NVidia. “To Edwin Catmull for the original concept, and to Tony DeRose and Jos Stam for their pioneering advancement of the underlying science of... Read more →

Make Revit Even Better

Please help my Autodesk colleague Sasha Crotty of the Revit product team gather some feedback data on your needs for Revit and building design products. It only takes a moment and can help the Revit team better understand your future needs for Revit. “’Are you an architect/architectural designer? Are you a BIM manager who works with architects? Drive the future of building design product development by filling out this survey. Share the survey with your colleagues!” Take the Survey Now Read more →

WeWork Labs Portland Grand Opening

What a great space, mission, community, and awesome local panel speaking last evening at Portland’s WeWork Labs official opening. The WeWork Labs will work with other local startup accelerators, incubators, mentors and communities to share resources in which to successfully help local startups succeed. The PIE Shop incubator with 21 startups located in the Autodesk Portland office building celebrate this new additional local resource for startups and looking forward to working with them. I wish someone had recorded the panel... Read more →